True North provides consultation and education in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and other Contextual Behavioral therapies. We work with mental health professionals and laypeople. Our current services include:
- workshops for mental health professionals
- in-service training for mental health professionals
- individual and group clinical supervision
- consultation for laypeople in a group and organizational settings
Miranda Morris, Ph.D., the founder of True North, is a Peer-Reviewed ACT Trainer. She works in collaboration with other local ACT trainers to provide engaging, high-quality training.
Our approach to training is flexible and individualized to meet the needs of our clients. True North endeavors to deliver training that balances didactics, skills acquisition, and experiential work. We have found that this multi-faceted approach enables clinicians to challenge themselves and develop the therapeutic skills associated with better clinical outcomes.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is founded upon a strong theoretical and empirical framework. It is a unique psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies, together with commitment and behavior change strategies. The aim of ACT is to increase psychological flexibility: contacting the present moment fully as a conscious human being, based on what the circumstances allow, changing or persisting in behavior in the service of chosen values.
ACT is born of a theory of language (Relational Frame Theory; RFT) and illuminates the ways in which people get entangled in language and concomitant struggles to control psychological events. In other words, human beings get stuck in their heads, lost and wasting precious time in futile attempts to wage war against their own inner lives. Using metaphor, paradox, and experiential exercises ACT teaches clients how to make healthy contact with thoughts, feelings, memories, and physical sensations that have been feared and avoided. Clients gain the skills to make room for and accept these psychological events, develop greater clarity about personal values, and commit to needed behavior change.