Registration and fee. In the name of accesibility the participation in the conference is free of charge. In the name of simplicity and as little bureaucracy as possible there is no registration required. Just click the link.

Accesibility. All of the lectures and workshops will be recorded and made available on here YouTube. You are very welcome to attend regardless where you connect from. There might be a limit of live participants, but if you can’t attend due to any reason then simply wait till the videos appear online.

Join the Facebook event.

Zoom participation link: https://zoom.us/j/6567876666?pwd=OTlhSUFqS0s4VDQ0K0hjSnRJSFpDZz09

All lectures and workshops are available here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVoHLaTifXWOnCwk6NWby28y5urUq8bnl​

Many thanks to the presenters who decided to take part in the event. All times are provided for now in Central European Summer Time (Warsaw etc., UTC/GMT+2).

Timezones. Please adjust to your own time zone when logging in. When you log in from South America, the sessions will be during your morning and noon. When you log in from Asia, the sessions will be during your afternoon and evening/night. When you log in from Australia, please make a very strong coffee.

0900-1030 Barbara Kossakowska – Symptomatic but undiagnosed patient – an ACT approach

1030-1125 Jędrzej Grodniewicz – What’s the difference between defusion and cognitive restructuring? On the philosophical underpinnings of „the second wave vs. the third wave” controversy.

1125-1255 Silvia Goliţă – ACT for Cancer Care

1255-1425 Stavroula Sanida – Story Writing as an Evocative Tool in Functional Analytic Psychotherapy

The list will be gradually updated and then ordered chronologially once the full number of presenters is known and the final timetable is set.

Until then please take a peek what nice people have already agreed to make this conference happen.

The family context is the environment that the person spends the first and usually several years of his/her life. In this context, behavioral learning occurs at different levels: modeling, shaping, through language and relationships that are learned repetitively in these contexts, in addition to genetic and epigenetic sensitivities and predispositions. Patterns of psychological inflexibility and experiential avoidance are often reproduced in these contexts across generations. In this workshop we propose experiential exercises to promote the observation of these generally pervasive patterns of experiential avoidance, promoting awareness, perspective taking and expanding the behavioral repertoire.

Goals:

1) Develop clinical skills in the management of extensive patterns of behavior and understanding and analysis of the family context

2) Demonstrate the process defined by the deictic and hierarchical configuration involved in helping the client to interact with his behavior in a flexible way.

3) Implement exposure-based interventions adapted to an acceptance-based model in couple and family therapy

Components:

Conceptual analysis, experiential exercises, didactic presentation

Recently, the Task Force on the strategies and tactics of contextual behavioral science research released a white paper outlining that CBS research should be multilevel, process-based, multidimensional, prosocial, and pragmatic. This white paper outlines recommendations to maximize the impact of CBS as a field for a science “more adequate to the challenge of the human condition” (Hayes et al. 2021). Digital technologies offer opportunities for research and practice to encapsulate these recommendations and springboard CBS research and practice to the next level. This presentation will provide an overview of the possibilities offered by the digital medium, demonstrate what has been achieved already and propose next steps in research and practice.

Flexible behavioral repertoires occur when we learn to move from the conceptual world to the world of more direct experience. Sensations are the foundation, the place where we truly experience life. In this workshop we will explore how bodily experience can be used to promote flexible behaviors. We will present the development of body metaphors and we will learn how by intervening with them we can point to different ACT processes in a more embodied and inhabited experiential way. In this type of metaphors, the bodily experience is used as a vehicle to promote a greater behavioral repertoire and thus contribute to psychological flexibility. Attendees will experience different body metaphors consistent with ACT. We will also discuss the use of verbal cues in guiding these metaphors and what to keep in mind to develop new ones. We are going to mainly emphasize how to integrate the bodily experience with ACT in a contextual and functional way. The format of this workshop includes didactic presentations and various experiential exercises. 

In Making Sense of Spirituality (Hayes, 1984), the development of a sense of self as a perspective and its disctintion from covert contents (e.g. private speech or emotions) was introduced as a way for promoting more effective behaviors. Helping someone to tact such a non-tangible sense of self requires the use of metaphors and exercises to be effective. This talk will cover how Greek Philoshophy and Buddhism could contribute to build self-as-context.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and other of the so called “Third generation therapies” have become therapeutic approaches increasingly used around the world, with growing evidence about their efficacy. Although from its origins many of these approaches have been based on functional analysis of behavior, it is evident that in recent years this vision has been lost giving rise to a conceptualization approach based on middle level terms. While this has increased the scope of these models allowing people without training in Behavior Analysis could access its learning and implementation, this has resulted in the loss of precision and a gradual departure from its behavioral roots. Therefore, in this conference I will address some of the basic principles and contributions of Clinical Behavior Analysis, an approach that has been defined as the application of assumptions, principles and current methods of functional and contextual analysis to clinical problems (Kohlenberg, Tsai & Dougher, 1993). I will present how coming back to behavioral roots can contribute in our clinical work, increasing precision and focus in the here and now of clinical interactions. Finally, I will review some of core strategies that should guide the work of any practitioner that embrace this point of view.

A nation with strikingly few women leaders, a country facing gender-based violence of pandemic proportions, Sierra Leone sits on the western edge of Africa. I am one of the few, an African woman leading an international NGO. During my formative years as a woman in social work in Sierra Leone, I had no female role models. I worked for years in social service organizations under men who didn’t understand the need we have in Africa to encourage women to speak and be heard. I wanted to dedicate myself to helping women who survived trauma during the civil war. Today I routinely approach powerful government ministers, church officials, and paramount chiefs. I organize women, teachers, and children into effective prosocial workgroups. I led through the Ebola crisis and later, opened a shelter for abused girls and pregnant teens. Currently, I lead national initiatives to combat COVID-19. In this talk, I will discuss the role I play as a woman leading an effort to reclaim the world starting in one small nation, and I will relate this to the struggles of all women internationally.

 Targeted Audience: Anyone interested in women’s leadership in CBS in developing nations.

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will identify four barriers to women in Sierra Leone related to poverty, violence, and government office
2. Participants will evaluate six ways to enhance women’s leadership in developing nations

In this talk, I will analyze the differences between two methods of working with a client’s beliefs: cognitive restructuring (characteristic of the “classical” cognitive therapy), and defusion (characteristic of the so-called “third wave” therapies, especially, ACT). I will argue that the main difference between these two approaches lies in the answer to a philosophical question: what is the nature and organization of our beliefs? Hopefully, these theoretical considerations will bring practical benefits, helping therapists to make a conscious decision about combining, or not combining, these two methods in their therapeutic practice.

Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) uses functional analysis to create meaningful therapeutic relationships by focusing on the subtle ways client\s’ interpersonal difficulties occur in the therapy session. FAP has five rules which can be summarized in a model using the mid-level terms awareness,  courage, and love, behaviorally defined. Writing a unique metaphor/story for clients is a creative way of implementing this model as it involves:

1. awareness of a client’s history, strengths and target behaviors,
2. courageous or evocative therapist behavior,
3. loving behavior that shapes target behaviors and also motivates  clients to be more present in session and to interact in more connecting ways.

Through writing unique metaphors, a new context is created, where clients can form new perspectives and move in valued directions. 

The cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment affect all domains of the patient`s life. A high number of patient struggle to adjust and report problematic levels of distress at many points through diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship. These patients face the challenge of not just dealing with physical symptoms but being able to live a rich and meaningful live even in the mist of fighting for one’s life.

A growing number of studies have shown that Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), by increasing individual’s level of psychological flexibility, can more effective that other frameworks of psychological intervention for this population.

This 90-minute webinar is aimed at practitioners who support people diagnosed with cancer. It will briefly introduce the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy model as a way of making sense of and helping with, the challenges of living life well throughout the cancer trajectory. It will include:

• The ideas behind the model
• The evidence-base
• The core ACT processes as applied to cancer care
• Trying out some initial techniques that can be incorporated into your practice.

The webinar requires a minimal knowledge in ACT and is suitable for psycho-oncologists and psychologist working with cancer patients both in in-patient and out-patient settings.