At New Roads Behavioral Health we continue to support our clients with on-going training for our Clinical Team. This month the entire Clinical Team at New Roads Behavioral Health participated in an intensive two-day ACT training. The ACT training, facilitated by Robyn D. Walser, Ph.D. from the University of California will be one more tool in our arsenal to combat mental illness and help our clients get better.
The core conception of ACT training is that psychological suffering is usually caused by the interface between human language and cognition, and the control of human behavior by direct experience. Psychological inflexibility is argued to emerge from experiential avoidance, cognitive entanglement, attachment of a conceptualized self, loss of contact with the present, and the resulting failure to take needed behavioral steps in accord with core values. Buttressed by an extensive basic research program on a associated theory of language and cognition, Relational Frame Theory (RFT), ACT takes the view that trying to change difficult thoughts and feelings as a means of coping can be counter productive, but new, powerful alternatives are available, including acceptance, mindfulness, cognitive defusion, values, and committed action.
Learn more about ACT Training on the ACT Website.