Learning ACT: An Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Skills-Training Manual for Therapists

The groundswell of interest in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is among the most remarkable developments in contemporary psychotherapy. Whether you are new to the profession or an experienced clinician with an established career, seeking to incorporate ACT work into your practice, this book is an essential resource. ACT is both a unique approach and somewhat counterintuitive in its methods. Learning to “do ACT” well requires practice, patience, and good information. This book is a major contribution to ACT professional literature: a comprehensive, activity-based workbook that will help you understand and take advantage of ACT’s unique six process model, both as a tool for diagnosis and case conceptualization and as a basis for structuring treatments for clients.

Learning ACT begins with an overview of the ACT model, outlining its theoretical and philosophical underpinnings. Next you will learn how to understand and make use of the six core ACT processes. In later chapters, you'll be introduced to the ACT approach to establishing an effective and powerful therapeutic relationship and learn to conceptualize cases from an ACT perspective. Throughout these chapters are numerous exercises to help you apply what you are learning in order to process the material at a deeper level.

Unique to this volume is a DVD that includes role-played examples of the core ACT processes in action. Use this helpful addition to bring to life the concepts developed in the text. An invaluable aid to serious ACT study, the DVD can be reviewed often as you gain facility with the model.

Jason Luoma, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, director of the Portland Psychotherapy Clinic, Research, and Training Center in Portland, Oregon, and a grant-funded researcher with the University of Nevada, Reno. His research focuses on the application of ACT to the alleviation of burnout in counselors, ACT as an intervention for the stigma of substance abuse, and the dissemination and training of evidence-based therapies. He also has an active clinical practice and is an experienced trainer in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. This book is the result of this practical experience and research.

Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D., is University of Nevada Foundation Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has authored nearly 400 articles and book chapters, and more than 30 books, including Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Relational Frame Theory. A past president of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, he has conducted hundreds of trainings in ACT around the world and supervised the clinical training of scores of graduate students.

Robyn D. Walser, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist who works as a consultant, ACT workshop presenter, and therapist in her private business, TLConsultation Services. She has been doing ACT workshop trainings, both nationally and internationally, since 1998, training in multiple formats and for multiple client problems. She also works at the National Center for PTSD at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.. Dr. Walser has expertise in traumatic stress and has authored a number of articles and a book, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for the Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Trauma Related Problems, for use of ACT in treating PTSD and trauma related problems.