Congratulations to Raul Vaz Manzione on being selected as the Student Spotlight Award winner for September 2018!
The purpose of this award is to highlight students who are doing important work in the CBS community whether for research, clinical, and/or volunteer-humanitarian efforts.
This is a way to highlight their achievements, let the ACBS community know important work students are doing, and possibly provide a platform for mentoring/collaboration/professional development/conversations around highlighted areas.
Learn more about Raul:
Background of CBS Research/Clinical/Volunteering efforts/achievements:
I started researching in CBS last year (2017) at the RFT Lab at Centro Paradigma, where I received a scholarship for my specialization course to work as an RFT-researcher, and I've worked with Roberta Kovac, my clinical supervisor and fellow researcher, in her Doctoral thesis which is called "Measuring effects of ACT interventions on the transformation of function in arbitrarily related stimuli". I've also translated Steven C. Hayes 1984 paper - Making Sense of Spirituality (the translation is in press) which is part of my ongoing effort to bring important CBS material to non-English speakers that are interested in CBS here in Brazil. I've translated Matthieu Villatte powerpoint presentation to Brazilian Portuguese on a workshop he ministered in São Paulo. As for my own basic CBS research project this year I am running a research, which is part of my specialization thesis, on examining the reinforcing properties of Relational Coherence under the framework of the MDML and DAARRE models. I’m an ACT Therapist working at private practice and I write to a behavior analysis blog called Portal Comporte-se: Psicologia Científica, where I make blog posts about ACT and RFT to the website’s ACT column. I’ve attended to my first ACBS World Conference in Sevilla, 2017, and been to ACT and CBS-related trainings, both in Brazil and International, with names such as Steve Hayes, Kelly Wilson, Kirk Strosahl, Matthieu Villatte, Robert Kohlenberg, Mavis Tsai and others. Currently I'm working as the Student Representative at the ACBS Brazil Chapter.
Autobiography:
My name is Raul Manzione and I'm a CBS student/researcher/practitioner coming from a strong (and somewhat conservative) behavior analytic/Skinnerian background. I first got in touch with behavior analysis and Radical Behaviorism back in 2011 and with CBS back in 2015, where I've first heard about ACT from my supervisor at the time, Cássia Thomaz. Ever since I've heard of it I started my [never-ending] journey into the universe of CBS and focusing on ACT and RFT. I've also helped organizing behavior analytic/CBS events here in Brazil. I was able to meet very important CBS-practitioners here in Brazil which helped me a lot (and still do) to my formation. I attended to my first ACBSWorldcon in Sevilla, Spain, and been to ACT/RFT trainings both there and here in Brazil. I try to be very active in the Brazilian CBS community with the goal of "spreading the word" to Brazilian Psychologists and Health Professionals. I am an ACT Therapist working at private practice and an RFT-researcher at Centro Paradigma de Ciências do Comportamento.
Future goals:
For my future goals: For next year (2019) I plan to keep studying and researching on the Relational Coherence topic; I also plan to apply to do my Masters and PhD on it and next year I plan to apply to the Peer-Reviewed ACT Trainer program so I can run ACT Trainings here in Brazil and the last, but not least, future goal of mine is to write an ACT book (or help to write one).
Relevant publications:
https://www.comportese.com/2017/12/o-valor-da-dor