As you can imagine, taking a creative approach to this work means we can't treat it like a cake recipe.
There is no one approach we can approach we can carbon copy and use with every client.
But there are certain principles that helps us disrupt fusion and avoidance and open.
But there are certain principles that help us disrupt fusion and avoidance and open up more powerful conversations:
1st - Slowing down can help you go deeper with clients
Slow is Fast
Slow the pace. Moving slowly is the fastest, and often only, way to do this work. Here's why:
When you ask a client questions about what they long for in life, very often they'll launch into a well-worn narrative about who they are, how they've tried and failed before, and what they're allowed to have in life.
This story is typically full of words like "always" or "never.” It unfolds at a fast clip, and takes up a lot of the room's oxygen.
We can do something very simple and gentle to disrupt that protective repertoire:
Slow down.
Literally – slow your speech, and the client's speech, down to the point where you can hear the space between the words. Ask the client not to answer right away, to just take a deep breath and sit with each question. Sit with them. Inhabit the questions.
This might sound trivial, but slowing down destabilizes.
This might sound trivial, but slowing down destabilizes the protective armor a client has put up around what they care about.
Sometimes clients become emotional simply from that change of pace. It allows other repertoires to surface that might otherwise be denied breathing room. And it has a flavor of acceptance, because moving slowly requires sitting with experience rather than skimming over it with the problem-solving mind.
From there, it's easier to drop down into a meaningful conversation where you and the client can be fully present.
Small is Big
Get granular. Fusion and avoidance thrive in abstractions and generalizations, but values live in the details.
If a client persists with a story about feeling dissatisfied at work, for example, there's clearly a value behind that. But to get at it, we need to get the texture of the lived experience of that problem.
To do that, take the client into a moment where they can help you get the grit and grain of what a value actually means to them or what a problem looks like. You might ask, "Could you tell me about a particular time you felt dissatisfied grain of what a value actually means to them or what a problem looks like. You might ask, "Could you tell me about a particular time you felt dissatisfied at work?” Then go slowly – take it frame by frame.
In those granular experiences, you'll find both loss and longing.
Even seemingly superficial values can yield something meaningful if you go into the details in this way.
If someone values money above everything else, ask them about a specific instance where that felt important. Almost always, there will be something else behind that, like a longing to be seen and heard, or the ability to care for a struggling family member, to be a provider.
In digging into the details of lived experiences, we can turn virtually any conversation into a values conversation and build a genuine connection with those yearnings.
2nd - We find meaning when we look closely at the details.
3rd - When we take action off the table, we clear the way for progress
Take action off the table
Most ACT clinicians know that values are about process rather than outcome. But when the client articulates a value that seems promising, we tend to want to jump straight into committed action.
When we do this too quickly, we can place values in the future instead of grounding them in the present.
And the future is a scary place! If you're working with a client who has put up a thick layer of protective avoidance, just thinking about action will trigger their defenses.
Committed action is about choice, not "have to." The inevitability of needed action often prevents clients from even opening the door to the possibility of change.
In many cases, taking action off the table entirely and explicitly can be an important first step in being present in moments of pain.
Instead, we can spend time simply appreciating a value, examining it like a precious object, exploring its details, and using imaginal exposure to forge a real connection with it.
From a space of appreciation, resting in the present moment, moving slowly, and getting granular, the next thing to do often reveals itself naturally. Committed action becomes a choice.
Meet clients in the work
Because values work involves making contact with vulnerability, we want to be sensitive and kind in our approach.
We can do that by putting ourselves fully in the work – not only by engaging with our own values, but by applying exercises and questions to ourselves before we voice them to a client. Slowing down gives us space to build that into our conversations.
We also want to tread with permission.
Don't make a client go where they don't want to go. There are other ways in.
For example, you can draw attention to the pain of not being able to touch something you care about (in a way, gently drawing awareness to those defenses). You can connect inside that disconnect.
In our willingness to be uncomfortable, wobble, and fall with our clients, we can help them practice openness to those experiences as well
4th - Connection can be found inside vulnerability
5th - Believing in our clients helps to open up their possibilities for themselves.
Assume magnificence is possible
Sometimes this work will feel like struggling against a foregone conclusion. At times, clients might even try to convince us that's the case!
But if someone is stuck and in therapy, then they're not merely stuck.
Like emotion, belief comes and goes. It resists control.
Assumption, on the other hand, is a choice. When we choose to assume more is possible, even for clients who are the most diminished and despairing, we can loosen self-stories about stuckness.
We might even loosen the hold of stuckness itself, revealing it as just another process instead of a state of being.
When we hold this kind of unrelenting curiosity on behalf of our clients for what remarkable changes might be possible for them – laying just out of sight – we can alter the entire context of our work and help clients envision a different future.
When we bring these principles into sessions, we can enter completely different conversations than we would otherwise have.
We can unravel fusion, break through avoidance, and help clients see options beyond running from the things they care most about.
By practicing in this way, and being willing to go where it's dark and sit with our clients in that rich territory, we're more likely to do work that makes movement possible.
Answering the Most Important Question:
"Why?"
Years ago when I worked with Steve Hayes, Kirk Strosahl. and others on developing acceptance and commitments, it came clear taht process-based therapy needed to answer a big question:
"Why should our clients do this?"
That is, why should they do the hard things we ask them to do?
We knew the answer had to go beyond symptom reduction. It had to contend with deeper motivations – with the basic human yearnings that give life meaning.
As I see it, the other ACT processes are made practical in the service of creating meaning and purpose in life. That's why every ACT conversation I have is also a values conversation that follows these principles.
Over the years, I've led countless workshops all over the world on the topic of values and how we can help people find purpose even in the most dire situations. I'm excited to share a similar training, with all of my latest thinking, in this new online course.
Inside, you'll develop a deep understanding of values and how to make clients' quests for meaning more central to your ACT work.
And you'll gain insight into what to do when you hit that wall – to not only meet it but to put it to work for you and your clients.
I hope it allows you to be part of move of more transformational moments that could make you heart burst.
About the Trainer Dr. Kelly Wilson is a co-founder of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and expert in applying behavioral principles to the topic of fostering values, purpose, and meaning in life.
In addition to leading workshops on ACT values at events all over the world, Dr. Wilson has served as Professor of Psychology at the University of Mississippi and as President and Fellow of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. He has also published over 100 articles and chapters as well as 11 books on ACT, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change, The Wisdom to know the Difference: An ACT Workbook for Overcoming Substance Abuse, Things Might Go Terribly, Horribly wrong: A Guide to Life Liberated from Anxiety, and Mindfulness for Two: An Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Approach to Mindfulness in Psychotherapy.
Exploring Values in ACT
Exploring Values in ACT in an online course taught by Dr. Kelly Wilson, a co-founder of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and expert in helping others build lives of profound meaning.
Inside the course, Dr. Wilson will guide you through in-depth exploration of values from an evidence-based. ACT perspective and will unpack common roadblocks clinicians face. You'll take part in experiential and written exercises to help you embody the work yourself and will see key principles demonstrated in teletherapy-style values conversations. You will benefit from Dr. Wilson's unique insights in detailed debrief of these conversations.
After completing the material, you'll have a deep understanding of values how to make them a more central, natural and integrated component of therapy so you can more deliberately bring about moments of life-altering
Course Format
Exploring Values in ACT is an on-demand online course that was filmed remotely.
The 6 modules will be released on a weekly schedule and you can complete the material any time throughout the week, as your schedule permits. Since you will have lifetime access to all course content, you're also welcome to work through the modules more gradually or revisit them at any time in the future.
The course includes filmed video instruction, written materials, and exercises you can also use with clients. You'll also see Dr. Wilson explore values with real people – volunteers who are also mental health professionals – so you can see the central principles at work in a teletherapy-style context. For each of these values conversations, Dr. Wilson will provide a detailed debrief of important moments, what he sees and hears in the flow of conversation, and why he decided to make certain decisions.
Through this combination of materials, you'll gain a comprehensive understanding of how to make values a more powerful and central part of your work – even when you come up against obstacles.
Course content and materials are in English, including the quizzes, which will be conducted at the end of each module and will cumulatively serve as the CErequired post-test. All videos will include subtitle options in English and Spanish.
Course Structure
The first three modules of the course will focus on expanding your grasp of values from an ACT perspective and how to approach them in a powerful, authentic way. In particular, you'll take a deep dive into the central components of values, core operating principles for exploring them in sessions, and how to use other ACT processes to support and enhance your values work.
The latter three modules will take a close look at how to support behavior change from a values perspective. You'll examine the relationship between values and committed action and how to support forward motion – even when clients get stuck or come up against sticking points, like values conflicts.
Throughout the course, you'll develop a deep understanding of values and how to explore them with clients, which will allow you to...
with clients, which will allow you to...
Curriculum
Module 1: What Are Values?
• Explore the five central components of values from an ACT perspective
• How values differ from goals (and how this distinction can help guide our work)
Why values and vulnerability are at the heart of the therapeutic alliance
• Complete two written exercises, which you can also use with clients,
that can help foster a more flexible view of values
Module 2: Building Values
Module 3: Integrating Other Processes
• How to understand the different ACT processes as lenses for viewing
behavior (rather than separate behaviors)
• Why present moment and self-as-context are integral to values work • Learn how values can inform and be informed by acceptance and
defusion
• Gain a brief preview of how to make committed action less intimidating
to clients
• View a teletherapy-style conversation with a counselor who longs to channel a sense of awe in her daily life and work
Module 4: Committed Action
• Gain a deeper understanding of committed action and why it
• Learn how to help clients take small steps forward, even if they're going
in the "wrong" direction
• How building self-kindness can get clients moving
• Complete a written exercise for exploring value-based actions in a way
that disrupts aversive control
• Watch a values conversation with a mother who experiences feelings of
uncertainty and inadequacy about her parenting
Module 5: Stuckness
• Complete a worksheet that helps reveal the role of fusion in stuckness
• Discuss why people get stuck – and what a chronic lack of motion might mean How to respond productively in sessions when a client can't seem to move forward
• Why advice and problem-solving won't get the wheels turning (and what to do instead)
• View a values discussion with a mental health practitioner who is struggling to kick a lingering habit
Module 6: Values Conflicts
• Learn about what is going on behind the scenes when clients present conflicting values
• How to approach values conflicts that arise between clients and their partners, family members, or others when the clients start pursuing valued behaviors • Explore an alternative perspective that allows us to see values as complementary rather than competing • How to help clients address indecision and let go of values areas when necessary
• Complete a final exercise that invites you to explore the connection between different valued areas
• Watch a values conversation between Dr. Wilson and a colleague who feels like she's at a crossroad in her career
Course Sample (image below should be a video)
The instruction in this course was filmed remotely using state-of-the-art recording equipment. This allowed us to produce a training experience of the highest visual and audio quality, which you can sample in the excerpt below.
Supplemental Materials
In addition to the 6 core modules, this course also includes three supplementary learning materials to help support you in your journey.
Bonus #1: Private Facebook Group for Course Members
At in-person trainings, the built-in sense of support and community with your fellow attendees can notably enhance the learning experience.
To help recreate that environment inside this course, we've created a private Facebook Group for course participants. This is a space where you can pose questions about the material or your work outside of the course, share thoughts and resources, network, and participate in an ongoing and participate in an ongoing discussion about how values can shape your work and change your clients' lives.
(Note: Participation in the Facebook Group is entirely optional and not required for course completion.)
Join our private member's group
Bonus #2: Flexibility and Inflexibility Reads Exercise
A major benefit of an on-demand course format is that you have the opportunity to review the sample conversations and see an "action replay” of important moments. In the context of values work in particular, this can help acquaint you with inflection noints that are often hard Lunilext of values work in particular, LOIS can help acquaint you with inflection points that are often hard to catch (and impossible to revisit) during live workshops.
In this bonus exercise, you'll revisit a segment of one of the teletherapy-style values conversations from the course and practice using what you've learned to "read” those inflection points and what they reveal about the person's psychological flexibility around values. Dr. Wilson will then explain what he saw in the stream of conversation, so you can gain an even richer understanding of the interaction.
Receive the Flexibility and inflexibility Reads Exercise
Bonus #3: Case Consultation (Live Session & Recording)
Consultation (Live Session & Recording)
Dr. Wilson has a unique perspective when it comes to this work, and practitioners typically find it very helpful to see how he works through especially challenging cases.
To provide another opportunity for you to see his thought process in action, he will hold a live, one-hour online consultation session, during which a small number of cases from course members' own work will be selected for discussion.
This session will be recorded and added to your course materials, so even if you can't attend the live event, you will be able to view it at any time in the future.
About
About Praxis
CE/Disclosures
FAQS
Privacy Policy
Training Events
Events
Continuing Education
ACT BootCamp
Contact us
Send us an email
