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Past Events

Educational resources from past training courses

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Please note that these events have now finished. All the associated documents will continue to remain available for download.

Introducing Mindfulness & ACT: An experiential workshop

Date:	06/04/09
Speaker:	Helen Bolderston
Cost:	£60
Location:	Medical Education Centre

Mindfulness is a way of learning to relate directly to whatever is happening in our lives, by paying attention to the present moment, non-judgementally. This can help us see things differently, and to move towards greater levels of health and well-being. Through practice, we become more accepting of our experiences, rather than trying to push them away or holding on to more comfortable experiences. It can be taught as a stand-alone meditative practice and in the last decade has also been incorporated into empirically based interventions such as DBT, MBCT and ACT. Emerging research suggests that it is particularly helpful for people with complex mental health problems such as borderline personality disorder, recurrent depression, anxiety and addiction.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an empirically based psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness, together with commitment and behaviour change strategies, to increase psychological flexibility. ACT illuminates the ways language entangles clients into futile attempts to wage war against their own inner lives. Through metaphor, paradox, and experiential exercises clients learn how to make healthy contact with thoughts, feelings, memories, and physical sensations that have been feared and avoided. Clients gain the skills to recontextualise and accept these private events, develop greater clarity about personal values, and commit to needed behaviour change.