Clinicians often wonder how to help clients to recognize what matters to them and to increase their engagement in their lives. This webinar focuses on the values clarification and values-based actions component of acceptance-based behavioral therapy, an evidence-based treatment that incorporates mindfulness and acceptance and commitment therapy elements to target generalized anxiety and related disorders. Participants will learn how to 1) help clients to clarify what matters to them, including addressing common barriers to this process, and 2) facilitate engagement in values-based actions, including addressing internal and external barriers to meaningful actions.
Speaker
Lizabeth Roemer, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist in Massachusetts and Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Dr. Roemer’s research focuses on understanding how individuals respond to unwanted emotional experiences in ways that enhance or detract from their lives, and applying this understanding to the treatment of anxiety disorders, particularly generalized anxiety disorder, as well as to prevention programs and helping people thrive in the face of external and systemic stressors. In collaboration with Sue Orsillo, she has developed an acceptance-based behavior therapy for generalized anxiety disorder that incorporates mindfulness strategies and valued action. Along with colleagues and doctoral students, they have examined the efficacy and mechanisms of change in this approach, as well as brief adaptations. Their coauthored book, Acceptance-based behavioral therapy: Treating anxiety and related challenges, provides a flexible guide for therapists applying this approach. Their self-help books, The Mindful Way through Anxiety: Break Free from Chronic Worry and Reclaim Your Life, and Worry Less, Live More: The Mindful Way Through Anxiety Workbook draw from their decades of research to provide guidance to people struggling with anxiety. Dr. Roemer regularly writes for Psychology Today at “Mindfully Doing What Matters.”