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Accessible Introduction
A TASTE OF ACT
People rarely get stuck because they lack information.
They often know what matters and what they would like to change. The difficulty is learning how to respond when uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, memories, and habits begin pulling them away from that direction.
In this experiential workshop, clinician, educator, and peer-reviewed ACT trainer Todd Schmenk introduces Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as a practical framework for understanding behavior and supporting meaningful change.
Through discussion, demonstration, and guided exercises, participants will explore the foundations of psychological flexibility and learn how ACT helps people relate differently to difficult internal experiences while moving toward what matters.
What You Will Learn
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Recognize how avoidance can narrow behavior and maintain stuck patterns
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Respond differently to difficult thoughts and emotions
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Clarify values as ongoing directions rather than goals to complete
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Translate ACT principles into small, practical actions
Who It’s For
Clinicians, counselors, educators, healthcare professionals, graduate students, and organizations looking for an accessible and experiential introduction to ACT.
Outcomes
A clearer understanding of the ACT model, practical tools for supporting psychological flexibility, and a foundation for applying ACT principles in clinical, educational, healthcare, and organizational settings.
APPLIED CLINICAL PRACTICE
ACT in ACTion
Knowing the model is different from knowing how to respond in the moment.
Clinicians often understand the six ACT processes but feel less certain when deciding what to do with the person sitting in front of them. When should we invite acceptance? When might we explore values? When is a metaphor useful—and when does it pull us away from what is actually happening?
This experiential training helps participants move from conceptual knowledge toward flexible, moment-to-moment practice. Rather than matching interventions to symptoms, participants learn to notice the function of behavior, identify patterns of psychological inflexibility, and respond in ways that strengthen open, aware, and engaged action.
Through clinical examples, demonstrations, and guided practice, participants will develop greater confidence using ACT as a functional approach rather than as a collection of techniques.
What You Will Learn
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Identify psychological flexibility and inflexibility as they unfold in conversation
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Use functional questions to clarify what a behavior accomplishes in context
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Select interventions based on function rather than diagnosis or symptom category
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Respond flexibly when an exercise, metaphor, or planned intervention is not working
Who It’s For
Clinicians, counselors, supervisors, graduate students, and behavioral health teams with some familiarity with ACT who want to become more fluid and responsive in their clinical work.
Outcomes
Greater confidence translating ACT principles into clinical decisions, a clearer process for choosing interventions, and an improved ability to respond to the person rather than simply applying the model.
BEYOND TECHNIQUE
The Subtle Essence of ACT
ACT is expressed as much through the clinician’s presence as through the intervention.
ACT is frequently taught through processes, metaphors, exercises, and models. These provide an important foundation, but they do not fully explain what makes the work effective in the room. The deeper practice involves how clinicians attend, formulate, speak, pause, respond, and participate in the therapeutic relationship.
This training explores the less visible dimensions of ACT practice. Participants examine how the clinician’s language, posture, pacing, emotional willingness, and relationship with uncertainty can either strengthen or undermine psychological flexibility.
Drawing from Functional Contextualism, Relational Frame Theory, and clinical experience, the training invites clinicians to move beyond performing ACT techniques and toward embodying a flexible, compassionate, and functionally coherent approach.
What You Will Learn
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Distinguish technically correct ACT from functionally responsive ACT
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Recognize how the clinician’s own behavior influences the therapeutic context
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Use language, pacing, silence, and presence more intentionally
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Integrate functional formulation with the moment-to-moment therapeutic relationship
Who It’s For
Clinicians, supervisors, educators, and experienced ACT practitioners seeking greater depth, precision, and authenticity in their clinical practice.
Outcomes
A deeper understanding of the therapeutic stance beneath ACT, increased awareness of the clinician’s participation in the change process, and a more embodied approach to functional contextual practice.
BRIEF, FOCUSED CARE
A TASTE OF fACT
A brief conversation can still change the direction of care.
Healthcare professionals regularly meet people whose health concerns are intertwined with fear, avoidance, pain, stress, habits, relationships, and difficult life circumstances. These concerns may not require long-term psychotherapy, but they often require more than information or reassurance.
Focused Acceptance and Commitment Therapy—or FACT—offers a practical framework for brief, purposeful conversations that help people understand what is keeping them stuck and take a meaningful next step.
Participants learn to quickly develop a functional understanding of the problem, strengthen open, aware, and engaged responding, and collaborate on small actions that can be carried into daily life. The approach is adaptable to primary care, rehabilitation, behavioral health, and other integrated healthcare settings.
What You Will Learn
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Conduct a brief functional assessment focused on context and workability
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Organize interventions around open, aware, and engaged responding
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Help patients respond differently to difficult thoughts, emotions, pain, and bodily sensations
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Develop small, values-guided action plans appropriate for brief healthcare encounters
Who It’s For
Behavioral health clinicians, physicians, nurses, physical and occupational therapists, rehabilitation professionals, health coaches, and interdisciplinary healthcare teams.
Outcomes
A practical structure for brief behavior-change conversations, greater confidence addressing emotional and behavioral barriers to care, and strategies that can be integrated into routine healthcare encounters.
SIGNATURE
EXPERIENTIAL
FORMATS
ACT IS LEARNED THROUGH EXPERIENCE
ACT cannot be fully learned through slides, concepts, or observation alone. Clinicians develop greater flexibility when they enter the interaction, notice what happens, receive feedback, and experience how different responses shape what follows.
Todd incorporates two experiential formats into his trainings. Both move participants from understanding ACT conceptually toward using it responsively, but each creates a different kind of learning experience.
THE PORTLAND MODEL
Sustained practice with support close at hand.
The Portland Model is the original experiential format. One participant assumes the role of skills builder while another presents or plays the clinical case. A second participant serves as the skills builder’s designated backup and can step in when support is needed.
The interaction typically lasts approximately ten minutes, giving the skills builder time to remain with the case, follow its development, and adjust as new information emerges.
The structure allows participants to practice staying present, recognizing function, and responding flexibly without needing to manage the experience alone.
The Portland Model emphasizes sustained individual practice, clinical decision-making, and the development of confidence through supported experience.
THE PROVIDENCE MODEL
One case. Multiple clinicians. A collaborative learning experience.
The Providence Model offers a more fluid and group-oriented variation. One participant remains in the role of the client or case while another begins as the skills builder. After approximately eight exchanges, other members of the group may move into and out of the skills-builder position.
This rotating structure allows participants to experience how different clinicians respond to the same person and the same unfolding interaction. Each new skills builder must enter the work as it currently exists, notice what has already occurred, and decide how to respond next.
The Providence Model encourages broader participation, exposes the group to multiple workable approaches, and makes the collective learning process visible in real time.
TWO FORMATS, DIFFERENT LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
The Portland Model allows one clinician to remain with an interaction and practice adapting over time. The Providence Model allows a group to explore how several clinicians may respond differently—and effectively—to the same clinical moment.
Either format can be incorporated into any of the previous presentations depending on length of engagement.