Evidence-Based Trainings for Coaches and Clinicians
As a psychologist, executive coach, trainer, and author, I offer live and on-demand evidence-based training grounded in contextual behavioral science and positive psychology for therapists, coaches, and healthcare providers worldwide.
For over a decade, I've trained thousands of practitioners through partnerships with Harvard's Institute of Coaching, PESI, Contextual Consulting, and Praxis Continuing Education.
My programs equip you with frameworks and practical tools—focused on psychological flexibility, emotional efficacy, and behavior change—that elevate your work and improve client outcomes.
“With deep expertise in both therapy and coaching, Dr. West’s training is a rare and valuable opportunity for coaches seeking to help clients develop a more powerful relationship with their emotions and choices.”
– Josh Hillis, Head Coach and Curriculum Design, GMB Eating Skills, Author of Lean and Strong: Eating Skills, Psychology, and Workouts
ON-DEMAND COURSE
Emotional Efficacy Training
Empower your clients to harness their emotions and take values-based action.
*Now Available On Demand
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Your clients make 35,000 choices every day, and emotions drive those choices. Emotion efficacy is the ability—and belief in one's ability—to harness emotional experience, decode emotions, and act on what matters most.
Emotional Efficacy Therapy (EET) blends ACT, DBT, and exposure therapy into a brief, experiential protocol that helps clients respond intentionally to emotion triggers and take values-aligned action. An estimated 75% of therapy clients struggle with low emotion efficacy, making this training essential for accelerating client results.
A growing body of research shows EET significantly increases emotion regulation and distress tolerance while reducing anxiety, depression, trauma symptoms, and addiction relapse rates.
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This expanded on-demand training includes 7 learning modules with video instruction, recorded demos, reference handouts, worksheets, homework prompts, and guided experiential scripts you can use with clients immediately.
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Participants will learn to help clients:
Decode emotion triggers (defaults + values)
Observe and label emotional "STUF" (Sensations, Thoughts, Urges, Feelings)
Surf emotion waves instead of reacting
Clarify and act on values in moments of choice
Regulate emotions to act on what matters most
Track the function of actions using the WTF? inquiry
Practice skills in an activated state so learning sticks
You'll also learn to recognize common presentations of low emotion efficacy, identify underlying psychological processes that inhibit effectiveness, and increase your confidence working with emotional activation.
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Participants will leave the training with:
New learning tools in the form of over 40 NEW handouts and worksheets you can use with clients that include: diagrams, reflections, and experiential exercises
Instructional decks that can be used in individual, group or training settings
Access to guided online emotional efficacy practice
Optional practice in live sessions to increase your skill and confidence to apply EET skills with your clients
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All didactic and course materials are available on-demand.
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All EET on-demand tools, materials and are available as follows:
$495 for professionals | $225 for students.
ON-DEMAND COURSE
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Getting stuck when working with psychologically inflexible clients is common. Despite powerful clinical tools, progress can feel minimal. This happens because you need to know not just WHAT to do, but HOW to create the context for transformation.
Psychological flexibility is the ability to maintain an open, curious, skillful relationship with experience while adapting to situational demands and staying focused on what matters most. It's rooted in ACT and recognized as critical for enhancing both flourishing and high performance.
Research across over 1,000 trials shows psychological flexibility improves:
Physical and mental health
Workplace performance, satisfaction, and engagement
Self-efficacy and goal attainment
Resilience and decreased burnout
Team dynamics and leadership effectiveness
References: Skews, R., West, A., Archer, R. (2021). Acceptance and Commitment Coaching in the Workplace. In: Smith, W.A., Boniwell, I., Green, S. (eds) Positive Psychology Coaching in the Workplace. Springer, Cham.
Archer, Rob et al. (2024). Increasing workforce psychological flexibility through organization-wide training: Influence on stress resilience, job burnout, and performance. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 33, 100799.
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This 1-day training takes you through the complete ACT model using process-based cognitive-behavioral strategies to accelerate psychological flexibility across diagnoses and improve client outcomes.
You'll learn to make expert-level therapeutic moves with ACT to help clients decrease suffering and live meaningful lives—regardless of diagnosis or functioning level. This workshop enhances your ability to work with chronic stress, anxiety, depression, emotional dysregulation, trauma/PTSD, and compulsive behaviors.
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Participants will learn to:
Identify core underlying processes related to mental health and wellbeing
Distinguish between the 6 psychological flexibility processes in the ACT hexaflex model
Apply "open" skills to address experiential avoidance and time-focus issues
Utilize "aware" skills to address over-identification with self as content and cognitive fusion
Demonstrate "engage" skills to address lack of meaning and purposeful action
Conduct experiential exercises to enhance learning, retention, and recall
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Acceptance and Commitment Theory: The myth of “normal”
What does wellbeing look like?
The Human Condition: Pain vs suffering
Why Acceptance and Commitment Therapy ACT?
The ACT Model: Psychological Flexibility
The problem of avoidance: the Inflexahex model
How ACT is different from other approaches
Evidence of ACT
Limitations of the research and potential risks
Components of the ACT Model Present Moment Awareness (PMA)
The power of anchoring in the present
Common obstacles to Present Moment Awareness
Metaphor for PMA
PMA experientials to contact the “here and now”
Acceptance
The opposite of control
What’s possible with non-reactivity
Acceptance of painful emotions and realities
What acceptance is not
Obstacles to acceptance
Metaphor for acceptance
Acceptance experientials
Defusion
Benefits of holding thoughts lightly
The power of language
Obstacles to defusion
Metaphor for defusion
Defusion experiential
Self As Context (SAC)
3 levels of ‘selfing’
Benefits of flexible perspective taking
Obstacles to Self as Context
Metaphor for Self as Context
SAF experientials
Values
The power of values
Values vs. scripts or goals
Obstacles to clarifying values
Values clarification
Values-based action plan
Metaphors for clarifying values
Committed Action
Benefits of values-based moves
Pivoting from default to intention
Using functional inquiry to stay on track
Obstacles to committed action
Committed action metaphor:
Committed action experiential
Pulling it all together
Embodying ACT to be a psychologically flexible clinician
Workability as a guide
ACT case conceptualization
Pop culture examples
Integrating other therapies with ACT
Common obstacles to PF in therapy
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This is a 1-day training available on demand.
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From $224.99
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) Training
(7 CEs)
Activating Psychological Flexibility for Anxiety, Trauma & Emotional Dysregulation using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
*Now Available On Demand
LIVE COURSE
Coaching for Psychological Flexibility
(8.5 CCEs)
Elevate your coaching practice with a powerful process-based approach for increasing wellbeing and performance.
Registration is closed. Please register your interest in future Coaching for Psychological Flexibility trainings.
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For too long, psychology has focused on helping people feel better by eliminating discomfort. But wellbeing and performance don't depend on feeling good.
People with high psychological flexibility can face difficult emotions and do hard things that matter. Instead of struggling with feelings, they learn to surf them. Instead of being controlled by thoughts, they expand their perspective. Instead of staying stuck with good intentions, they take action—even when triggered, even when things change quickly, even in uncertainty.
Research shows psychological flexibility improves mental health, wellbeing, and performance by increasing behavioral flexibility, mental agility, goal clarity, resilience, and life satisfaction.
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This live 3-part training series teaches cutting-edge, evidence-based interventions to help your clients increase psychological flexibility. You'll develop the confidence to design behavior change work grounded in a more powerful relationship with emotions and choices.
Even if you're new to psychological flexibility, this program provides the theory, application, and practice you need to use it with clients immediately.
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Participants will learn to:
Define psychological flexibility
Identify the core psychological components of psychological flexibility related to performance & wellbeing
Design goals with clients that are culturally sensitive using the principle of “workability”
Apply “mindfulness” skills to increase Emotion Awareness and Acceptance
Apply “mental agility” skills to increase Defusion and Flexible Selfing
Apply “meaningful move” skills to increase •Values-based Action
Track psychological flexibility processes with clients in session
Use metaphors and experiential exercises to enhance learning, retention and recall
Design behavioral experiments with clients to increase psychological flexibility in action
Model psychological flexibility as part of the context they co-create with clients
Please note: to accelerate your learning and confidence, this training includes experiential partner practice and participants will be assigned to breakout rooms unless otherwise arranged in advance
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New learning tools: handouts and worksheets that include: diagrams, reflections, and experiential exercises
Instructional decks: that can be used to review course materials, or used in individual, group or training settings
Coaching demos: so you can observe the skills in action
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This is a 3-part training series held on Zoom for 3.5 hours across three weeks.
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All psychological flexibility training, tools, materials and are available for a one-time fee of $750
*Space is limited to the first 15 people who register
**A limited number of scholarships are available for coaches working in developing nations. Please reach out to discuss.
LIVE COURSE
Flexible Selfing for Coaches & Therapists
(6 CEs)
A novel parts work approach to using Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Internal Family Systems (IFS) to increase psychological flexibility
*Registration is closed. Please register your interest in future Flexible Selfing trainings.
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Working with different parts of ourselves is an effective way to improve how we relate to our Self. When parts are more clearly differentiated, we can integrate sometimes conflicting—and sometimes harmonious—interests and desires to become more psychologically flexible.
Flexible selfing is a non-pathologizing approach that takes a "no bad parts" stance. By exploring the functional nature of parts in context, clients learn to integrate aspects of themselves with awareness and compassion. This differentiation and integration lead to increased choicefulness, allowing people to relate to themselves in more contextually-sensitive ways.
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This 2-session workshop integrates a contextual behavioral view of the self (ACT) with parts work (IFS). You'll learn how to help clients accept and decode emotions, hold multiple perspectives, and commit to values-based action.
Clients learn to:
See their self as multi-leveled, multi-perspective, and integrated
Understand the values-based function of parts in context
Identify how parts sometimes lead them away from what matters
Normalize urges to avoid discomfort and increase willingness to move toward what matters
Includes didactic instruction, experiential practice, live demos, and Q&A.
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Participants will learn to:
Define psychological flexibility
Recite the 3 levels of selfing
Describe the relationship between selfing and psychological flexibility
List consequences of inflexible selfing
Describe the values-based function of parts and behavior in context
Identify and name parts using method acting techniques
Use experiential exercises to integrate experience and mobilize values-based action
Note: This course is experiential and includes practice identifying parts and working with another participant.
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This is a 1-day training series held on Zoom for 6 hours.
LIVE COURSE
Intro to Working with Emotion in Coaching
This course will be available again in 2026. Sign up to be notified when the cohort opens.
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Helping clients be skillful with their emotions is fundamental to coaching. The way people relate to their emotions shapes how they experience themselves, their lives, and how they act—especially under stress.
Yet there's a lack of training in the coaching field about the role of emotion and how to work with it responsibly. Many coaches avoid emotion work because they lack skills or worry about overstepping ethical bounds. This skills deficit can significantly limit what's possible for clients.
Whether you realize it or not, you already work with your clients' emotions. Unless you've learned the fundamentals of emotion psychology and concrete skills, you're unlikely to help clients tap their full potential. An estimated 38% of coaching clients struggle with low emotion efficacy.
Learning to work with your client's emotions—and your emotions about your clients' emotions—is essential for delivering powerful coaching. This course is grounded in contextual behavioral science and positive psychology, designed to help you develop an ethical, trauma-informed, evidence-based approach.
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This 4-hour introductory training teaches you how to help clients develop more powerful relationships with their emotions and choices. Grounded in behavioral psychology, neuroscience, and learning theory, you'll learn evidence-based skills to help clients develop emotional intelligence, psychological flexibility, and resilience.
Through didactic instruction, demonstration, and experiential practice, you'll gain skills to help clients navigate stress, challenge, and pain with increased effectiveness. You'll also receive materials to use directly with clients.
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From this introductory course participants will be able to:
Distinguish working with emotion in coaching versus therapy
Describe the role of emotions in the psychology of wellbeing and performance
Distinguish emotional signals from emotional defaults
Describe the 4 core skills for expanding emotional efficacy
Develop increased confidence in evoking and processing emotion with clients
Execute ethical, trauma-informed emotion work with clients
Screen clients for emotion work that requires clinical expertise
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Participants will receive a certificate of completion for the Intro To Working With Emotion In Coaching training.
You’ll also receive a PDF download of materials you can use for working with clients.
In addition, you’ll get access to on-demand experiential practice you can use to rehearse or use directly with clients.
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This is a 3-part training series held on Zoom for 3.5 hours across three weeks.