ACBS Newsletter - July 2016

ACBS Research Development Grant Awardees

It is our pleasure to announce the 2016-2017 ACBS Research Development Grant Awardees. Primary researchers Ahmet Nalbant, M.D., Bakirkoy Research and Training Hospital for Mental Health, Bakirkoy/Istanbul, Turkey, on Do Antipsychotics Have Any Effect on Perspective Taking in Schizophrenia? and Thomas Szabo, Ph.D., BCBA-D, Commit & Act, LLC, Florida Institute of Techology on DARE to Connect: A Pilot Study Using ACT to Foster New Intra-Familial Relationship Skills in Men, were each awarded approximately $5,000 to complete their research projects. Go here to read a summary of their projects.

Largest Conference Yet!

A big thank you to all our members for making our Annual Conference in Seattle such a success! This year's conference was our largest to date, with 992 participants. Let's see if we can top the 1000 milestone next year in Seville, Spain (June 20-25, 2017)! If you'd like to access powerpoints and handouts from the presentations, workshops, panels, and symposia, make sure to visit our powerpoints and handouts page. Or if you're interested in reviewing some of the posters from our poster sessions, please visit our posters page. We are updating these pages as presenters submit their materials, so if you've presented but haven't submitted your materials yet, please email it to: acbsstaff@contextualscience.org with the title of the session and authors in the body of the email.

Committed Action and Procrastination in College Students

Many of us can relate to occasionally procrastinating, putting off work until a later time. A recent study published in JCBS by Gagnon, Dionne, and Pychyl assessed the utility of psychological flexibility processes in predicting the degree to which university students engage in procrastination behaviors. They found that committed action appears to be a robust predictor of procrastinating, accounting for a greater proportion of variance than acceptance, cognitive fusion, present moment awareness, and genral psychological distress. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating behavioral engagement when treating problems associated with procrastination, while also suggesting that helping students identify concrete goals linked to personal values may be critical in overcoming procrastination.

To read the full study, or any other studies published in JCBS, please visit the ACBS member portal to JCBS here. If you would like to contribute to JCBS please see our submission information page. If you would like a better resource to cite JCBS content, see our JCBS reference sharing page which includes a downloadable Endnote file for all published and in-press JCBS articles.

Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) Webinar with Jonathan Kanter, Ph.D.

Thanks to the ACBS Student Special Interest Group (SIG), we have a recorded free webinar available for members who are interested in learning about Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP). This webinar, conducted by Jonathan Kanter, is approximately an hour long, and introduces viewers to the basic principles and processes core to FAP. The webinar also includes transcripts of an early FAP session to help give viewers a sense of how a therapist might get started with a client. A special thanks to Dr. Kanter and the Student SIG for putting this fantastic video together! And for student ACBS members who are interested in getting connected with others, please visit the Student SIG page for information about the SIG and instructions on how to join!

2018 Annual Conference Location and Dates Announced

For those who were unable to attend this year's conference, we have officially announced the 2018 annual conference will be held in Montreal, Quebec! The conference itself will be held from July 24-29, 2018, with the pre-conference workshops taking place July 24-25. Make sure to mark your calendars! (While you're marking your calendar, make sure that Seville, Spain, June 20-25, 2017 is in there as well.)

ACBS website hint of the month

Looking for something to read? Then check out the ACBS professional bookstore! Here you can find classic ACT and RFT titles, as well as the latest releases. All purchases made via the ACBS website help to support our organization.

Get Acquainted With ACBS

Did you know that there are 319 ACBS members who are employed as coaches? We are home to the ACBS Coaching SIG. This SIG is open to anyone interested networking within this Coaching community.