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Evaluation ViewAttendees 10

Traditional Workshop - Ticketed

Treatment - Mindfulness & Acceptance

A Practical Introduction to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Moral Injury (ACT-MI): Exploring Meaning while Experiencing Moral Pain

Workshop 1 - A Practical Introduction to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Moral Injury (ACT-MI): Exploring Meaning While Experiencing Moral Pain

Friday, November 15, 2024
8:30 AM – 11:30 AM EST
Location: 408/409, Level 4, Downtown Marriott
Earn 3 Credit
Ticketed Session
Keywords: ACT (Acceptance & Commitment Therapy), Trauma, Evidence-Based Practice
Level of Familiarity: All
Recommended Readings: Borges, L. M., Barnes, S. M., Farnsworth, J. K., Drescher, K. D., & Walser, R. D. (2022). Case conceptualizing in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Moral Injury (ACT-MI): An active and ongoing approach to understanding and intervening on moral injury. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, 1-14. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2022.910414,   Borges, L. M. (2019). A Service Member’s experience of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Moral Injury (ACT-MI): “Learning to accept my pain and injury by reconnecting with my values and starting to live a meaningful life.” Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 13, 134-140. doi:10.1016/j.jcbs.2019.08.002,   Farnsworth, J. K., Drescher, K. D., Evans, W., & Walser, R. D. (2017). A functional approach to understanding and treating military-related moral injury. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 6(4), 391–397. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2017.07.003,   Borges, L. M., Holliday, R., Barnes, S. M., Bahraini, N. H., Kinney, A. R., Forster, J. E., & Brenner, L. A. (2021). A longitudinal analysis of the role of potentially morally injurious events on COVID-19 related psychosocial functioning among healthcare providers. PLOS ONE. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260033,   Litz, B. T., Plouffe, R. A., Nazarov, A., Murphy, D., Phelps, A., Coady, A., Houle, S. A., Dell, L., Frankfurt, S., Zerach, G., Levi-Belz, Y., & the Moral Injury Outcome Scale Consortium. (2022). Defining and assessing the syndrome of moral injury: Initial findings of the Moral Injury Outcome Scale Consortium. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12, 923928. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.923928

    Presenter(s)

  • Lauren M. Borges, Ph.D.

    Clinical Research Psychologist
    Rocky Mountain MIRECC
    DENVER, Colorado, United States

  • Jacob Farnsworth, Ph.D.

    Clinical Psychologist, Psychology Training Director, Program Manager
    Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center
    Aurora, Colorado, United States

  • Sean M. Barnes, Ph.D.

    Clinical Research Psychologist, Associate Professor
    Rocky Mountain MIRECC; University of Colorado School of Medicine Anschutz Medical Campus, Department of Psychiatry
    Aurora, Colorado, United States

  • Robyn D. Walser, Ph.D.

    Clinical Psychology Staff, National Center for PTSD; Co-Director, Bay Area Trauma Recovery Center
    National Center for PTSD
    Menlo Park, California, United States

Increasing evidence suggests exposure to potentially morally injurious events (PMIE’s) impacts individuals from a variety of communities, like warzone Veterans, healthcare workers, and survivors of racial trauma (Borges et al., 2021; Currier et al., 2019; Fulton et al., 2023). PMIEs often prompt moral pain including painful moral emotions (e.g., guilt, shame, contempt, anger, disgust), cognitions (e.g., self or other blaming thoughts), and urges (e.g., to hide, self-medicate, suicidal behavior). Moral injury results when attempts to avoid or control moral pain significantly interfere with an individual’s personal, communal, and spiritual functioning. Given the prevalence of PMIE exposure, competence in working with moral injury is essential to facilitating client advocacy and building communities of recovery for impacted groups. Through this workshop we will provide introductory training in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Moral Injury (ACT-MI; Borges et al., 2022; Farnsworth et al., 2017), an innovative group/individual intervention developed through iterative participant feedback. Results from a randomized controlled pilot trial (N = 74 participants) will be presented, including qualitative interview data. Examples of participant feedback about ACT-MI include, “now I can say I did this [of the MIE], I lived through it, and now it’s time to get on with what I care about. I haven’t had that feeling…I don’t believe ever” and “I can live life again. I can go outside. I can spend time with my kids. I can be a better mom. I thank God every day that I got to be a part of this.” Workshop participants will be introduced to case conceptualizing in ACT-MI. Presenters will demonstrate strategies designed to support clients and therapists in flexibly interacting with moral pain. The workshop will conclude with an experiential exercise focused on building functional recovery, helping attendees to assist clients in opening to moral pain in the service of values-based living.

Outline:
• Describe how to conceptualize moral injury from a functional contextual perspective.
• Apply procedures from ACT-MI (e.g., contacting an observer you who can see but not be one’s experiences) to cultivate flexibility in responding to moral pain.
• Support clients in connecting with the present moment and practice holding moral pain without being consumed by it.
• Define the relationship between moral pain and values as two sides of the same coin.
• Explain how to guide clients in building patterns of behavior informed by their values even in the presence of moral pain.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this session, the learner will be able to:
  1. Describe how to conceptualize moral injury using principles from ACT-MI.
  2. Apply procedures from ACT-MI to cultivate flexibility in responding to moral pain.
  3. Support clients in building present moment awareness and the ability to hold moral pain without becoming consumed by it.
  4. Define the relationship between moral pain and values as two sides of the same coin.
  5. Explain how to guide clients in building patterns of behavior informed by their values.
  6. Long-term Goal: Conceptualize moral injury as the result of attempts to avoid and control moral pain leading to difficulties in social, psychological, and/or spiritual functioning.
  7. Long-term Goal: Begin to apply strategies from ACT-MI with clients to approach moral pain for the sake of connecting to meaning and values rather than relying on strategies to avoid and control pain.