<p>This advanced level, six-week online course covers practical tools, techniques, strategies and principles for working with common clinical issues related to autism, utilizing ACT in a neuroaffirming format.</p>
Autistic clients usually have great strengths, refreshing new perspectives, and a wealth of creativity, but can also face unique and significant mental health challenges, from burnout and trauma, to insomnia and sensory overload. Working effectively with this population requires not only strong clinical skills, but also sensitivity, flexibility, and a neuroaffirming mindset.
In this engaging online course, Dr Russ Harris shares how to use ACT in a flexible, neuroaffirming way to help clients beat burnout, embrace their strengths, develop a positive self-identity, and build lives that are rich, full, and meaningful.
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This course is led by Dr Russ Harris, one of the world’s most respected ACT trainers and the bestselling author of The Happiness Trap and ACT Made Simple. Russ is also a consultant to the World Health Organization and a pioneer in making ACT accessible and practical.
Through engaging video lessons, real therapy demonstrations, and interactive discussions, Russ will show you, step by step, how to apply ACT principles through a neuroaffirming lens.
You’ll see how ACT’s flexible, values-based model aligns naturally with the principles of The Neurodiversity Movement and the social model of disability; and how it empowers clients to recognize and embrace their neurodivergent strengths, and build a positive self-identity.
Dual or triple diagnoses are frequent amongst autistic clients, and a trauma history is common. So are struggles with anxiety, depression, and ADHD. ACT offers a compassionate, neuro-affirming approach that’s well received by autistic clients, because:
It’s easily individualized: We can readily adapt and tailor ACT to suit each client’s unique needs and communication style.
It’s infused with compassion and validation: We take the time to understand and acknowledge and validate the unique concerns and desires of autistic clients, while helping them foster self-compassion and prioritizing emotional safety.
It’s strengths-based and values-inspired: We help clients utilize neurodivergent strengths and values, to look after themselves, and take effective action to improve quality of life.
It’s safe and supportive: We emphasize safety and wellbeing, especially when working on challenging new behaviours such as self-advocacy and unmasking.
Across six weeks of guided learning, you’ll explore how to use ACT to support autistic clients in practical, empowering ways. You’ll learn to:
Understand autism through a neurodiversity-affirming, biopsychosocial lens
Adapt your communication and therapeutic style to each client
Use neuroaffirming language and approaches that validate clients’ lived experience
Scaffold executive function skills, such as emotional regulation, attention flexibility and cognitive flexibility
Foster self-acceptance, self-compassion, and positive self-identity
Help clients to practice safe, flexible unmasking and build authentic connections
Help clients to flexibly use stimming, spins, and routines to self-soothe or ‘recharge their batteries’ in workable, life-enhancing ways
Work effectively with challenges such as sensory overload, burnout, autistic inertia, and RSD (Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria) - and very importantly, Russ will ensure that you…
Do NOT Use A ‘One Size Fits All’ Approach
When you’ve met one autistic person … you’ve met one autistic person! You’ll learn how to tailor ACT interventions to suit each client’s unique strengths, challenges, and context. And how to identify the function of problematic behaviours so you can create unique, targeted, compassionate interventions.
You’ll also explore how to “scaffold” new skills step-by-step, supporting clients to develop everything from emotion regulation to cognitive flexibility skills.
This is a 16-hour online course, delivered over 6 weeks. You’ll receive approximately 2.5 hours of new content per week, including video lessons, therapy demonstrations, client handouts, and interactive exercises.
You’ll have 12 months of access, so you can learn entirely at your own pace and revisit key materials anytime. The course also includes an interactive discussion forum, where you can ask Russ questions and exchange ideas with professionals around the world.
Who this course is for
This course is open to all mental health and health professionals, including psychologists, therapists, counsellors, psychiatrists, nurses, occupational therapists, social workers, speech therapists, BCBAs, and coaches.
However, this is an advanced level course, which assumes at least a beginners-level knowledge of Acceptance & Commitment Therapy. Before enrolling, you must do at least one of the following:
Attend an introductory level 2-day ACT workshop (with any ACT trainer; it doesn’t have to be with Russ), or
Complete our online ACT for Beginners course, or
Thoroughly work through a beginners-level ACT textbook from start to end, such as ACT Made Simple, 2nd edition.
Dr Russ Harris, MBBS, is an internationally-renowned ACT trainer, and author of the world’s best-selling book on ACT, The Happiness Trap. Russ’s background is in medicine. As a physician, he became increasingly interested in the psychological aspects of health and wellbeing, which ultimately led him to change careers and become a therapist.
Russ Harris has trained over 90, 000 health professionals around the globe, and authored nine books on the ACT model. His best-known work, The Happiness Trap, has sold over one million copies and been translated into over thirty languages.
Russ is considered one of the world’s foremost ACT trainers, and his textbook for professionals, ACT Made Simple is extremely popular. The book's title reflects Russ’s genuine passion for making the principles and practice of this evidenced-based therapy simple, clear and easy to put into practice.
In 2015 Russ created an ACT protocol for the World Health Organisation, for use in refugee camps around the globe. The WHO have published three RCTs based on this protocol, showing that it not only significantly reduces depression and PTSD, but also prevents the onset of mental health disorders in those at high risk.