Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) skills for supporting clients and sustaining clinicians: Parallel paths

Description: Working with clients and families navigating complex challenges—such as disability, illness, and medical complexity—can be both meaningful and profoundly demanding. This workshop is designed for professionals across mental health, healthcare, and education who support caregivers in these contexts and want to strengthen both their clinical skills and their own resilience. In these roles, it’s common to face the emotional and clinical challenge of helping caregivers through situations that cannot be changed—leaving providers drained and unsure how to move treatment or support forward.

This experiential workshop introduces Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as a compassionate, flexible approach to fostering wellbeing—for both those providing care and those receiving it. The training is delivered in two connected parts:

1. Clinical Skills – Applying ACT to help caregivers navigate difficult or unchangeable circumstances while staying grounded in what matters most.
2. Sustaining Clinicians – Using ACT to support your own wellbeing, resilience, and alignment with values as you care for caregivers.

As clinicians, we often learn alongside the caregivers we support — facing challenges, developing new skills, or finding purpose in the work. Through teaching, reflection, and hands-on exercises, participants will explore how the same ACT principles can be adapted to serve both client and clinician—transforming difficult moments into opportunities for connection, purpose, and strength.

Whether you work in mental health, healthcare, or education, this training offers strategies to sustain your effectiveness, your relationships, and your wellbeing—so you can keep showing up, even when it’s hard.

“ACT has changed how I show up—for my clients and for myself. For me, it is more than a therapy model—it’s a way of being. It helps us stay grounded in what matters most, even when the problems we face can’t be fixed. I’m eager to share these practical, sustaining tools with other clinicians.” - Katy Albert, M.Ed., OCT, BCBA.

Learning objectives: 

• Describe the core principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and how they support psychological flexibility for both caregivers and clinicians.
• Recognize common challenges in caregiving and clinical roles—such as experiential avoidance, cognitive fusion, and burnout—and identify how ACT processes can promote both competence and wellbeing.
• Apply key experiential ACT tools (e.g., the choice point, values clarification, defusion) to support emotional regulation and values-based action with clients.
• Use ACT strategies to strengthen self-compassion, wellbeing, resilience, and alignment with values in the clinician role.

Strengthen your ACT skills to support caregivers through complex challenges—while building resilience and sustaining your own wellbeing as a clinician.