Health and mental health professionals in a wide variety of practice settings are being faced with the ever-growing challenge of how to deliver brief, effective interventions to clients suffering from mental health and substance abuse problems. This two-day workshop will introduce participants to Focused Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (FACT) and help participants develop specific clinical skills that can be applied in practice after the workshop. You will learn about the research pertaining to the surprisingly large and immediate positive effects of brief interventions, as well as a broad body of research suggesting that most people with emotional health problems prefer brief interventions over longer ones.

We will examine the core mental processes that result in psychological suffering as well as three basic psychological skills that can help inoculate clients from needless suffering: acceptance, present moment awareness, and value-based living. We will introduce the CARE framework to help simplify the process of conducting a powerful, brief intervention within a very limited time frame. You will have ample opportunity to practice the specific clinical techniques that make up the CARE framework, such as contextual interviewing skills, workability and avoidance analysis, reformulating the “problem”, revising unworkable mental rules, and strategic change strategies that allow clients to try new strategies to address old unsolved problems.

You will learn basic FACT case analysis methods and will both observe and practice some core FACT physical metaphors.