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Old November 21st, 2005, 10:48 PM
James Pretzer James Pretzer is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2004
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Default Report from ABCT, 2005

ACBT's annual convention was November 17-20, 2005 in Washington D.C. and it was a good conference, as usual.

It was great fun to meet a number of regular participants in this forum as well as a number of colleagues who visit but haven't posted yet. I'm glad to hear that so many people value this forum. Remember, you'll get even more out of it if you post, respond to others' posts, get involved in debates, etc.

Here are a few of my observations from this year:

One of the big trends (at least in the talks I attended) seems to be the ideas of "experiential avoidance." Experiential avoidance refers to individuals' unwillingness to experience certain internal experiences (i.e. emotions, physical sensations, thoughts, memories, etc.) and their attempts to avoid these sensations or to escape them as quickly as possible. In many ways, experiential avoidance is the opposite of mindfulness and acceptance. Researchers are looking into the role that experiential avoidance plays in a range of disorders such as eating disorders, PTSD, and borderline personality disorder and are debating the implications this has for treatment.

The other big trend was discussions of "transdiagnostic treatment approaches" revolves around the idea that it is inefficient for therapists to have to learn a different treatment protocol for each disorder they treat. Wouldn't it be a better idea to learn general treatment principles that can then be applied with a range of disorders? What a radical idea! (OK, I'm being a little silly. However, given that I've been teaching a transdiagnostic approach approach for 20 years, I get to feel smug for a few minutes.)

There also were some of the on-going debates about CT: It is too difficult to train therapists to do CT well? (According to Marsh Linehan it is.) Is Behavioral Activation just as good as CT and simpler? (Stay tuned for a discussion of this when I have time.) And finally... Should we all quite doing CT because trying to change dysfunctional cognitions is a bad idea? (Steve Hayes' view. He also accuses CT of being a "moving target" because each time he thinks he's found a major shortcoming in CT, someone points out that no, CT does that too.)

One noticeable change from recent years was that interest in EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) seems to have really dropped off.
In addition to the symposia, panel discussions, and workshops, one could get quite a bit of continuing education credit, network with colleagues, eat at good restaurants, and even find a party or two. Next year, ABCT will be in Chicago, November 15-19. I recommend it. For details, check the ABCT web site http://www.aabt.org.
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