ACT next steps
The foundation for meaningful client work
This workshop builds directly on the foundational skills introduced in ACT essentials: a practical introduction to acceptance and commitment therapy. While the first workshop equips you with an understanding of ACT’s six core processes and initial tools for integration, this second workshop takes the next step. It focuses on deepening your knowledge, refining your skills, and addressing practical challenges in applying ACT principles. Together, these workshops create a cohesive learning journey, providing both the foundations and advanced tools to confidently and effectively use ACT in your practice.
Designed to support clinicians in translating ACT’s core philosophy into effective, real-world practice, this workshop hones essential skills such as case formulation, working with client stuckness, values-based action, and maintaining an ACT-consistent stance. With hands-on exercises and real case examples, participants will leave equipped with actionable tools and techniques to elevate their therapeutic work.
Background to the workshop
ACT’s processes of openness, awareness, and engagement provide a powerful framework for fostering psychological flexibility. Yet, moving from theoretical understanding to practical application can be a challenge. Therapists often encounter difficulties in developing process-based formulations, navigating client resistance or stuckness, and integrating core ACT components into session flow. This workshop addresses these common challenges by consolidating ACT fundamentals and offering practical, experiential methods to apply the model effectively. It is the essential next step for those who want to move beyond the basics and bring ACT alive in their sessions.
What you will gain from this workshop
In this second part of the series, we’ll go beyond the basics and get hands-on with applying ACT in real clinical work. You’ll:
- Sharpen your ACT lens: refresh your understanding of ACT’s core ideas and how they show up in everyday practice, not just theory.
- Get to grips with the ACT Matrix: learn how to use it as a dynamic tool to spot patterns, understand stuckness, and guide clients toward movement and change.
- Build comprehensive case formulations that really help: use functional analysis and process-focused thinking to move beyond symptom lists and design more targeted interventions.
- Structure your sessions with confidence: discover practical ways to organise assessments, individual sessions, and the overall therapy journey so that ACT principles stay front and centre.
- Handle resistance without pushing back: work with stuckness using experiential tools like the struggle switch and tug-of-war, helping clients open up to change rather than fight against it.
- Bring mindfulness and self-as-context to life: explore fresh ways to introduce these powerful concepts so they land with clients, not just sit on the shelf.
- Make values work meaningful: go deeper with tools to help clients untangle values conflicts and turn “what matters” into clear, do-able actions.
- Show up with presence and flexibility: strengthen your ability to hold an ACT-consistent stance, using the therapy relationship itself as a space for learning, insight, and movement.
About this workshop
This workshop is highly interactive, combining mini-lectures with experiential components such as role-plays, video demonstrations, and hands-on exercises. Participants will practise building ACT matrices based on real case examples, engage in creative hopelessness activities, and explore process-based case formulation techniques. The workshop also includes small group discussions to deepen understanding and foster collaborative learning. The focus is on making ACT practical and accessible, ensuring participants leave with tools they can immediately apply in their work.
Who will benefit from this workshop?
This workshop is ideal for therapists, psychologists, and mental health professionals who have attended the first part of the introductory ACT series or have equivalent foundational knowledge of ACT. It is designed for those wishing to consolidate and expand their skills, with an emphasis on practical application. Whether you’re new to using ACT in practice or looking to refine your approach, this workshop will equip you with the confidence and tools to deliver ACT effectively with your clients.
This workshop is part of the ACT pathway – a structured, four-part training pathway designed to take you from foundational knowledge to intermediate-level practice. Each workshop builds on the last, offering a step-by-step approach to developing your skills, confidence, and flexibility in using ACT. Whether you’re following the full pathway or joining at this stage with prior ACT experience, this workshop supports your continued growth as a practitioner.
APA psychologists: This program is sponsored by Contextual Consulting and is approved for 6 CE credits for psychologists.
Nationally certified counselors: This workshop is available for 6 credit hours. Contextual Consulting Ltd. has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7578.
To find out more, including attendance requirements and how to access your certificate, go to our continuing education information page.
If you have disability and require adjustments or accommodation, please email us at admin@contextualconsulting.co.uk to discuss your needs and we will do our best to help you.
Booking cancellation
The registration fee will be refunded minus a administration charge if cancellations are received at least two weeks before the workshop date.
Cancellations within two weeks of the event date are charged the full registration fee, other than in exceptional circumstances that can be verified.
Event cancellation
In the event of cancellation of the course outside of our control we will not be held accountable for travel and/or accommodation costs incurred. However, the workshop fees will be refunded.
All workshops will be subject to minimum delegate numbers being met; in the event that a workshop should be cancelled delegates will be given no less than 2 months’ notice.
Replacing delegates
If a delegate is unable to attend and a replacement is nominated there may be a charge depending on the individual circumstances, this will be advised at the time. Please contact the us to request a replacement of delegates at least a week before the workshop date.
Contextual Consulting is committed to the identification and resolution of potential conflicts of interest in the planning, promotion, delivery, and evaluation of continuing education. Potential conflicts of interest occur when an individual assumes a professional role in the planning, promotion, delivery, or evaluation of continuing education where personal, professional, legal, financial, or other interests could reasonably be expected to impair their objectivity, competence, or effectiveness.
There was no commercial support for this event. None of the planners or presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Demonstrate a deeper understanding of ACT’s core processes and implement them effectively to enhance psychological flexibility in clients.
- Develop process-based case formulations using tools like the ACT matrix to identify and address client stuckness.
- Utilise evidence-based strategies, such as creative hopelessness exercises, to address resistance and promote client engagement during therapy sessions.
- Integrate values-based interventions by resolving values conflicts and guiding clients in turning values into practical, meaningful behaviours.
- mindfulness practices and self-as-context work in creative and engaging ways to foster client awareness and perspective-taking.
- Design therapy sessions, assessments, and treatment plans that align with ACT’s philosophy and processes, ensuring a cohesive and effective therapeutic approach.