About this course

Learning Objectives

• Summarize anxiety and OCD symptomatology.
• Describe and practice ACT and exposure concepts and exercises.
• Identify and describe differences between traditional exposures and ACT based exposures.
• Provide an introductory level of ACT and exposure therapy for clients with anxiety and OCD.

Learning Levels

• Beginner
• Intermediate

Course Instructor(s)

• 

  Michael Twohig, PhD

  Professor of Psychology, Utah State University

  Michael P. Twohig, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist in the state of Utah and a Professor of Psychology at Utah State University, where he co-runs the ACT Research Group (with Dr. Levin). He received his B.A. and M.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, his Ph.D. from the University of Nevada, Reno, and completed his clinical internship at the University of British Columbia Hospital. He is past-President of the Association of Contextual Behavioral Science, the organization most associated with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). His research focuses on the use of ACT across a variety of clinical presentations with an emphasis on obsessive compulsive and related disorders. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers, many book chapters, and 9 books, with the most recent being ACT in Steps (with Levin and Ong) and the Anxious Perfectionist (with Ong). His research has been funded through multiple sources including the National Institute of Mental Health and the IOCDF. In 2022, he was rated as currently the most productive author on ACT and USU was the most productive institution in the world.

References

• Twohig, M. P., Hayes, S. C., Plumb, J. C., Pruitt, L. D., Collins, A. B., Hazlett-Stevens, H., & Woidneck, M. R. (2010). A randomized clinical trial of acceptance and commitment therapy versus progressive relaxation training for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 78(5), 705–716. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020508
• Twohig, M. P., Abramowitz, J. S., Smith, B. M., Fabricant, L. E., Jacoby, R. J., Morrison, K. L., Bluett, E. J., Reuman, L., Blakey, S. M., & Ledermann, T. (2018). Adding acceptance and commitment therapy to exposure and response prevention for obsessive-compulsive disorder: A randomized controlled trial. Behaviour research and therapy, 108, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2018.06.005
• Craske, M. G., Treanor, M., Conway, C. C., Zbozinek, T., & Vervliet, B. (2014). Maximizing exposure therapy: an inhibitory learning approach. Behaviour research and therapy, 58, 10–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2014.04.006