Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: Activating Psychological Flexibility for Anxiety, Trauma, and Emotional Dysregulation

Credits

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.

Speaker

Aprilia West, PsyD, MT, PCC Related seminars and products

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Aprilia West, PsyD, MT, PCC, is an internationally recognized psychologist, coach, trainer, author, and expert in the field of psychotherapy and coaching. Dr. West is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice and a professional certified coach providing executive leadership and team coaching in the workplace where she utilizes ACT principles, along with other contextual behavioral interventions.

Dr. West is an ACT expert and has trained thousands of therapists and coaches in applying contextual behavioral science worldwide. She is the former president of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS), Southern California chapter, part of the international ACT organization with over 8,000 members worldwide.

In addition, Dr. West is known for developing the construct of emotional efficacy, an integration of emotional intelligence, psychological flexibility, and resilience. She also developed and piloted an evidence-based protocol, Emotion Efficacy Therapy (EET) which combines emotion psychoeducation with components of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and exposure therapy. Subsequent RCTS show significant results for the treatment of depression, anxiety, stress, emotion avoidance, distress intolerance, emotion dysregulation, internet dependency, impulsivity, and stuttering.

West is author of What You Feel Is Not All There Is (EnMasse Media) and co-author of the professional guide to Emotion Efficacy Therapy (Context Press), Acceptance and Commitment Coaching in the Workplace (Springer), and the upcoming ACT For Your Best Life card deck (in press, 2023), as well as several other academic publications.  

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Aprilia West receives royalties as a published author and is a research advisor for Emotion Efficacy Training. Aprilia West receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Aprilia West is a member of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies and the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science.

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Objectives

1. Identify core underlying processes related to mental health and wellbeing.
2. Distinguish the 6 psychological flexibility processes in the ACT hexaflex model.
3. Apply “open” skills to address experiential avoidance and past and/or future focus.
4. Utilize “aware” skills to address over identification with self as content and cognitive fusion.
5. Demonstrate “engage” skills to address lack of meaning and purposeful action in context.
6. Conduct experiential exercises to enhance the learning, retention and recall of new ACT skills.

Outline

• What does wellbeing look like?
• The Human Condition: Pain vs suffering
• Why Acceptance and Commitment Therapy?

• The problem of avoidance: the Inflexahex model
• How ACT is different from other approaches
• Evidence of ACT
• Limitations of the research and potential risks

• The power of anchoring in the present
• Common obstacles to Present Moment Awareness
• Metaphor for PMA: Your experience of a musical band
• PMA experientials to contact the “here and now”
  • Watching experiential STUF
  • Turning into 5 senses
• Case example: A veteran presenting with unprocessed trauma

• The opposite of control
• What’s possible with non-reactivity
• Acceptance of painful emotions and realities
• What acceptance is not
• Obstacles to acceptance
• Metaphor for acceptance: The blow-up ball in a swimming pool
• Acceptance experientials:
  • Dropping the rope
  • Audio exposure
• Case example: A performing artist presenting with avoidance of social situations

• Benefits of holding thoughts lightly
• The power of language
• Obstacles to defusion
• Metaphor for defusion: The mind as a 24/7 streaming station
• Defusion experiential:
  • “ My mind made up the thought that….”
  • Don’t do what I say
• Case example: A stay at home mother presenting with hopeless thinking

• 3 levels of ‘selfing’
• Benefits of flexible perspective taking
• Obstacles to Self as Context
• Metaphor for Self as Context: Sky and weather as observer and experience
• SAF experientials:
  • I am
  • Prosecute yourself
• Case example: A CEO presenting with rigid thinking patterns

• The power of values
• Values vs. scripts or goals
• Obstacles to clarifying values
• Values clarification
• Values-based action plan
• Metaphors for clarifying values:
  • Jar of fullness
  • The Scoreboard
• Case example: A grad student presenting with a lack of clear direction and meaning

• Benefits of values-based moves
• Pivoting from default to intention
• Using functional inquiry to stay on track
• Obstacles to committed action
• Committed action metaphor:
  • Monsters on the Bus
• Committed action experiential:
  • Creating a committed action plan
  • Imaginal rehearsal of targeted behavior in context
• Case example: A couple presenting with avoidance of conflict

• Embodying ACT to be a psychologically flexible clinician
• Workability as a guide
• ACT case conceptualization
• Pop culture examples
• Integrating other therapies with ACT:
  • Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
  • Exposure therapy
  • Schema therapy
• Common obstacles to PF in therapy
• Case example: A public figure presenting with compulsion to use drugs

Target Audience

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