Brief Interventions For Radical Behaviour Change: Principles And Practice For Focused Acceptance And Commitment Therapy

Description

Mental health and chemical dependency clinicians are in a unique position to improve the lives of their clients, but find it difficult to provide clients with life-changing psychological tools they need within each time-limited appointment.

Brief Interventions for Radical Behaviour Change makes it easy for these busy clinicians to integrate important mindfulness, acceptance, and values-based therapeutic work in their interactions with clients. In just fifteen to thirty minutes, clinicians can identify core issues clients struggle with, apply acceptance interventions to help clients eliminate self-defeating thinking and behaviour, and help clients engage in committed, values-based actions to change their lives for the better.

The goal is to emphasize small, positive changes that cumulatively lead to radical changes in clients' lives. These acceptance and commitment therapy-based interventions require minimal time and few follow-up visits, and are capable of catalysing dramatic changes in clients. Brief interventions have been proven to have a significant clinical impact in helping clients overcome substance abuse, anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems.

A must-have resource for every clinician seeking to hasten his or her clients' recovery using cutting-edge techniques from mindfulness and acceptance therapy.

Reviews

"This book has the wrong title. It should be: "Everything You Need to Know Stated Clearly, Free of Jargon and Hype that Will Enable You to Help a Broad and Diverse Range of Clients Effectively and Efficiently." On second thought, "Brief Interventions for Radical Change," like the book, "is" more to the point." --Scott D. Miller, PhD, director at the International Center for Clinical Excellence, Cummings professor of behavioral health at Arizona State University, and author of The Heart and Soul of Change 

"This book is a must-read not only for ACT therapists with an interest in brief therapy, but for any ACT therapist who wants to improve their efficiency and effectiveness with the model. Low on theory and high on practicality, this book is choc-a-bloc full of new tools and techniques for brief but powerful ACT interventions. You'll be amazed at how simple and easy it makes the trickier aspects of ACT, such as self-as-context and creative hopelessness. If you want to get better results in less time with more clients, then you need to read this book right now!"  --Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap   

"If you are looking for a rapid way to help people reduce their suffering and make positive changes, this book can show you the way. The four questions Strosahl, Robinson, and Gustavsson provide can give you a quick handle both on what's going on with clients and on how to help them change. A nice variation on the ACT method with some new insights and additions to make it compatible with clients' and third-party payers' demands for efficient and effective treatment."  --Bill O'Hanlon, author of Change 101   

"Brief therapy alert: This book is valuable reading for anyone interested in time-sensitive 'brief' therapy. It provides theory, methodology, research evidence, and numerous clinical examples for how to help clients rapidly make significant changes. It is also an excellent introduction to the larger field of acceptance and commitment therapy, offering concepts and techniques that clinicians can adapt to their own practices. Strongly recommended!"  --Michael F. Hoyt, PhD, author of Brief Psychotherapies

Author description

Kirk Strosahl, is currently principal and consultant for the Mountainview Consulting Group Inc., a firm specializing in providing consultation, program implementation and training services for health care systems seeking to integrate behavioural health and primary medical services and/or develop effective methods for collecting and using clinical outcome data. Strosahl has consulted extensively with both public and private health and mental health care systems on the design and implementation of clinically effective models integrative behavioural care. He is author of numerous articles on the subjects of primary care behavioural health integration, outcome assessment in behavioural health, and the use of practice guidelines and other empirically based methods in clinical practice. He has also co-authored books on the clinical treatment of the suicidal patient and acceptance and commitment therapy.

Patricia J. Robinson, PhD, is director of training and program evaluation at Mountainview Consulting Group, Inc., a firm that assists health care systems with integrating behavioral health services into primary care settings. She is coauthor of Real Behavior Change in Primary Care and The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Depression. After exploring primary care psychology as a researcher, she devoted her efforts to its dissemination in rural America, urban public health departments, and military medical treatment facilities. Robinson resides in Portland, OR.

Thomas Gustavsson, MSc, is a licensed psychologist and cofounder of Psykologpartners, a company providing residential psychology and psychiatry services for self-harming clients in Scandinavia.