Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) - A Practical Introduction

What is the workshop about?

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a distinctive empirically-based psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies, alongside commitment and behavior change techniques. A key objective is to work with the client to increase psychological flexibility. This focus on flexibility involves helping the client contact the present moment fully as a conscious human being.

As part of the 'Third Wave' of psychological therapies, ACT is not simply about overcoming pain or fighting emotions; but rather focuses on embracing life and experiencing everything it has to offer. Rather than suppress or avoid psychological experiences, ACT is based on the idea that acceptance and mindfulness can be more productive responses to the ups and down of life.

What will the workshop cover? (indicative)

1. Introduction
2. Foundations of ACT as a Third Wave therapy
3. Core Ideas in ACT - Accept, Choose, Take Action
4. The Model of Psychological Flexibility
5. - Acceptance
6. - Cognitive Defusion
7. - Being Present
8. - Self as Context
9. - Values
10. - Committed Action
11. Practical Techniques in ACT
12. - Metaphors
13. - Acceptance Activities
14. - Values exploration
15. Case Study
16. Application of ACT to ourselves as therapists
17. Contemporary applications, research and limitations of ACT
18. Summary

How will the workshop be develivered?

Using a combination of interactive examples, case studies, video, exposition and small group work, the workshop will seek to engage attendees fully. A full set of the slides and anonymised audiences responses will be available to all delegates free of charge after the workshop.

Facilitator

Professor Patrick McGhee, FRSA, is a CBT therapist, psychologist and UK National Teaching Fellow. Educated at the universities of Glasgow and Oxford, he has completed CPD programmes at Harvard Business School and Ashridge. In 2017 he was a Visiting Fellow/Scholar at the universities of Cornell, Yale and MIT in the USA. He has taught, researched or practised in psychology and therapy for 30 years. His first post was a Research Fellow in Psychiatry and Psychology at St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London. He is the author of Thinking Psychologically (Palgrave) and co-editor of Accounting for Relationships (Methuen). He is an occasional columnist for the Guardian, the BBC and the Times Higher. He currently works in private practice in Greater Manchester. He has full accreditation from the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies.