Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Made Easy: ACT for PTSD, Anxiety, Depression & Personality Disorders

CPD

Planning Committee Disclosure - No relevant relationships

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

Handouts

Speaker

Daniel J. Moran, PhD, BCBA-D Related seminars and products

---

Daniel J. Moran, PhD, BCBA-D, is the former president of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS), the international ACT organization with over 8,000 members worldwide. He co-authored the first case conceptualization manual for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy entitled ACT in Practice (New Harbinger) and served on the first ACT training committee.

As a recognized ACT trainer in the ACBS community, Dr. Moran has an engaging training style that has led him to be an invited keynote speaker for many events in the last decade. He has also been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Network, TLC, and The Discovery Channel discussing the treatment of many clinical disorders and has published several articles and book chapters, including publications with CBT pioneer Albert Ellis and ACT pioneer Steven Hayes.

Dr. Moran founded the MidAmerican Psychological Institute, a clinic in Chicagoland, and continues to supervise therapists and treat patients in that organization. His passion is for applying the ACT principles in important areas outside of the clinic, such as the boardroom or construction sites. He established Pickslyde Consulting in order to bring mindfulness and value-directed commitment skills to the workplace in order to improve safety, innovation and leadership. Dr. Moran has utilized ACT in work implementations and clinical training sites on six continents and in all 50 of the United States.
 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Daniel Moran is the founder, president & CEO of Pickslyde Consulting and the founder of bcbasupervison.com. He has employment relationships with Touro University and FoxyLearning.com. Dr. Moran receives royalties as a published author. He receives a speaking honorarium, recording, and book royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Daniel Moran is a member of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Sciences, the International OCD Foundation, the American Psychological Association, the Association for Behavior Analysis International, the Association for Behavioral & Cognitive Therapies, and the American Society of Safety Engineers.

Additional Info

Access never expires for this product.

For a more detailed outline that includes times or durations of time, if needed, please contact cepesi@pesi.com

Visit our FAQ page at www.pesi.com/faq or contact us at www.pesi.com/info

Objectives

1. Appraise ACT concepts such as experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion in session.
2. Assess client’s fusion with thoughts about the past or future and illustrate mindfulness exercises to clients in a clinical setting.
3. Evaluate the role of psychological flexibility in ACT and devise interventions for increasing it to improve treatment outcomes.
4. Construct emotional and behavioural willingness exercises to address experiential avoidance.
5. Analyze the efficacy of exercises in values clarification as it relates to treatment outcomes.
6. Integrate the ACT approach into treatment to address clinically-relevant issues for specific disorders including depression, anxiety, trauma and personality disorders.

Outline

• Pain vs. suffering
• Language as a double-edged sword
• Goal: Psychological flexibility
• Limitations of the research & potential risks

• What should be accepted?
• The problem with controlling thoughts
• How to sidestep the happiness trap
• Spot common phrases of non-acceptance
• Experiential avoidance
• How to help clients understand acceptance
• Experiential Exercise: The finger trap

• Relational frame theory & mental health
• Undermine unhelpful language processes
• Give clients skills to notice their thoughts
• How to decrease believability of unhelpful thoughts
• Aid clients in changing the functions of their thoughts
• Experiential Exercise: Notice the meaning of language

• The three different versions of the self
• How to describe the “observer self” to clients
• How to distance the self from thoughts & emotions
• The chess board metaphor
• Experiential Exercise: ”I am” exercise

• How language affects mindfulness
• Goals of mindfulness
• ThoughtFit exercises
• How do we teach clients to be mindful?
• How to build focus on values
• Obstacles in teaching mindfulness
• Experiential Exercise:Mindfulness meditation

• What are values?
• How to help clients author their values
• Values vs. goals
• When clients are “stuck”
• Values assessment
  • Batteries exercise
  • Epitaph exercise

• Persistent inaction, impulsivity or avoidance
• Address rule-governed behaviour
• Exposure & ritual prevention strategies
• The Mindful Action Plan

ACT in Action

PTSD

• Function of trauma symptoms
• Experiential avoidance in PTSD
• Increase psychological safety
• Dominating concepts of the past & future
• Trauma-informed mindfulness exercises

• Client avoidance & escape strategies
• Assessment tools
• Address reason-giving as a barrier
• Strategies to increase willingness
• Anxiety Detector exercise

• Values contradiction
• How experiential avoidance impacts depression
• Fusion to the damaged conceptualized self
• Behavioral activation strategies

• Coping strategies
• Increase emotional tolerance
• Target the client’s story
• Experiential avoidance from the therapist

Target Audience

• Social Workers
• Counsellors
• Psychologists
• Physicians
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Addiction Counsellors
• Psychotherapists
• Case Managers
• Nurses
• Mental Health Professionals
• Therapists

Reviews