What would it be like to try to capture a cloud? How would you even conceive of this? Clouds are so far away – and they’re huge. You can fly through them in an airplane, but that just speaks to their non-capturability. They’re made of water vapor.  

If you think about it, that’s a lot like what behavior analysts call “private events” or covert behaviors – thoughts, emotions, memories, and bodily sensations. We do a lot of things covertly but capturing these in an applied context has never been the domain of applied behavior analysis. They’ve been like clouds…. Until now.

Marriage and Family Therapists have often focused on helping people process difficult emotions in the context of dynamic family systems. The psychological flexibility approach in ACTr is relatively new to MFTs. The aim of ACTr is to help clients to be aware of their own emotions in their family relationships and to increase their variability in responding in the face of those emotions. In this way, clients break out of operating unconsciously, on auto-pilot, and take steps toward creating health and vitality in their families.

In this workshop, BCBAs and MFTs will learn how to capture private events – the subtle behavior that Skinner said was in principle no different from overt behavior – in applied contexts. Moreover, they will learn about each other’s disciplines so that they can work effectively together in a variety of treatment settings.

This is a hands-on workshop. You will learn a unified approach to using ACTr that can be scaled to fit the needs of typically developing kids, those with social, emotional and behavioral difficulties, autistic people, parents, siblings, and staff.

Additionally, this is a course in advanced ABA practices. As always in ABA, intervention targets are socially important, observable behavior that can be measured. That is, we teach practitioners to rely on direct contingency management strategies first. If these do not result in the desired changes in behavior, and if the person being supported has verbal skills, then ACTr might help.

Capture a Cloud for BCBAs and MFTs is a 3-day training in which participants engage in specific clinical skills training including an introductory session covering rationale and modeling of skills followed by multiple opportunities for participant practice and feedback for each of the integral component skills. This learning process (progressing from didactic learning to observing a demonstration to practice to feedback) will be completed for each composite skill before progressing to the next.

*The acronym ACT (spoken as a word and standing for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) is generally used to describe uses of the psychological flexibility model as a mode of psychotherapy. In contrast, ACTr (Acceptance and Commitment Training) is used to describe the same model used as a training modality in non-psychotherapy contexts.

Experience the charm and relax on the beautiful grounds of this 19th century majestic estate.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this California Historical Landmark is a site to see. The Hayes Mansion was built in 1903 for the Hayes family and then purchased by the City of San Jose in 1985. Recent remodels have elevated the comfort and  amenities while preserving the authenticity and architectural integrity.