Introduction to ACT
University of Oxford Counselling Service
This introductory workshop provides a hands-on, engaging introduction to acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) tailored for professionals working in a University wellbeing setting. It focuses on understanding and applying the concept of psychological flexibility to enhance wellbeing, behaviour, and engagement. Through experiential learning, participants will not only understand the principles of ACT but also feel and practice its transformative techniques.
Background to the workshop
In clinical, educational, and support settings, professionals often encounter behaviours such as avoidance, distress, or resistance. While these behaviours may seem challenging, they often serve a function within the individual’s context. ACT offers a powerful framework to understand these behaviours while promoting psychological flexibility, which is strongly linked to emotional regulation, resilience, and meaningful engagement. However, ACT can sometimes feel abstract or overly theoretical, which is why this workshop is designed to make its principles accessible, practical, and immediately applicable.
What you will gain from this workshop
By attending this workshop, you will:
- Gain a foundational understanding of ACT, including its six core processes and their relevance to real-world practice.
- Explore the principles of functional contextualism to better understand behaviour in context.
- Learn how relational frame theory (RFT) explains the role of language and cognition in both suffering and solution-building.
- Experience powerful ACT techniques like defusion, values clarification, and present-moment awareness.
- Discover practical skills and metaphors you can use immediately to support emotional regulation, connection, and behaviour change.
- Develop strategies for applying ACT-informed micro-skills in your everyday practice to support clients more effectively.
- Reflect on your own responses in challenging situations and use ACT to guide more flexible, values-driven actions.
About this workshop
This workshop is delivered through a combination of mini-lectures, experiential exercises, and interactive skills practice. You’ll engage in demonstrations, paired activities, and reflective discussions to deepen your understanding of ACT principles and their application. The session is designed to be practical, with numerous opportunities to try out techniques in a supportive and collaborative environment. Participants will leave the workshop equipped with tools they can immediately integrate into their work.
Continuing education credits are available both for attending the live workshop and for completing the workshop by viewing the recording of the live event.
APA psychologists: This program is sponsored by Contextual Consulting and is approved for 14 CE credits for psychologists. Contextual Consulting is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Contextual Consulting maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
Nationally certified counselors: This workshop is available for 14 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:
- Define and describe the core principles of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and explain how psychological flexibility underpins wellbeing and behavioural change.
- Apply a functional contextual perspective to understand and conceptualise behaviour in terms of its context and function rather than its form.
- Explain the key concepts of relational frame theory (RFT) in accessible, everyday terms and understand its relevance to language, cognition, and emotional struggles in their professional context.
- Identify and describe the six core ACT processes and articulate how these processes interconnect to promote psychological flexibility.
- Demonstrate competence in practising foundational ACT techniques, including cognitive defusion, present-moment awareness, acceptance, and values clarification.
- Utilise ACT-informed micro-skills in everyday professional interactions to support individuals experiencing avoidance, distress, or emotional challenges.
- Develop and deliver ACT-consistent interventions using metaphors and experiential exercises to facilitate emotional regulation and behaviour change in clients, pupils, or families.
- Reflect on personal responses to challenging situations and use ACT principles to guide more flexible, values-driven actions in their professional practice.