Whole Person Care Using Brief ACT: Diabetes & Chronic Pain

March 27-28, 2026

Instruction 10:00 am – 1:15pm

Break for Lunch on Your Own

Instruction 2:00 pm- 5:15 pm End of Day

In Person or Virtual and Remember to Purchase CE for 15$ if needed

OVERVIEW:

People struggling with long-term conditions, such as diabetes and chronic pain, often experience challenges to their mental, emotional, and social well-being. As many as 1 in 5 Americans are living with one of these two conditions, and, in an ideal world, they would be able to access care from a provider trained to address behavioral aspects of both their physical and psychological well-being.

This 2-day hybrid workshop in Philadelphia introduces an approach that prepares healthcare workers to offer whole-person care in a brief format that can make services more readily available to people living with co-morbid medical and mental health problems. Focused Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (or “FACT”) is a transdiagnostic, strength-based approach that targets function and planned experimentation to enhance psychological flexibility.


LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

1. Describe the Focused Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Tool Kit.
2. Define psychological flexibility.
3. Use the FACT Pillars Assessment Tool to assess the relative strengths of a person on each of the three FACT pillars: open, aware, and engaged.
4. Use the Four Square Assessment Tool to develop an understanding of a person’s behavioral responses to difficult life problems, such as diabetes or chronic pain.
5. Use the Four Square Intervention Tool to identify possible interventions to enhance a person’s psychological flexibility in responding to a long-term condition.
6. Describe how predictive coding theory supports use of “mindfulness of the body” interventions to enhance psychological flexibility.
7. Offer a “mindfulness of the body” intervention to assist a person with developing a new world view, one that offers a way forward toward greater vitality.
8. Use the Life Path to establish a metaphor to support on-going care for someone challenged by a long-term condition.
9. Use the FACT Can Do Plan to enhance the quality of behavioral experiments developed in a FACT visit.
10. List the four domains of the FACT Core Competency Tool.
11. Set up a learning plan that supports on-going mastery of FACT in addressing the needs of people challenged by chronic conditions.