ACT with Children & Families - Coyne (CLOSED)

ACT with Children & Families

**This workshop has closed.**

Workshop Leader: Lisa W. Coyne, Ph.D., Suffolk University

Dates & Location: June 19 & 20, 2010, 9:00am - 5:00pm at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Continuing Education Credits Available: 14

Workshop Description: Acceptance and mindfulness-based treatment approaches have been developed, applied, evaluated, and disseminated across many types of clinical issue, population, and setting. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an exemplar of this type of approach, and emphasizes full, non-judgmental awareness and acceptance of ones’ psychological experiences in the context of commited, valued action. Although there are many opportunities for ACT training with adult populations, there are relatively few in which to learn how to apply this approach with children, adolescents, and their families. Yet training opportunities are needed, given the rich developing literature on both basic developmental processes that may be targeted by ACT, as well as emergent adaptations of ACT for youths. Thus, this workshop aims to explore the ways that ACT can be used to address problems of youth and parenting. A basic overview of literature to date regarding children, adolescents, and parents will be presented. Functional assessment strategies, case conceptualization and treatment planning from an ACT perspective will be reviewed. More specifically, the presenters will discuss how treatment goals and the six core components of ACT work can be tailored to youth and parents. Clinical examples will be used to illustrate therapeutic techniques. The workshop will be a mix of didactics and experiential work. Participants will be encouraged to discuss cases as well as treatment ideas, role-play, and participate in a number of exercises.

Learning Objectives:

1. To learn how conceptualize child cases from an ACT perspective.
2. To learn about the current assessment of ACT relevant processes in youth.
3. To address each of the six core components in work with children and families.

Target Audience: Introductory through Advanced.

Registration Rates: Note: Onsite registration is not available for the pre-conference workshops

• Students: $170
• Professionals: $305

 Above prices include 2 lunches, coffee/tea on site, as well as transportation to/from the conference hotel. 

ACT: Advanced Training in Core Skills and Flexible Use of the Model - Walser (CLOSED)

ACT: Advanced Training in Core Skills and Flexible Use of the Model

**This workshop has closed.**

Workshop Leader: Robyn D. Walser, Ph.D., TL Consultation Services

Dates & Location: June 19 & 20, 2010, 8:30am - 4:30pm at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Continuing Education Credits Available: 14

Workshop Description: In this advanced workshop we will broadly explore the core components of ACT with a specific focus on present moment processes and the therapeutic relationship. We will also focus on the therapy processes that trigger each of the six components. We will address how therapists can flexibly adopt the six ACT processes including work that is linked to personal psychological experience in session. Our focus will include a description of how the most basic part of the ACT therapeutic stance naturally flows from a therapist’s application of the ACT model of language and human functioning to their own professional and personal life as well as that of their clients. Special topics of focus will include compassion and forgiveness. Participants will engage in a number of ACT based activities, including mindfulness, experiential exercises and group activities. Additionally, role-plays with feedback and from therapist and client will be presented. The workshop will provide therapists with group and personal experiences that will allow further development of their ACT skills. We will have a little fun too!

Learning Objectives:

1. Describe the core components and the processes that trigger these components.
2. Describe the six core processes and how they lay the groundwork for the therapeutic relationship from an ACT perspective.
3. Describe how six core processes apply to personal psychological experience in the session.

Target Audience: Intermediate through Advanced.

Registration Rates: Note: Onsite registration is not available for the pre-conference workshops

• Students: $170
• Professionals: $305

Above prices include 2 lunches, coffee/tea on site, as well as transportation to/from the conference hotel.

An Experiential Introduction to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (not just for beginners) - Kelly Wilson (CLOSED)

An Experiential Introduction to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (not just for beginners)

**This workshop has closed.**

Workshop Leader: Kelly G. Wilson, Ph.D., University of Mississippi, Onelife LLC

Dates & Location: June 19 & 20, 2010, 9:00am - 5:00pm at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Continuing Education Credits Available: 14

Workshop Description: In this workshop we will explore a question that is at the heart of ACT. The question is embodied in the six ACT processes described in the Hexaflex.

In this very moment, (present moment) Will you (self-as-context) Accept the sweet and the sad, (acceptance) Holding lightly stories about what is possible, (defusion) Be the author of a valued pattern of living, (values) And turn gently, in kindness, toward your own life? (commitment)

As a treatment, ACT is based on a model that does not draw hard lines between sick and well, between client suffering and therapist suffering. We are not a different species than our clients. This is not to say that some lives, some struggles, are not harder than others. They certainly are. However, you can look deeply at your own lived suffering and struggles and find kinship with your most distraught client.

There is a source of suffering that is shared by language-able humans. The source of that suffering can be found in language itself and the way language works. This is not the only source of suffering, of course, but evidence is mounting that language processes are capable of compounding suffering. Humans seem to be the only creatures on the planet that don’t just suffer but also suffer that they suffer. Humans suffer that they have suffered in the past, and they suffer that they might suffer later.

How do we “save” ourselves from this abundance of suffering? We apply problem-solving mode of mind. This mode of mind has been marvelously fruitful in helping us to produce food, shelter ourselves from the elements, and avoid predators. Problem-solving mode of mind allows us to categorize, evaluate, and tell stories about anything and everything—including anything that exists, that did exist once, that might exist, and even things that could not possibly exit.

Many of our stories are quite useful. Consider stories about how to preserve food for the winter or stories about the value of vaccinations in disease prevention. Some are benign. I have been reading science fiction for decades. But some stories we tell about ourselves about the world around us narrow the place we get to inhabit. Some stories describe limitations and necessities that squeeze us into tiny little life spaces. And once our stories effectively downsize our world, we try to make the best of those cramped quarters.

Have you ever looked deeply into your client’s eyes and seen someone who once dreamed that there would be more to life? Seen someone who just stopped dreaming because the world is just not that kind of place? Seen someone who stopped dreaming because they knew that they did not deserve more?

The people we call clients represent a subset of a greater human condition. Many, many of us live much, much smaller lives than we need to. ACT is based on a basic science that suggests that we can loosen the grip that these stories have us and, in doing so, make possible richer and more varied lives.

Join me for a couple of days and learn about ACT from the inside out. We will take an experiential walk around the hexaflex. We will learn ways to bring ourselves into the present moment. We will learn ways to accept the sweet and the sad. We will learn ways to let go of limiting stories about ourselves and about the world around us. We will learn to intentionally author a valued direction. And, finally, we will practice the lovely human art of returning in kindness to our own lives.

Learning Objectives:

1. Attendees will be able to identify the six dimensions of the ACT model of psychological flexibility.
2. Attendees will be able to describe two major obstacles to valued living from an ACT perspective.
3. Attendees will be able to describe an ACT approach to negative cognition about self.

Target Audience: Beginner through Advanced.

Registration Rates: Note: Onsite registration is not available for the pre-conference workshops

• Students: $170
• Professionals: $305

 Above prices include 2 lunches, coffee/tea on site, as well as transportation to/from the conference hotel. 

Disarming Anxious Suffering Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: A 2-Day Professional Workshop - John Forsyth (CLOSED)

Disarming Anxious Suffering Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: A 2-Day Professional Workshop

**This workshop has closed.**

Workshop Leader: John Forsyth, Ph.D., University at Albany, SUNY

Dates & Location: June 19 & 20, 2010, 9:00am - 5:00pm at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Continuing Education Credits Available: 14 

Workshop Description:
ACT is a newer third-generation evidence-based behavior therapy that balances mindfulness and acceptance processes with commitment and behavior change processes to (a) undermine unhelpful thoughts and emotional avoidance, while (b) promoting greater experiential and psychological flexibility in the service of valued ends. In short, ACT teaches clients how to be with their hurts and do what works – to live well, richly, and meaningfully, without first having to defeat sources of emotional and psychological pain.

ACT is a broadly applicable process-guided approach to human suffering and its alleviation, not simply a set of intervention technologies for specific psychological disorders. Thus, this two-day workshop will introduce ACT, both as a model and intervention technology, and illustrate its practical application with an eye on processes that feed and maintain anxious suffering.

Our two days together will be filled with didactic teachings, live and video demonstrations, and practical experiential exercises that will be done individually, in dyads, and small groups. The exercises will highlight the integration of mindfulness and acceptance strategies (along with kindness and compassion exercises) to disarm forms of anxious suffering and also focus on strategies to promote greater clarity of values and action in the service of living well. Participants will be encouraged (but never forced or coerced) to engage the material at a personal level, as it applies to their own lives, and then also in the context of their clinical work. All I ask is that participants are willing to get inside the ACT model and approach, if only for just 2-days. Clinical worksheets and other practical tools will be provided.

Workshop Overview & Program: This 2-day introductory workshop will explore the use of ACT with clients suffering from anxiety and related disorders. A general familiarity with ACT will be helpful, but is not required. The only requirement is that participants come with an openness to learn.

Day 1 – June 19, 2010 (approximate schedule)
9am – 12pm: Session One

When and how psychological and emotional pain turns into human suffering

• ACT#1: The ACT model of human suffering and its successful alleviation: Overview, processes, and outcomes

12pm – 1pm: Lunch

Dr. Forsyth will provide a luncheon presentation of his research, and that of others, using ACT for anxiety-related disorders.

1pm – 2:30pm: Session Two

• ACT #2: Creative hopelessness: Making room for new possibilities

  Strategies to weaken the struggle and control agenda as a way out of anxiety and fear.

2:45pm – 4:30pm: Session Three

• ACT #3: Values clarification: A context for the work & what are we working toward

  Identifying values and barriers that get in the way of vital action.

Day 2 – June 20, 2010
9am – 12pm: Session Four

• ACT #4: Disarming an unhelpful mind: Acceptance, mindfulness & defusion.

  Cultivating space, self-kindness & compassion, and a new relationship with anxiety

12pm – 1pm: Lunch
1pm – 4:30pm: Session Five

• ACT #5: Framing exposure-based strategies: Nurturing willingness and valued action

  Getting with anxious discomfort in the service of a more vital life.

Learning Objectives:
Over the 2-days, several core ACT themes will be cultivated and participants will have an opportunity to learn how to:

1. Develop an understanding of the ACT model of human suffering and its alleviation, with emphasis on the conceptualization of anxiety and related clinical concerns within an ACT framework;
2. identify and weaken excessive struggle and avoidance (i.e., experiential avoidance) while promoting more defused and mindful actions in the service of valued living;
3. integrate experiential exercises, metaphors, and mindfulness (defusion) techniques seamlessly into their clinical work;
4. develop and apply new metaphors and mindfulness exercises to foster compassion, kindness, and greater experiential and psychological flexibility;
5. help clients balance acceptance and change while moving in the direction of their chosen values and life goals;
use exposure-like exercises in an ACT consistent fashion; and
6. to apply ACT flexibly and appropriately while also gaining insight into the ACT therapeutic stance and how not to do ACT.

Target Audience: Introductory through Intermediate.

Registration Rates:
Note: Onsite registration is not available for the pre-conference workshops

• Students: $170
• Professionals: $305

Above prices include 2 lunches, coffee/tea on site, as well as transportation to/from the conference hotel.

Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP): New Frontiers in Awareness, Courage, Love, and Behaviorism - Tsai & Kohlenberg (CLOSED)

Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP): New Frontiers in Awareness, Courage, Love, and Behaviorism

**This workshop has closed.**

Workshop Leaders: Mavis Tsai, Ph.D., Independent Practice and University of Washington, & Robert Kohlenberg, Ph.D., ABBP, University of Washington

Dates & Location: June 19 & 20, 2010, 9:00am - 5:00pm at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Continuing Education Credits Available: 14

Workshop Description:
Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) is a "here and now" therapy that focuses on the subtle ways clients' daily life problems occur in the therapy session. Based on behavioral functional analysis and a contextual world view, FAP implements awareness, courage, and love in the therapist-client relationship to create deep, meaningful and healing interactions. This approach can be applied to a wide range of clinical problems, including: depression, anxiety, intimacy difficulties, personality disorders, problems of the self, substance abuse, and OCD.

All FAP interventions are informed by clearly stated behavioral principles. FAP embraces a wide range of therapeutic stances and techniques, and is intended to help answer the perennial and elusive key question: "What is the theoretically sound basis for selecting the technique that is most appropriate for a particular client at a certain time?"

Considered one of the new generation innovative Cognitive Behavior Therapies identified as "Third Wave", FAP is integrative, and provides a conceptual and practical framework that will help super-charge your next therapy session. The workshop will include videotaped therapy sessions, experiential exercises, demonstrations and handouts that can be used with clients.

Learning Objectives:

1. Learn five strategies to increase connection and intensity in your therapeutic interventions and to facilitate client change.
2. Learn how commonly used interventions can be inadvertently counter-therapeutic.
3. Learn how to best use yourself as an instrument of change.

Target Audience: Beginner & Intermediate.

Registration Rates for FAP Workshop:
Note: Onsite registration is not available for the pre-conference workshops

• Students: $195
• Professionals: $325

Above prices include 2 lunches, coffee/tea on site, as well as transportation to/from the conference hotel.

Introduction to Relational Frame Theory (RFT) for Clinicians - Törneke & Blackledge (CLOSED)

Introduction to Relational Frame Theory (RFT) for Clinicians

**This workshop has closed.**

Workshop Leader: Niklas Törneke, M.D., Private Practice, & John T. Blackledge, Ph.D., Morehead State University

Dates & Location: June 19 & 20, 2010, 8:30am - 4:30pm at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Continuing Education Credits Available: 14

Workshop Description: Relational frame theory (RFT) is the theoretical base for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Even if you can do ACT well without an understanding of this background we believe understanding RFT can enrich clinicians and help them improve their work. This understanding is also essential to take part in further development of clinical strategies and techniques. This workshop will describe all basic concepts in RFT. Some basic experimental work will be used to illustrate central issues in the theory but the focus will not be experimental but conceptual. The workshop will also describe how RFT is related to basic behavioral principles and how clinical problems and interventions can be understood from the perspective of RFT. Some experiential exercises will be included for illustration of central concepts, but the workshop is mainly didactic. Day 1- Functional Contextualism: What is it, and how does it inform an understanding of RFT and ACT?

• A Crash Course in Basic Behavioral Principles: Operant conditioning, classical conditioning, & generalization. How do these principles work and how are they relevant to psychotherapy?
• Why Do We Need RFT Anyway? RFT vs. Cognitive Theory and a Skinnerian account of verbal behavior.
• Transforming Stimulus Functions: The continuity between basic behavioral principles and RFT.
• RFT: Terms & Processes.
• RFT’s Experimental Basis.
• The Benefits & Banes of Derived Relational Responding: What does DRR allow us to do that nonverbal organisms can’t?

Day 2- What does RFT have to do with ACT?

• RFT and rule-governed behavior: Toward psychological inflexibility
• RFT and the enhancement of human suffering
• RFT and experiential avoidance
• RFT and self as context, self as content, & self as process
• RFT and metaphor
• RFT and cognitive defusion
• RFT and valued living

Learning Objectives:

1. 1. Participants will learn how RFT is related to basic behavioral principles.
2. Participants will learn the basic concepts of RFT and how they are related to each other.
3. Participants will learn how RFT informs clinical practice.

Target Audience: Intermediate clinicians.

Registration Rates: Note: Onsite registration is not available for the pre-conference workshops

• Students: $170
• Professionals: $305

Above prices include 2 lunches, coffee/tea on site, as well as transportation to/from the conference hotel.

Introductory ACT Workshop- Hayes (CLOSED)

Introductory ACT Workshop

Workshop Leader: Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D., University of Nevada

**This workshop has closed.**

Dates & Location: June 19 & 20, 2010, 9:00am - 5:00pm at the University of Nevada, Reno. 

Continuing Education Credits Available: 14

Workshop Description: Acceptance and mindfulness is having a profound impact on clinical practice. Both empirically supported and focused on deep clinical issues, acceptance and mindfulness approaches have been shown to help clients cope with a wide variety of clinical problems, including depression, anxiety, stress, substance abuse, and even psychotic symptoms, with benefits as important for the clinician as they are for clients. ACT has been a leading force in this transition. ACT is based on the idea that psychological suffering is usually caused by experiential avoidance, cognitive entanglement, and the resulting failure to take needed behavioral steps in accord with core values.

This two-day workshop will discuss and demonstrate ACT processes and techniques. You will be taught how to recognize ACT targets in your clients and in yourself, and how to generate methods of intervention that embody those principles and to integrate these with other methods you may prefer. Participants will be shown how embodying, targeting, and using these processes provides a working model of a powerful therapeutic relationship. The workshop will at times be experiential, not merely didactic. The intention of the workshop is to provide clinicians with an introduction to ACT, a beginning set of skills, and with personal experiences that will direct further development of these skills.

Learning Objectives:

Attendees will learn:
1. Why ACT processes underlie most forms of psychopathology
2. How to formulate cases in terms of ACT processes
3. The major steps in ACT
4. How to recognize ACT processes in flight
5. The relevance of ACT processes to the practitioner

Target Audience: Beginner/ Intermediate.

Registration Rates:
Note: Onsite registration is not available for the pre-conference workshops

• Students: $170
• Professionals: $305

Above prices include 2 lunches, coffee/tea on site, as well as transportation to/from the conference hotel.

Mindfulness & Meditation ACT Workshop Retreat - Dahl, Fletcher, & Livheim (CLOSED)

Mindfulness & Meditation ACT Workshop Retreat

**This workshop has closed.**

Workshop Leader: JoAnne Dahl, Ph.D., University of Uppsala, Lindsay Fletcher, M.A., University of Nevada, Fredrik Livheim, Ph.D., Karolinska Institutet

Dates & Location: June 18, 5:00pm - June 20, 2010, 4:00pm at Camp Galilee in Glenbrook, Nevada, on the shores of Lake Tahoe.

*** Please note (above) that this workshop begins on the evening of June 18th.

Continuing Education Credits Available: 12

Workshop Description: Meditation practice provides the context for deepening all of the core processes of ACT. Learning how to strengthen your own experience of these processes will help you in your personal life and will help you help your client. Learning how to focus in the present moment, take the perspective of the observer self, defuse from thoughts, impulses and feelings, accept experiences, and identify and persist in valued directions, are all practiced in meditation training. The aim of this meditation ACT retreat is to help you to deepen your own experience in these core processes by means of your own meditation practice and learn how meditation practice translates to being present in your relationships. More specifically, participants will learn to: focus attention in the present moment using breathing techniques, defusion from impulses by means of sitting still and observing and sitting still, training in self-as-context by means of body scan technique, and training in acceptance of experiences as thoughts, feelings and or physical sensations. Meditation practice will be combined with and tailored to each of the ACT core processes throughout the retreat. These meditation exercises will be interspersed with ACT exercises focused on building mindfulness skills in relationships.

Learning Objectives:

1. Learn now to strengthen your own experience of the ACT core processes through meditation practice.
2. Learn how to focus your attention, act rather than react, and see impulses for what they are.
3. Train self as context with a body scan technique.

Target Audience: Intermediate & Advanced.

Registration Rates:
Note: Onsite registration is not available for the pre-conference workshops

Students: $200
Professionals: $365

• Above prices include shared dorm sleeping, 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, and 2 dinners.

 

Special notes to attendees of this workshop:
This workshop retreat will take place at beautiful Camp Galilee, on the shores of Lake Tahoe. This is a camp, which means, that you are provided with dorm style sleeping, in single person beds. There will be a men's dorm, and a women's dorm.

Meals are served at 8:00am, noon, and 6:00pm.

What you should plan to bring...

1. Wear comfortable, soft training clothes. I recommend bringing at least one pair of long pants, and one sweatshirt (it can get cool in the evening, and along the water).
2. Bring a meditation pillow.
3. You will need to bring your own sheets/blanket, towel, pillow, toiletries (toilet paper will be provided). (Remember, a pillowcase and your towel can make a great pillow.)
4. You are welcome to bring snacks/ drinks with you to eat during breaks or to supplement your meals. You will be provided with meals, but the meals served are typically intended for younger campers, and depending on your appetite, you may want a little more. (There is not a store within walking distance.)
5. Sunscreen. Tahoe, and Reno for that matter, are at a high elevation with a dry climate, which means that you will get a sunburn far faster than other parts of the world.
6. Optional: Shower shoes (flip-flops), ear plugs, travel alarm, small flashlight, sunglasses.

Getting there...

I highly recommend car pooling or taking the airport shuttle from Reno. (Parking is limited.) Find others to car pool with using the Room Share/ Ride Share page. With just one other person sharing a rental car, it should be less expensive than taking the airport shuttle, so I highly recommend it. If you take the airport shuttle, you'll need to get off the shuttle at a hotel in Stateline, NV, then get a taxi to Camp Galilee (map).

Travel time from Reno to Camp Galilee by car: please allow 1 hour
Travel time from Reno to Camp Galilee if traveling by shuttle: please allow 2 hours

You are allowed to begin arriving at Camp Galilee on Friday, June 18, as early as 4:00pm. We will begin handing out badges/ materials at 5:00/ 5:30pm. Dinner will begin at 6:00pm, with your first workshop session to follow.

Our group must depart Camp Galilee by 4:00pm on Sunday, June 20 (as they will be expecting another group). Remember this is not a hotel, we need to leave Camp Galilee in the same beautiful (and clean) condition it was in when you arrived.

Directions... (map)

From Reno: Take US Highway 395 South through Carson City. South of Carson City turn RIGHT on US Highway 50 West to Lake Tahoe. Pass over Spooner Summit and continue on US 50 toward South Lake Tahoe. As the road approaches the edge of Lake Tahoe and you pass Glenbrook on the right, watch for the Fire Station and Post Office on the Left. Look for green sign saying Galilee with an arrow pointing the way.

From North Lake Tahoe: Take State Route 28 around the east shore of Lake Tahoe. At the intersection with US Highway 50 turn right toward South Lake Tahoe and follow the directions above into Glenbrook

From South Lake Tahoe: Take US highway 50 East toward Carson City. After passing through the tunnel at Cave Rock begin looking for the green sign saying Galilee with an arrow pointing the way.

Physical Address: 1776 Highway 50, Glenbrook, Nevada 89413