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• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy with Martin Wilks
• Mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral therapy with Dr Patrizia Collard
• Traumatic Incident Reduction/Life Stress Reduction with Henry Whitfield

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Trainer: Martin Wilks MSc

Bristol Dates: 11th - 13th July 2008
Fee: £360

Learn why the very nature of human language can cause suffering and commit to living a vital meaningful life. Developed within a coherent theoretical and philosophical framework, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a unique empirically based psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies, together with commitment and behaviour change strategies, to increase psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility means contacting the present moment fully as a conscious human being, and based on what the situation affords, changing or persisting in behaviour in the service of chosen values.

Workshop details

Whilst both weekends will be a dynamic mix of theory, application and experiential exercises the second weekend will bring a closer and more concentrated focus to bear upon the participants' own material. We will be working both in small groups and in pairs, taking turns to be both facilitator and subject to ACT.

The first weekend of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy training will be an introduction to the concept. Some main definitions of ACT will be described and also ACT as a 3rd wave development in behavioural Therapy tradition and as a contemporary re-stating of the "Four Noble Truths" in Buddhist tradition. The workshop will include developing Psychological Flexibility and a lot more:

Theoretical underpinnings:

• Functional Contextualism
• Relational Frame Theory

The 'Six Core Processes' of ACT:

• Acceptance
• Cognitive Defusion
• Being Present
• Self as Context
• Values
• Committed action
• The use of Metaphor, Paradox and Experiential exercises
• The role (and practice) of Mindfulness

The importance of sequence, eg:

• Creative hopelessness" precedes "willingness"
• Values" precedes "Goal-Setting"
• Preliminary DIY Case-Formulation.
• Homework Suggestions between the weekends:
• The RFT online tutorial and test
• The "What I have given up (these past few weeks) on account of avoidance" exercise

Case Formulation: The core conception of ACT is that psychological suffering is usually caused by experiential avoidance, cognitive entanglement, and resulting psychological rigidity that leads to a failure to take needed behavioral steps in accord with core values.

As a simple way to summarize the model, you might say that ACT views the core of many problems to be FEAR:

• Fusion with your thoughts
• Evaluation of experience
• Avoidance of your experience
• Reason giving for your behavior

And the healthy alternative to be to ACT:

• Accept your reactions and be present
• Choose a valued direction
• Take action

• Getting in touch with values, longings, purpose and vision Setting goals
• Identifying & Working with Obstacles, Blocks, Resistances
• Applications of ACT to specific presenting issues
• Outcome Research

The crucial quality of working relationship:

• Transcending and including the dialectic of 'it's painful' vs 'it's as it is'
• Working with compassion and communicating empathy
• Exercises to cultivate the above for self and others.

ACT Trainer:

Martin Wilks MSc BSc. Psychol, Dip Couns. MSc Couns Psychol,Dip Couns Psychol.BPS Chartered Martin has cultivated a personal mindfulness practice for over 20 years. He runs mindfulness-based groups and counselling services in a London prison. In private practice, for the last 4 years, he has used ACT in short term work and weaves many ACT practices and procedures into longer term mindfulness-based psychotherapy. His research interests include the integration of meditation with co-counselling.

Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy

Trainer: Patrizia Collard PhD

Dates: 18th - 19th (Saturday - Sunday) October 2008+
22nd - 23rd (Saturday - Sunday) November 2008 (4 days)
Fee: £480

This four day course teaches you mindfulness interventions (meditations, every-day mindfulness and mindful movement) and will introduce you to ways of identifying and dealing with difficult physical sensations, feelings and moods commonly associated with stress, anxiety, pain and depression. The experience of working in a group can enhance one's own learning as we observe how fellow human beings grow and change.
Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy has been developed with the aim of reducing relapse and recurrence for those who are vulnerable to episodes of depression. This empowering way of working has also gained empirical validation. It is needed because the risk of relapse and recurrence in those who have been depressed is very high, and the amount of triggering required for each subsequent episode becomes lower each time depression recurs.

Jon-Kabat-Zinn's book, Full Catastrophe Living (1990; New York: Delacorte) describes many of the methods used in the MBCT programme and is an excellent introduction to clinical applications of mindfulness meditation training, also applicable to chronic pain, anxiety, and stress-related physical illness.

This training is in line with established MBCT trainer training standards and will require you to do meditational homework. However, there is currently no official accreditation or qualification existant for MBCT, even though the academic institutions have established particular standards (to which we adhere).

MBCT Trainer:

Dr. Patrizia C. Collard PhD, BABCP accredited, UKCP reg., MISMA, MAC Patrizia is an experienced MBCT and MBSR trainer and is a Senior Lecturer for Integrative Psychotherapy and Counselling (University of East London). Patrizia was also resident in Hong Kong and China for 9 years where she studied Taoism, Buddhism, Energy work, Meditation and Yoga. Patrizia also has research interests in Autism and Mindfulness.

Traumatic Incident Reduction and Life Stress Reduction (TIR)

Trainer: Henry Whitfield

Dates: We have regular dates for each level of TIR training.
Please go to Workshops Page for list of workshops and fees.

Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) is an integrative mindfulness-oriented approach to counselling, best known for addressing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The broader subject of TIR and Life Stress Reduction provides a well developed, thorough and coherent model for mindfulness-based case-formulation and integrative mindfulness-based counselling.
The broader subject of metapsychology is a systematic approach for enabling detached, non-judgmental observation of almost any inner or outer world event, whether cognitive, emotive, physiological, behavioural or other.

Tools are varied, person-focused and applied in order to:

1. maintain congruence with the client's own experience
2. to maximise client engagement moment to moment, and
3. to cater to the client's mental resources and problem type at a given time.

The approach also consists of useful strategies for accessing awareness the client was previously unable to access. The broader subject of metapychology is also multimodal, consisting of coaching methods for affecting behavioural changes in the service of specific values (c.f. ACT).

All tools enable the client to achieve greater equanimity with respect to his/her mental and physical environments.

TIR Trainer:

Henry J. Whitfield MSc (CBT/REBT) Accredited Advanced TIR trainer and TIR practitioner (TIRA) Henry has been teaching TIR and related techniques for over 4 years. He has research interests in the theoretic and practical integration of mindfulness with cognitive behavioural theories, and in case-formulated applications of mindfulness. He also runs a specialist brief therapy for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder project, for Victim Support Lambeth.

Click here to learn more.

* Equanimity is the ability to remain unperturbed by an event experienced within the framework of one's body and thoughts as a result of objective observation. This implies that unless one is aware of an actual (internal) experience, one cannot be equanimous towards it. This defined, equanimity relies on awareness on one's thoughts and body sensations (Cayoun, 2003).