ACT for PTSD: Therapist Obstacles
Booz Allen
Department of Veterans Affairs
Yale University
University of Nevada, Reno
Key Points
- The therapist’s engagement can affect the workability of the treatment process.
- Therapists should remain mindful of their psychological inflexibility or cognitive fusion.
- ACT therapists should check in with themselves regularly.
- Prepare for treatment and be willing to notice if you’re feeling stuck.
Materials Downloads
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Transcript
In order to fully engage with the treatment process, ACT therapists must also practice their own committed action before, during, and after treatment sessions. For starters, therapists generally need to spend time preparing before sessions. For experienced ACT therapists, this may simply mean reviewing their notes from the previous session and refreshing their memory about the behavioral assignments the client agreed to complete before the upcoming session.
Moran, D. J., Bach, P. A., & Batten, S. V. (2018). Committed action in practice: A clinician’s guide to assessing, planning, and supporting change in your client. New Harbinger Publications.
However, for therapists who are new to ACT, significantly more preparation time may be needed. For example, therapists in training may need to prepare by reading ACT textbooks or articles, or watching videos to understand how to sequence and implement treatment tasks, or finding other ways to see examples of ACT implementation using different therapeutic styles. Or they may need to practice delivering ACT metaphors and exercises out loud so they’ll be prepared to do so effectively with the client.
Moran, D. J., Bach, P. A., & Batten, S. V. (2018). Committed action in practice: A clinician’s guide to assessing, planning, and supporting change in your client. New Harbinger Publications.