At Talking Therapies UK, we are passionate about equipping professionals with the knowledge, confidence, and compassion to support mental health across diverse settings. With decades of combined experience in clinical practice, public health leadership, and service transformation, our training programmes are rooted in evidence-based approaches and real-world application.
We specialise in delivering high-impact, trauma-informed mental health training tailored to the needs of health, education, social care, and voluntary sector teams. From safeguarding and suicide prevention to emotional resilience and therapeutic communication, our courses are designed to empower practitioners at every level—whether you’re frontline staff, a strategic commissioner, or part of a multi-agency partnership.
Our facilitators bring many years clinical expertise , and a deep understanding of the social determinants of mental health. We prioritise co-production, reflective practice, and inclusive learning environments that foster curiosity, empathy, and professional growth.
Whether you’re looking to upskill your workforce, embed mental health into your organisational culture, or meet statutory training requirements, we offer flexible delivery formats including in-person workshops, webinars, and bespoke consultancy.
Together, we can build psychologically safe, responsive systems that promote wellbeing, reduce inequalities, and improve outcomes for individuals, families, and communities. Let’s shape the future of mental health—one conversation, one training, one transformation at a time..
Moving around the hexaflex in session: experiential work, metaphor, and functional analysis in the room.
ACT read from a book and ACT delivered in session are different skills. This course teaches the second one: for practitioners who know the hexaflex and now want to move around it fluently with real clients, choosing processes by function rather than following a sequence by habit.
The first module puts the engine on the bench. You will learn functional analysis as ACT practises it, asking what a behaviour does rather than what it looks like, and use it to choose which process to work at any given moment. You will then study the craft of experiential work: delivering metaphor so it lands as discovery rather than decoration, and running in-session exercises with precision and consent. The second module addresses willingness, graded exposure ACT-style with the dial always in the client's hand, and then turns the model on its deliverer: the therapist's own hooks, fusions and avoidances, and how they shape what happens in the room.
Substantial written lessons with key points and practice tasks that build in-session skill, with a study tutor throughout. Ten hours of CPD with around nine months of access, a final assessment, and a personalised certificate on passing. For clinicians who want their ACT to feel like ACT.
▶ See inside the digital classroom1 minute 36 seconds · how a course is laid out, how each lesson is taught, and how the tutor helps
Before you start
This is a Practitioner course in the ACT pathway. It assumes that you already hold the Foundation knowledge of this approach, whether from the Foundation course or from your training and practice, which is what ACT Foundations teaches. What it adds is formulation and treatment decisions with real caseloads: the disorder-specific or situation-specific methods, sequencing, and what to do when the standard approach does not work; it revisits the foundations only as far as it needs to before building on them, so it does not repeat the course below.
If you have not met this approach before, ACT Foundations is the place to start; if you already hold its foundations from your training or practice, this is the right level to begin at.
The ACT pathway. Acceptance and commitment therapy from the six core processes to process-based work with complex presentations.
10 study hours10 CPD hours certified9 months of accessAI tutor in every lessonCertificate on completion (pass mark 70%)
What you will be able to do
✓Assess clients in ACT terms, mapping each hexaflex process and where flexibility breaks down
✓Select and sequence defusion, acceptance, present-moment, self-as-context, values and committed-action work within sessions
✓Use metaphor and experiential exercise skilfully, and recover when an exercise falls flat
✓Build values-based behavioural commitments with workable scope and follow-through
✓Apply ACT to anxiety, low mood and chronic pain presentations with fidelity to process, not script
✓Track process change in session and let workability, not ideology, decide what happens next
What you will study
Module 1: Foundations and Functional Analysis in ACT
This module explores the core ACT engine, functional analysis, and the art of experiential tracking and metaphor.
Function over form: the ACT engineFunction, not form: what the behaviour does in context
Metaphor and experiential exercise, done wellMetaphors are functional analyses in story form
Functional analysis and process selection in ACT: from formulation to experiential interventionFunctional analysis identifies the contextual variables that maintain inflexible repertoires and maps them onto the hexaflex processes.
Process facilitation and the art of trackingProcess facilitation is the active skill of tracking a client's movement towards or away from a psychological process, rather than forcing the process itself.
The Therapist as Bridge: Integrating Analysis with ExperienceThe therapist acts as a process guide, facilitating the client's movement towards values rather than imposing a solution.
Module 2: Process-Specific Experiential Interventions and Values
This module focuses on tailoring experiential exercises to the six core processes and integrating client values with willingness.
Process‑Specific Experiential Interventions: Tailoring Exercises to the Six Core ProcessesMatch each experiential technique to the client’s dominant functional obstacle as identified in the functional analysis.
Values‑Guided Process Selection: Integrating Commitment and Experiential Work in ACTValues clarification should be woven into functional analysis to identify where avoidance blocks valued action.
Willingness with the dial in the client's handWillingness is chosen approach with the dial in the client's hand
The therapist's own hooksTherapists fuse and avoid too: fixing, rescuing, dodging anger
The Therapist's Own Willingness DialThe concept of the therapist’s own willingness dial sits at the heart of an authentic ACT stance and demands a level of self‑relational skill that goes beyond t…
Module 3: Enhancing Therapist Psychological Flexibility and Willingness
This module applies ACT processes to the therapist's own behaviour, values, and psychological flexibility in clinical practice.
