Jonathan Tarbox – Acceptance and Commitment Training

Title:
Acceptance and Commitment Training: Self-Care and Compassion in Applied Behavior Analysis Service Delivery

Abstract:
Careers in applied behavior analysis (ABA) can be simultaneously incredibly rewarding and incredibly challenging. Behavior analysts are passionate about what we do and this can contribute to the stress and burnout that many of us struggle with. The organizational behavior management literature is replete with evidence-based practices for creating and maintaining excellent job performance but relatively little research has been done on behavioral approaches to addressing stress and burnout. Of course, stress and burnout are not mental problems, they involve things we do. That is, stress and burnout involve overt and covert behavior-environment relations, so the science of behavior analysis should have something to say about them. Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) is a behavior analytic training approach that has research support for improving resilience in other professions and is just now being implemented for this purpose inside of mainstream ABA practice. Although ACT was originally developed for use by clinical psychologists, it has broadened substantially and is now commonly practiced by many disciplines outside of psychology. Implementing ACT does not require psychotherapy and many of the ACT-based strategies for self-care in the practice of ABA require no specialized training. This presentation will describe small self-care changes that we can put into practice in our daily lives in order to help us thrive while we struggle in our work lives.