Trauma-Focused ACT

This advanced-level course in Trauma-Focused ACT (TFACT) is intensely practical, with a strong emphasis on skills-development.

TFACT is neither a protocol nor a treatment for one specific disorder, such as PTSD. It is a compassion-based, exposure-centered approach to doing ACT, which is: (a) trauma-informed: drawing upon relevant fields, such as evolutionary science, polyvagal theory, attachment theory, and inhibitory learning theory; (b) trauma-aware: attuned to the possible role of trauma in a wide range of clinical issues; and (c) trauma-sensitive: alert to the risks of experiential work, especially mindfulness meditation.

In this course, you’ll discover a treasure-trove of simple but powerful tools, techniques and processes that you can immediately start using to enhance your work with the entire spectrum of trauma-related dysfunction - applicable to everything from major depression and BPD to PTSD and moral injury - and help your clients rapidly progress to post-traumatic growth.

Russ will take you much deeper into the ACT model and show you how to adapt and enhance it to effectively address all the common problems of trauma therapy: hyperarousal, hypoarousal, fractured sense of self, shame, guilt, self-judgment, self-loathing, aggression, withdrawal, avoidance, dissociation, flashbacks, nightmares, helplessness, hopelessness, self-defeating narratives and schemas, social disengagement, relationship issues, self-harming, comorbidity, and so on.

As with all our courses, the online format gives you total flexibility to learn whenever it suits you and access a whole range of powerful resources that simply aren’t available anywhere else. Between 2 to 3 hours of new content will be released, week-by-week, over a 6-week period (16 hours in total). Plus, on top of that, you’ll have access to the whole course for 12 months. This means you can watch all your favourite videos again (and if you’ve fallen behind due to sickness, or taking a vacation, or work commitments etc, this will give you plenty of time to catch up).

And as with all our courses, you’ll get to see Russ’s unique teaching style direct-to-camera, discover delightful animations that bring the model to life, watch videos of therapy sessions with a range of common trauma issues, download numerous audio exercises and reading materials, participate in online discussion forums, answer multi-choice quizzes that test your learning as you go, print out powerful resources to use with clients and a whole lot more. And for the first 8 weeks of the course you’ll have daily interaction with Russ via the forum.

This course will help you become more flexible, fluent and creative in ACT, so you can work effectively not just with PTSD but with the entire spectrum of trauma-related issues: simple, complex, acute or chronic.

In this 6-week journey of courage and compassion, you’ll discover:

• The neuroscience of trauma, including polyvagal theory and attachment theory

• How to create hope and optimism from the word go

• How to rapidly ground and centre your clients

• Powerful new tools, techniques and metaphors for working with trauma

• When and where mindfulness meditation is contraindicated in trauma work

• How to use mindfulness processes flexibly without meditation

• The art and science of compassionate, flexible exposure

• How to develop self-compassion step-by-step in just about anyone

• How to revisit memories without getting trapped in them

• How to introduce self-as-context simply and naturalistically

• How to deconstruct and overcome shame, step-by-step

• Inner child imagery and rescripting

• Nightmare rehearsal and rescripting

• Defusion from self-hatred, self-criticism, self-blame

• How to help clients find a sense of safety and security in their body

• How to bring a numb body back to life

• How to keep exposure safe

• Mindfulness and defusion as antidotes to worrying, rumination and catastrophising

• How to use values and self-compassion for new life-enhancing narratives and post-traumatic growth

• How to overcome common barriers to change

• Working with comorbidity

• How to be more experiential: effectively create, modify and deliver experiential exercises

• How to bring values into every session, for ongoing motivation & inspiration

• How to “sprinkle” self-as-context throughout every session, to enhance defusion and acceptance

• How to dance fluently and flexibly between ACT processes

• How to make homework simple, desirable, and likely to be successful

If you already know your ACT basics and you want to enhance and adapt your skills to work efficiently, compassionately and creatively with the entire spectrum of trauma-related issues (not just PTSD), this is the course for you.

This course assumes at least a beginners-level knowledge in ACT. Before enrolling, you must do at least one of the following:

• Attend an introductory level 2-day ACT workshop (with any trainer; doesn’t have to be Russ).

• Complete our online ACT for Beginners course.

• Thoroughly work through a beginners-level ACT textbook from start to end such as ACT Made Simple or Learning ACT. (This means not just reading it, but actively doing the experiential exercises. An ACT self-help book such as The Happiness Trap will not suffice; it must be a textbook.)

This course is open to any professional who works with physical or psychological health. This includes therapists, coaches, counselors, physicians, nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, physios, dietitians, occupational therapists, youth workers, BCBAs, speech therapists, and any other type of health professional - as well as students and researchers in these fields.

There are 16 CE/CME hours available (see Learner Notification here). Prior to registering, please visit this page to review CE/CME details, course objectives, speaker/planner conflict of interest disclosure and more.