The Mindfulness, Acceptance and Positive Psychology Master Class

MentorCoach is proud to announce the following exciting master class:

A NEW MASTER CLASS:
MINDFULNESS, ACCEPTANCE, AND POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
THE SEVEN PILLARS OF WELL-BEING

With Joseph Ciarrochi, PhD
Professor, University of Western Sydney
Sydney, NSW, Australia

1. Who Should Attend

Coaches, teachers, therapists, consultants, business professionals, entrepreneurs, educators, parents, all change agents, and anyone interested in learning practical tools for helping their clients (and themselves) deal flexibly with setbacks and lead a healthy, productive, and fulfilling life.

2. About the Class

Bright professionals sometimes wonder if there is a key ingredient for living a full and happy life. For decades, scientists and psychologists alike have been studying the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

The positive psychology movement was founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work and play.

At the same time, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)–a mindfulness-based, values-oriented behavioral therapy that has many parallels to Buddhism, yet is not religious in any way–has been focused on helping people achieve their greatest human potential as well.

Created only years apart, ACT and positive psychology both promote human flourishing, and they often share overlapping themes and applications, particularly when it comes to setting goals, psychological strengths, mindfulness, and the clarification of what matters most–our values and our search for meaning in life.

Despite these similarities, however, the two different models are rarely discussed in relation to one another. What if unifying these theories could lead to faster, more profound and enduring improvements in the human condition?

This class will show you how to unify the theories in a way that leads to a powerful approach to improving people’s ability to deal flexibly with setbacks and lead a healthy, productive, and fulfilling life.

The class will cover several aspects of resilience, including acceptance, mindfulness, perspective taking, helpful beliefs, values and behavioral control.

It’s intended to give you a strong grounding in theory and evidence and to provide you with practical tools that you can start using immediately with your clients and yourself.

3. Class Overview

The class will teach you:

1. A theory and philosophical framework that will allow you to use a wide variety of acceptance, mindfulness, and positive psychology interventions in a way that is coherent and sensitive to your own needs and to those of your clients
2. A review of the evidence supporting the usefulness of each intervention component (acceptance, mindfulness, perspective taking, helpful beliefs, values, and behavioral control)
3. Concrete interventions that you can apply to yourself and to your clients.

Joe will both lecture and use experiential components. For the experiential parts, you will be encouraged to use each intervention in your own life, working through the approach in the same way a client might work through it. It is through this “parallel process” that you will come to understand the intervention and how it is likely to work with clients.

4. What You Will Learn

1. How to make practical use of theory and evidence
2. How to intervene, both in your own life, and with your clients, students or
   subordinates.
3. How to assess and intervene on six components of resilience: acceptance, helpful beliefs, mindfulness, flexible perspective taking, values, and behavioral control.
4. How to powerfully combine approaches in Acceptance and Commitment Training
   and Positive Psychology.

5. The Eight Weeks

Week 1. Why do humans fail to thrive, and what can we do about it: A practical theory
Week 2. Regaining your energy and strength: Acceptance.
Week 3. Tipping towards “yes”: the power of mindfulness and willingness to fuel friendship, love, and success.
Week 4. Learning to slip the traps of the mind: Judgments , evaluations, and rules
Week 5. The flexible self: Doing more than you think is possible.
Week 6. Wise view: Seeing things from multiple perspectives and making use of the transcendent sense of self
Week 7. Values: Practical ways to identify what you most care about and to give your life focus and purpose
Week 8. Self-control: How to sustain motivation and commitment across time

6. Readings

The course entails readings from one primary text-Todd Kashdan and Joe Ciarrochi’s Mindfulness, Acceptance, and Positive Psychology: The Seven Foundations of Well-Being. (April 2013, Context Press). In addition, each week Joe will post relevant research articles, videos, and blog entries for the next week on the class’ password-protected website.

What people are saying about this book:

“The hallmark of our evolutionary flourishing is collaboration, and this brilliant book is a stunning example of its power. It takes two of the most influential fields of study of our time–Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Positive Psychology-and initiated a dialogue that both clarifies and deepens the discoveries that have emerged independently in each.”
–Tara Brach, PhD, author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge

“Unifying two important fields–Positive Psychology and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy–Kashdan and Ciarrochi’s volume contains multiple gems of contributions from the preeminent figures in psychology. Whether you are an expert or a novice, a student or a practitioner, you will learn a great deal from this book.”
–Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside, and author of The How of Happiness and The Myths of Happiness

“To every innovator working to create new tools and technologies for increased well-being: Mindfulness, Acceptance, and Positive Psychology should immediately go to the top of your must-read list. The new research and provocative ideas in this collection will spark fresh ideas and help shape, for the better, the next wave of life-changing, positive interventions.”
–Jane McGonigal, PhD, author of the New York Times bestseller Reality Is Broken

7. What People Say About Joe

“Joe is an outstanding presenter, captivating to listen to, always engaging, witty, fun and intelligent.” 4/8/13

“Joe was brilliant on Saturday– fun, interactive, informative, and he made me think quite deeply at times. I have already started to practice some of the interventions and mindful awareness processes. They will be useful for my clients and for myself. I can already see that that this will require much practice. Thanks for a great workshop, Joe.” 4/9/13

“I found this a valuable day spent reflecting and re-evaluating what it is that is important in my life. You put into perspective what is REAL & AUTHENTIC.”

“I found great value in the Mindfulness activities. I will continue practicing these myself and with others. The knowledge you have of well-being is tremendous and inspiring – you make this field so interesting.”

“The ‘values’ activities affirmed for me what is important and worthwhile as a lighthouse for me.”

“Wow! I really enjoyed listening to Joseph. He is exceptionally personable and humorous. ”

” Joseph was an engaging speaker. I loved the visual representation of his concepts”

“This class provided me with the strategies of ‘putting on the brakes’ in my life, re-centering my focus and reigniting my VALUE and my commitment. Joe reminded me to be mindful of who I am, what I am and how I can positively maintain who I am.”

8. Class Website

There will be a password-protected class web site that will be your home on the web for this class. In advance of each session, we’ll post Joe’s power points for the next class in multiple formats. We’ll also post Joseph’s special lecture notes, relevant articles, videos and blog entries. And after each session, you’ll be able to listen online or to download a digital recording of that class to your computer and MP3 player (eg your iPod).

Thus, when you have a conflict with a particular class, you’ll have the recording, PowerPoints, and reading and you won’t miss a thing. For the Authentic Happiness Coaching™ Program, some students had ongoing conflicts and listened to the entire class by recording. We anticipate that a number of Joseph’s students in this class–for example, those living in Western Europe-may decide to experience the class entirely by recording, still emailing in questions to Joseph between classes.

9. Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites. This class is open to all.