Evidence based training
We design and deliver bespoke, evidence based training for:
Teams - to provide them with skills shown to enhance their psychological flexibility & well-being in every area of life.
Leadership groups - to enhance their leadership behavioural flexibility and create a culture of psychological safety.
We also facilitate away days and conferences - where we bring experience and flexibility to co-create the day that will have the most chance of engaging and impacting the attendees.
We also offer evidence based leadership coaching. We're currently at full capacity with our leadership coaching, please get in touch to find out more.
What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy?
A core part of our approach to designing interventions is based upon Acceptance and Commitment Therapy which is known as ACT. The evidence shows that ACT elevates psychological wellbeing and flexibility.
ACT is an evidence based approach for increasing people's personal resilience and well-being.
In the modern workplace people can, at times, feel overwhelmed and exhausted. We can become disconnected from a sense of personal meaning in our work and personal lives. ACT programmes delivered in workplace settings are designed to help people explore the qualities they most want to express in their behaviour, at work and in every area of life. They also help people develop skills which help them relate to difficult or unhelpful thoughts and feelings in a more skilful way. Often in life we can become tangled up in, or bogged down by our unhelpful thoughts, feelings urges and memories. ACT helps us make what's important in our lives a more prominent guide to our actions, or how we show up in the world.
ACT and Psychological Flexibility
ACT is made up of six core processes which are designed to increase psychological flexibility.
Psychological flexibility is described by Kashdan & Rottenberg (2010) as a number of dynamic processes that unfold over time.
"This could be reflected by how a person:
1) adapts to fluctuating situational demands,
2) reconfigures mental resources,
3) shifts perspective, and,
4) balances competing desires, needs and life domains.
Thus, rather than focusing on specific content (within a person), definitions of psychological flexibility have to incorporate repeated transactions between people and their environmental contexts."
This makes our approach ideal suited to the VUCA world of organisations.
My work using ACT
Over the past four years I have worked alongside Dr Paul Flaxman at City, University of London and we have trained psychologists, counsellors and occupational health practitioners to deliver our redeveloped ACT based programmes to people at work. I have also delivered all the training for a research project funded by the British Academy exploring well-being in teachers.
ACT is a flexible approach and I believe it is ideally suited to enable people at work to not only survive but thrive. I enjoy designing programmes to be accessible and useful to different workplace populations including AIMIA, Nectar Loyalty, UK ballet companies, military groups, civil servants and charities. I am also delivering interventions focussed on leadership development and supporting workplace teams who know they could be more effective.
Our training approach has been used by organisations across the UK including staff support services in twenty NHS Trusts, by teams of educational psychologists, the prison service and in central government departments. Out training has also been adopted by workplace practitioners in the US, Uganda, Canada and Australia.
Evidence base for ACT interventions in workplace settings
There is now a compelling body of research evidence supporting the benefits of offering ACT interventions to improve employees' psychological health. Paul's workplace evaluations of ACT have been published in world-leading applied psychological journals and presented at national and international conferences. In addition, other research groups based in the US, Sweden and Australia have reported similar benefits for ACT interventions tailored for workplace settings.