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Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Process-Based Work: Treating Trauma and Other Challenging Life Events

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Process-Based Work: Treating Trauma and Other Challenging Life Events

Workshop Leader: 
Robyn D. Walser, Ph.D
 
Monday, 24 July 2023 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.
Tuesday, 25 July 2023 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.
(12 total contact hours) 
 
Workshop Description:
 
Acceptance and commitment therapy employs a variety of verbal and experiential processes and techniques to assist clients in making life-enhancing choices based on personally held values. The behavioral processes implemented in ACT may be learned and understood at many levels, yet they may also remain challenging to implement in a flexible, consistent, and effective fashion inside of a complex relational field. Multiple levels of process are present in any therapy, including intervention processes. Moving beyond simple technique and into a fluid ACT intervention requires attending to intrapersonal, interpersonal, and overarching and ongoing processes in the context of the therapy. This workshop will focus on applying ACT at multiple levels of process using the example of trauma and other challenging life events to demonstrate and grow skills in the fluid implementation of the intervention. The workshop will include role-plays and guided skills development. Participants will engage in exercises designed to refine and develop their ACT process skills attuning to the relationship and therapeutic stance. Didactics and discussion will be oriented to increasing flexibility in the use of the core processes and consistent application of the model.
 
About Robyn D. Walser, Ph.D.: 

Dr. Robyn Walser is the Director of TL Consultation Services, Staff at the National Center for PTSD, and is Assistant Clinical Professor at University of California, Berkeley. She maintains an international training, consulting, and therapy practice as a licensed psychologist. Dr. Walser is an expert in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and has co-authored 7 books, including Learning ACT. She also has expertise in traumatic stress and substance abuse and has authored a number of articles and chapters and books on these topics. She has been doing ACT workshops since 1998; training in multiple formats and for multiple client problems. She is invested in developing innovative ways to translate science into practice and continues to do research and education on dissemination of ACT. She has had a number of leadership roles in international and national organizations, and she served as President of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, Dr. Walser is best known for her dynamic, warm, and challenging ACT trainings. She is often referred to as a clinician’s clinician. Her workshops feature a combination of lecture and experiential exercises designed to provide a unique learning opportunity in this state-of-the-art intervention.

Following this workshop participants will be able to:

1. Describe what is meant by therapeutic presence from an ACT perspective.
2. Explain what is meant by ACT processes in the therapeutic relationship.
3. Explain the levels of process and their role in treating clients with a trauma history.
4. Describe barriers to fluid implementation of ACT and how to work through these barriers in an ACT-consistent fashion using trauma work as an example.
5. Describe intrapersonal process from an ACT perspective.
6. Explain the purpose of self-disclosure, its use in ACT, and its role in trauma treatment.
7. Describe interpersonal process from an ACT perspective.
8. Explore interpersonal work and feedback's purpose and use in ACT.
9. Describe how the ACT relationship is vital to client outcomes.
10. Explain how case conceptualization guides the arc of ACT therapy.

Target Audience: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Clinical

Components: Conceptual analysis, Literature review, Original data, Experiential exercises, Didactic presentation, Case presentation, Role play

Package Includes: A general certificate of attendance

CEs Available (12 hours): CEs for Psychologists

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