Connections Behavior Planning and Intervention welcomes Dr. Amy Murrell, Peer-Reviewed ACT Trainer! In Dr. Murrell’s first webinar with us, she introduces ACT and its background before turning to strategies for assessment, case-conceptualization and intervention to apply with younger clients.
About the Presenter
Amy Murrell is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of North Texas. She obtained her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Mississippi in 2005, after completing internship at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center.
Dr. Murrell’s research interests are in functional contextualism, indirect learning processes, child psychopathology and resiliency, and child and parent treatment development and effectiveness. She has specific expertise in relational frame theory (RFT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), both of which she has been working on since 2000.
Dr. Murrell is a peer-reviewed ACT Trainer and a Fellow of ACBS, the professional organization that is the academic home of ACT and RFT. She has authored over 40 publications on these topics specifically, including three books for the public: The Joy of Parenting (Coyne & Murrell, published by New Harbinger in 2009) and I See Me: More Than One Tree and Becca Epps Learns to BE (Murrell, illustrated by Londoño-Connally, published in 2018 and 2019, respectively, by Shawnee Scientific Press); she has given over 130 peer-reviewed presentations on these topics.
She and her research team (the UNT Contextual Psychology Group) are currently working on several related projects (e.g., examining the role of parental avoidance in parent-child conflict in coded tasks and investigating the effectiveness of mindfulness-based treatments for youth living with HIV), and she is currently writing more ACT books for children.
Abstract
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a is an evidence-based third-wave behavioral treatment that rests upon the idea that people’s problems may worsen when they try to control or eliminate feelings or thoughts. ACT, therefore, is not aimed at symptom removal. Instead, it is about helping clients live meaningfully. ACT work is about interacting differently with our experiences – gaining distance from thoughts and feelings and behaving consistently with what we care about. Brief introductions to the ACT model’s underlying philosophical stance (functional contextualism) and theoretical roots (relational frame theory) will be given prior to covering the six core processes of the ACT model. The majority of the 3-hour webinar will be devoted to the ways is which ACT assessment and treatment is carried out with youth who present with issues such as anxiety, depression, attention problems, behavioral disturbances, and autism. Integration of philosophy, theory, and application will be used to guide a dialogue about case conceptualization. Behavioral principles will be relied upon to discuss what works for whom in which circumstances as techniques are introduced. Participants are encouraged to bring de-identified case information to inform this illustrative experience.
Learning Objectives
- Attendees will describe how stimulus control can lead to psychopathology
- Attendees will perform an ACT-consistent functional analysis.
- Attendees will identify at least one youth-friendly perspective-taking technique.
- Attendees will name the six core processes of the ACT model.
Number of CEU’s available: 3.0 BACB Type-II CEU’s
Cost to Attend: $60 (includes registration and CEU’s)
For questions, challenges with registration, or any other needed information, please contact Dusty, Director of Continuing Education and ACE Coordinator for CBPI, LLC, at continuingeducation@connections-behavior.com.
Connections Behavior Planning & Intervention, LLC, is a BACB-Approved ACE Provider (Provider # OP-17-2781). The BACB does not directly sponsor or endorse this event, its speakers, or its content.
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