Association for Contextual Behavioral Science

Note from Steve Hayes:

This is a five day workshop, 3 hours a day, on Cape Cod. A neat, relaxed way to do some training and have a little summer vacation time as well. It will be moderately experiential, but we will also do skills work.
The more stock description below is from the workshop materials ... there is a link at the very bottom to the registration website

- S

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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.

This workshop will show how acceptance and mindfulness can empower your clinical work, drawing in particular from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), one of the primary methods in this area. 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. Buttressed by an extensive basic research program on language and cognition, Relational Frame Theory (RFT), ACT takes the view that trying to change difficult thoughts and feelings as a means of coping can be relatively unhelpful, but new, powerful acceptance and mindfulness-based alternatives are readily available. ACT teaches clients and therapists alike how to alter the way difficult private experiences function rather than having to eliminate them from occurring at all. When combined with values, and committed action, these methods can quickly mobilize even some of our most stuck clients.

This workshop will discuss and demonstrate ACT processes and techniques, particularly acceptance, mindfulness, values and behavioral commitment strategies. You will be taught how to recognize ACT targets in your clients and in yourself, including acceptance, defusion, present moment focus, a transcendent sense of self, values, action, and flexibility. You will learn how to generate methods of intervention that embody those principles and to integrate these with other methods you may prefer. Embodying, targeting, and using these processes provides a working model of a powerful therapeutic relationship. Video examples of how to bring these processes into your routine clinical work will be provided. 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.

Monday
The Challenge and the Problem
The role of language in the ubiquity of human suffering
Cognitive fusion
Self-struggle and experiential avoidance

Tuesday
The Model
Acceptance
Defusion
Now
Self
Values
Action
Flexibility
Evidence of Impact

Wednesday
Acceptance and Mindfulness
Challenging the system
Control as the problem
Self as context: Finding a place for experiential acceptance
Defusion methods

Thursday
Behavior Change
Values and choice
Language traps
Willingness
Commitment

Friday
Flexibility, Case Formulation, and Relationship
The therapeutic relationship
Recognizing cues in session
Developing ACT skills
Video examples

Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D., is Nevada Foundation Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada. An author of 32 books and over 400 scientific articles, he has shown in his research how language and thought leads to human suffering, and has developed ACT as a way of correcting these processes. His popular book "Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life" was featured in Time Magazine among several other major media outlets and for a time was the number one best selling self-help book in the United States. Dr. Hayes has been President of several scientific societies and has received several national awards, such as the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy.

Sponsored by the Cape Cod Institute.

For more details and to register please go to:
http://www.cape.org/2009/hayes.html