ACT BootCamp® For Trauma in Austin, Texas
September 11 to September 13, 2026
Get up to 23.5 CE hours
Join Dr. Robyn D. Walser for a three-day immersive ACT training for trauma and complex trauma integrating exposure, embodiment, and values-based living to help clients move from surviving to living with purpose and connection.
*Early Bird Registration Expires July 31st, 2026*
In a time marked by widespread exposure to trauma, chronic stress, and moral distress, clinicians need approaches that move beyond symptom management toward deeper recovery. This training provides a coherent ACT framework to help clients move from surviving to living with purpose and connection.
Trauma often arises in the context of war, interpersonal violence, systemic betrayal, and chronic threat, and is associated with posttraumatic stress, depression, anxiety, shame, moral pain, substance use, and profound disconnection from values and community.
While ACT is transdiagnostic in scope, it is particularly well suited for working with trauma – historical experiences that disrupt meaning, identity, relational safety, and one’s capacity to engage fully in life.
Participants will learn how to apply ACT to trauma and complex trauma using a coherent, process-based approach. The training explores how to integrate exposure, embodied awareness, and values-based action to help clients safely engage with traumatic material while building meaningful and connected lives.
The bootcamp will also explicitly address the integration of ACT with established trauma-focused approaches, including Prolonged Exposure (PE), Written Exposure Therapy (WET), and EMDR. Written Exposure Therapy or Expressive Writing will be highlighted as a particularly elegant example of values-consistent exposure, emphasizing narrative coherence, willingness, and repeated contact with traumatic material while minimizing therapist-driven control. Participants will learn how ACT processes, such as acceptance, defusion, and self-as-context, can strengthen engagement in written, imaginal, and interoceptive exposure while maintaining clinical flexibility and responsiveness.
The training will also incorporate a body-focused perspective grounded in ACT’s present-moment awareness and acceptance processes. Participants will learn how interoceptive exposure, mindful contact with physiological arousal, and embodied values-based action can support trauma recovery. The body is approached as a site of learning and contact, rather than something to be fixed, managed, or overridden, allowing clinicians to work skillfully with pain, dissociation, hyperarousal, and numbing within a coherent ACT framework.
Finally and centrally, this training will explore the therapeutic relationship as a living context for change. Participants will explore how therapist stance, moment-to-moment responding, and willingness shape exposure-based learning, particularly with trauma-exposed clients for whom issues of safety, power, and trust are paramount. Attention will be given to pacing, consent, and collaboration, as well as to recognizing and responding to therapist experiential avoidance.
Through didactic instruction, experiential practice, clinical demonstrations, and case-based application, participants will develop the capacity to flexibly integrate ACT with trauma-focused methods while maintaining theoretical coherence. The bootcamp emphasizes moving beyond symptom management toward helping clients build meaningful, values-consistent lives.
Location
The University of Texas at Austin offers a dynamic and inspiring setting for immersive learning and meaningful connection. Located in the heart of Austin, the campus blends historic architecture with state-of-the-art facilities, creating an environment that encourages innovation, collaboration, and academic excellence. Surrounded by the city’s renowned live music scene, vibrant culture, and scenic outdoor spaces, participants can seamlessly balance focused engagement with opportunities to explore, recharge, and experience the distinctive energy that makes Austin a truly unique destination.
Trainers
Robyn D. Walser, Ph.D.
Robyn D. Walser, Ph.D. is Director of TL Consultation Services and and works at the National Center for PTSD. She is the Co-Director of Bay Area Trauma Recovery Clinical Services and Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. As a licensed psychologist, she maintains an international training, consulting, and therapy practice. Dr. Walser is an expert in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and has co-authored seven books on ACT, including a book on learning ACT.
Robyn D. Walser, Ph.D. is Director of TL Consultation Services and and works at the National Center for PTSD. She is the Co-Director of Bay Area Trauma Recovery Clinical Services and Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. As a licensed psychologist, she maintains an international training, consulting, and therapy practice. Dr. Walser is an expert in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and has co-authored seven books on ACT, including a book on learning ACT.
She recently wrote the book The Heart of ACT- Developing a Flexible, Process-based, and Client-centered Practice Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Dr. Walser has expertise in traumatic stress, depression, moral injury, and suicide; and has authored a number of articles, chapters, and books on these topics. She has been doing ACT workshops since 1997; training in multiple formats and for multiple client problems. Dr. Walser’s workshops feature a combination of didactic and experiential exercises designed to provide a unique learning opportunity in this state-of-the-art intervention.
Program
Given the trauma focus, this three-day ACT for Trauma Bootcamp offers intermediate-to-advanced, immersive training for clinicians seeking to deepen their use of ACT as a psychotherapy rather than a collection of techniques. Participants will examine how ACT processes function over time in trauma recovery, with particular emphasis on integrating exposure as an ongoing, values-guided learning process rather than a discrete intervention aimed at symptom reduction alone. Exposure is framed as deliberate contact with avoided internal and external experiences in ways that expand behavioral repertoires, restore choice, and support engagement with meaningful life directions. It also includes direct exposure to traumatic material.
In addition to single-incident trauma, this training explicitly addresses complex trauma, including the cumulative impact of chronic interpersonal harm. Drawing on Herman’s stage-based model of trauma recovery, establishing safety and stabilization, processing traumatic experience, and reconnection with self and others, the bootcamp explores how ACT processes can be flexibly applied across stages of change. Rather than treating stages as rigid phases, participants will learn to use them as orienting contexts that inform pacing, therapeutic priorities, and clinical decision-making within a coherent ACT framework.
September 11, 2026 | Day 1, Friday
Foundations of ACT for Trauma: Context, Process, and Therapeutic Presence
7:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Day 1 Sessions: 6.5 CE hours
Day 1 evening session: 2 CE hours
Day 1 establishes the foundation for working with trauma and complex trauma through an ACT lens, emphasizing functional, idiographic understanding and psychological flexibility as a guiding process. Participants will learn to conceptualize trauma in terms of avoidance, constriction, and values disruption, differentiate trauma and moral injury, and develop ACT-consistent case formulations to guide moment-to-moment clinical decision-making. Through didactic teaching, experiential exercises, and small group practice, the day highlights the therapeutic relationship and therapist stance as central contexts for change, including identifying and responding to both client and therapist experiential avoidance in preparation for exposure-based work.
Schedule
- 7:30 a.m.-8:00 a.m.
Check-In and Registration - 8:00 a.m-9:45 a.m.
Foundations of ACT for Trauma Treatment - 9:45 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
Morning Break - 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Idiographic, Functional and Contextual: Understanding Trauma, Complex Trauma, and Moral Injury - 12:00 p.m.-1:30 p.m.
Lunch Break - 1:30 p.m.-2:45 p.m.
Pillars and Processes: ACT Processes in Trauma Work - 2:45 p.m.-3:00 p.m.
Afternoon Break - 3:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m.
Therapeutic Relationship and Therapist Stance - 4:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m.
Afternoon Break (for those staying for optional evening session) - 4:45 p.m.-6:45 p.m. (Optional Evening Session)
Experiential: Role Play Demonstration and Practice
September 12, 2026 | Day 2, Saturday
Exposure, Willingness, and New Learning: Applying ACT Across Stages of Trauma Recovery
7:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Day 2 session: 6.5 CE hours
Day 2 evening session: 2 CE hours
Day 2 focuses on applying ACT processes across stages of trauma recovery, with particular emphasis on the transition from safety and stabilization to willingness and exposure. Using Herman’s stage-based model as an orienting framework, participants will learn how to engage trauma processing through values-guided exposure, including imaginal, written, and interoceptive methods. The day highlights Written Exposure Therapy, narrative processing, and the integration of PE and EMDR as structured contexts for learning, while emphasizing pacing, consent, and titration, particularly in complex trauma presentations. Instruction includes didactic teaching, clinical demonstration, and experiential practice to support flexible, coherent application of exposure-based work within an ACT framework.
Schedule
- 7:30 a.m.-8:00 a.m.
Check-In - 8:00 a.m-9:45 a.m.
ACT and Levels of Process - 9:45 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
Morning Break - 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Trauma and the Three Stage Model (Stage 1): Safety and Stabilization from an ACT Lens - 12:00 p.m.-1:30 p.m.
Lunch Break - 1:30 p.m.-2:45 p.m.
Trauma and the Three Stage Model (Stage 2): Willingness and Exposure to Traumatic Material - 2:45 p.m.-3:00 p.m.
Afternoon Break - 3:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m.
Stage 2 continued: Integrating Exposure-Based Trauma Therapies and Narrative Processing of Trauma - 4:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m.
Afternoon Break (for those staying for optional evening session) - 4:45 p.m.-6:45 p.m. (Optional Evening Session)
Experiential: Role Play Demonstration and Practice
September 13, 2026 | Day 3, Sunday
Embodiment, Moral Repair, and Values-Based Living After Trauma
7:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Day 3 session: 6.5 CE hours
Day 3 focuses on integration and reconnection, emphasizing embodiment, moral injury, and values-based living following trauma. Participants will learn to incorporate interoceptive exposure and mindful contact with physiological experience as part of trauma recovery, particularly in addressing hyperarousal, numbing, and dissociation. The day explores moral injury as a disruption in values and identity, offering ACT-consistent approaches to working with shame, guilt, anger, and existential distress while supporting moral repair without requiring resolution of painful internal experiences. Through didactic teaching, experiential exercises, and applied practice, participants will develop skills in fostering embodied values-based action, resilience, and growth, helping clients reconnect with meaningful and vital lives.
Schedule
- 7:30 a.m.-8:00 a.m.
Check-In - 8:00 a.m-9:45 a.m.
Embodiment of ACT in Trauma Recovery: Interoceptive Exposure and Somatic Awareness - 9:45 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
Morning Break - 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Moral Injury and Values-Based Healing: Working with shame, guilt, anger, and existential distress - 12:00 p.m.-1:30 p.m.
Lunch Break - 1:30 p.m.-2:45 p.m.
Trauma and the Three Stage Model (Stage 2): Values-Based Living After Trauma - 2:45 p.m.-3:00 p.m.
Afternoon Break - 3:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m.
Values Guided Resilience and Growth
Learning Objectives
DAY 1
By the end of Day 1, participants will be able to:
- Describe Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as a principle-based psychotherapy grounded in functional contextualism, rather than a collection of techniques.
- Explain psychological flexibility as the central change process in trauma recovery, including how it unfolds over time.
- Conceptualize trauma functionally, focusing on patterns of avoidance, constriction, and values disruption rather than symptom reduction alone.
- Differentiate trauma-related suffering from moral injury, including their shared and distinct impacts on meaning, identity, and values.
- Formulate trauma cases using ACT processes to guide moment-to-moment clinical decision-making.
- Identify avoided internal and external experiences relevant to trauma work, including memories, emotions, bodily sensations, relational cues, and moral pain.
- Leverage the therapeutic relationship as a central context for change, particularly in exposure-based trauma work.
- Demonstrate ACT-consistent therapist stance, including presence, willingness, collaboration, and responsiveness during trauma processing.
- Identify and respond to therapist experiential avoidance, particularly avoidance of emotional intensity, bodily distress, or moral pain in trauma work.
DAY 2
By the end of Day 2, participants will be able to:
- Apply Herman’s stage-based model of trauma recovery as an orienting framework for working with complex trauma within an ACT-consistent, process-based approach.
- Adapt ACT processes, exposure, and pacing strategies to complex trauma presentations, including chronic interpersonal trauma, developmental trauma, and prolonged threat, with attention to safety, stabilization, and reconnection.
- Define exposure within ACT as an ongoing, values-guided learning process, rather than a discrete intervention aimed at emotional control.
- Apply ACT processes to support direct exposure to traumatic material, including imaginal, written, and interoceptive exposure.
- Integrate Written Exposure Therapy (WET) or expressive writing within an ACT framework, emphasizing willingness, narrative coherence, and therapist restraint.
- Use acceptance, defusion, and self-as-context processes to enhance engagement in written, imaginal, and somatic exposure.
- Conceptualize PE, WET, and EMDR as structured contexts for learning, rather than competing treatment models.
- Maintain theoretical coherence when integrating ACT with trauma-focused therapies, avoiding eclectic or technique-driven drift.
- Apply principles of pacing, consent, and titration to support safety, agency, and engagement in trauma treatment.
DAY 3
By the end of Day 3, participants will be able to:
- Incorporate a body-focused perspective consistent with ACT, using present-moment awareness and acceptance rather than regulation or control as primary aims.
- Apply interoceptive exposure and mindful contact with physiological arousal to address hyperarousal, numbing, dissociation, and somatic distress.
- Use embodied values-based action to support reconnection with life following trauma.
- Address moral injury using ACT processes, supporting values clarification, recommitment, and moral repair without requiring absolution or emotional resolution.
- Work skillfully with shame, guilt, anger, and existential distress as values-linked experiences rather than problems to eliminate.
- Describe values-based living in the context of trauma treatment
- Address resiliency and growth post trauma from a values based perspective
Continuing Education
This professional continuing education activity was sponsored by Praxis Continuing Education and Training by New Harbinger and co-sponsored by the Institute for Better Health. Praxis Continuing Education and Training by New Harbinger, who has been approved as a provider of continuing education by the organizations listed below, maintains responsibility for the educational activity offered and for following the standards and regulations for the organizations. This live in-person activity is approved for up to 32 CE hours.
Joint Accreditation: In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by Praxis Continuing Education and Training by New Harbinger and the Institute for Better Health. Praxis Continuing Education and Training by New Harbinger is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
This activity was planned by and for the healthcare team, and learners will receive 1 Interprofessional Continuing Education (IPCE) credit for learning and change per hour attended.
Psychologists: Continuing Education (CE) credits for psychologists are provided through the co-sponsorship of the American Psychological Association (APA) Office of Continuing Education in Psychology (CEP). The APA CEP Office maintains responsibly for the content of the programs.
Social Workers: As a Jointly Accredited Organization, Praxis Continuing Education and Training by New Harbinger is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved under this program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. Social workers completing this course receive 1 clinical continuing education credit per hour attended.
Behavior Analysts: Praxis Continuing Education and Training is an approved BACB ACE Provider # OP-17-2718. This course is approved for 1 learning CEU per hour attended.
NY Social Workers: Praxis Continuing Education and Training by New Harbinger is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0467
NY Counselors: Praxis Continuing Education and Training by New Harbinger is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors. #MHC-0198.
NY Psychologists: Praxis Continuing Education and Training by New Harbinger is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0002.
NOTE: Many state boards accept offerings accredited by national or other state organizations. If your state is not listed, please check with your professional licensing board to determine whether the accreditations listed are accepted.
Disclosure Information:
All those in a position to control the content of an education activity are asked to disclose any relevant financial relationships they have with any ineligible companies.
There is no commercial support for this activity.
None of the planners or presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.
Requirements
This training is designed for psychologists, social workers, counselors, psychiatrists, and others who want to apply ACT with their trauma clients. This is an intermediate training and some experience with ACT is expected.
Recommended Reading
Walser, R. D., & Westrup, D. (2025). You Are Not Your Trauma. Guilford Publications.
Walser, R. D. (2019). The heart of ACT: Developing a flexible, process-based, and client-centered practice using acceptance and commitment therapy. New Harbinger Publications.
Walser, R. D., & O'Connell, M. (2026). Acceptance and commitment therapy: Deliberate practice to develop and enhance skills in ACT.
References
Borges, L. M., Lundgren, T., Barnes, S. M., & others. (2022). Case conceptualizing in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for moral injury: An active and ongoing approach to understanding and intervening on moral injury. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, 910414.
Hermann, B. A., Meyer, E. C., Schnurr, P. P., Batten, S. V., & Walser, R. D. (2016). Acceptance and commitment therapy for co-occurring PTSD and substance use: A manual development study. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 5(4), 252–260.
Kelly, M. M., Reilly, E. D., Ameral, V., Richter, S., & Fukuda, S. (2022). A randomized pilot study of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to improve social support for veterans with PTSD. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 11(12), 3482.
Lang, A. J., Schnurr, P. P., Raman, R., & others. (2017). Randomized controlled trial of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for distress and impairment in OEF/OIF/OND veterans. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 9(Suppl 1), 74–84.
Loftus, S. T., Wetzler, S., & others. (2024). Group-based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for PTSD in a HMO psychiatry clinic: An open trial. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy.
Meyer, E. C., Walser, R. D., Hermann, B. A., La Bash, H., DeBeer, B. B., Morissette, S. B., Kimbrel, N. A., Kwok, O.-M., Batten, S. V., & Schnurr, P. P. (2018). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for co-occurring posttraumatic stress disorder and alcohol use disorders in veterans: Pilot treatment outcomes. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 31(5), 781–789.
Rehman, S., Ghazali, S. R., & Elklit, A. (2026). A systematic and meta-analytical review of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for PTSD. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 31(1), 90–119.
Rowe-Johnson, M. K., Browning, B., & Scott, B. (2025). Effects of acceptance and commitment therapy on trauma-related symptoms: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 17(3), 668–675.
Twohig, M. P. (2009). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for treatment-resistant posttraumatic stress disorder: A case study. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 16(3), 243–252.
Walser, R. D., Evans, W. R., Farnsworth, J. K., & Drescher, K. D. (2024). Initial steps in developing acceptance and commitment therapy for moral injury among combat veterans: Two pilot studies. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 32, 100733.
Walser, R. D., & Westrup, D. (2007). Acceptance and commitment therapy for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and trauma-related problems: A practitioner’s guide to using mindfulness and acceptance strategies. New Harbinger Publications. (No DOI assigned)
Walser, R. D., & Westrup, D. (2025). You are not your trauma: An ACT guide for healing from within. The Guilford Press. (No DOI assigned)
Wharton, E., Edwards, K. S., Juhasz, K. M., & Walser, R. D. (2019). Acceptance-based interventions in the treatment of PTSD: Group and individual pilot data using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 14, 55–64.
Something Came Up? Don’t Worry!
We are happy to issue you a refund anytime before the event. However, we do charge a service fee of approximately 3% for cancellations. This is simply to cover banking transaction fees that we have no other way of recouping. If you need a refund, simply go to ibh.com/refunds, fill out the form, and we will issue your refund within 1-3 business days.