AACC 2026 National Conference
Professional Counseling & Coaching Workshops
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101. The Science of Targeted Supplements for Brain and Mental Health
Summary Targeted nutraceuticals offer a powerful way to support brain function, emotional balance, and mental clarity. Drawing on clinical experience with nearly 300,000 brain SPECT scans and evidence-based protocols, this workshop helps participants understand how...
102. The Increase in Covert Teenage Suicide Ideation and Self-injury: Practical Ideas for Changing Dynamics
Summary According to current research, teen suicide has become the second leading cause of death in the United States, with warning signs increasingly subtle and often masked by the digital landscape of social media and online interactions. Unlike previous decades,...
103. Faith as the Anchor of Patient Care: Analyzed Research and Treatment Outcomes
Summary Including spirituality, religion, and a person’s faith in their medical and mental health care has been widely studied, but practical steps are needed to do this well and ethically. In this workshop, participants will focus on how to integrate faith-based...
104. The Porndemic is Real: Using Intentional Resiliency in the Treatment of Pornography and Compulsive Sexual Behavior
Summary Sexual integrity seems to be under assault in today’s culture. Many people are being impacted by pornography, infidelity, and sex addiction like never before. The problem is at pandemic levels, yet there is a significant deficit concerning a proven plan to...
105. Treating the Anxious Generation: Understanding Gen Z and What Really Works
Summary Anxiety and depression levels have risen sharply in Gen Z adults. As digital natives, Gen Z navigate constant connectivity, comparison, and information overload, which can complicate emotional regulation and help-seeking. Although the impact of technology...
106. Challenging Issues in the Treatment of Complex Trauma
Summary When a psychologist, licensed mental health professional, or medical personnel is treating survivors of complex trauma, there are many challenges to this difficult work. In this presentation, participants will discuss how to navigate issues of safety for the...
107. From Distress to Connection: Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples
Summary Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for Couples is one of the most research-supported and effective therapeutic approaches for helping partners move from distress to emotional connection. This session for psychologists, licensed mental health professionals, and...
108. Wounded Love: Saving and Strengthening Marriages through the 12 Commitments of Recovering Marriage
Summary When a spouse is struggling with an addiction, that individual's marriage is often affected in numerous ways that impacts the family as a whole. In this workshop, licensed mental health professionals and ministry leaders will examine how addiction and...
109. The Faith and Science of Gratitude: Evidence-Based Pathways to Resilience and a Flourishing Life
Summary Gratitude and appreciative thinking are powerful predictors of well-being, human flourishing, and spiritual growth. This workshop is designed for psychologists, licensed mental health professionals, medical personnel, and ministry leaders seeking to enhance...
110. Confident, Skilled, and Spirit-Led: Lessons from Decades of Christian Coaching
Summary Effective coaching requires both solid training and practical experience, but the deepest growth comes from applying skills in real-world context. This workshop is for coaches and ministry leaders wanting to develop faith-based approaches with...
111. The Essential Role of Healthy Emotions in Growing a Healthy Congregation
Summary If God’s purpose for ministry leaders and coaches is to help church members and clients actually “become conformed to the Image of His Son,” then what might that actually look like? What might it mean to “grow in Christ” and become “mature Christ-followers”?...
112. Flourishing and the Recovery Journey: What We Know, Where to Go, How to Get There
Summary An important outgrowth of the positive psychology movement has been the relatively recent focus on flourishing throughout the human lifespan. Many of the dimensions of flourishing are reflected in models of recovery from addiction and other mental disorders....
201. Flourishing Under Pressure: A Christian Neuroscience Approach to Resilient Decision-Making
Summary When clients or patients are pursuing identity and purpose, adversity often feels like a painful, game-stopping roadblock. But what if it were actually the fastest path? Psychologists, licensed mental health professionals, medical personnel and ministry...
202. Strengthening Families: Clinical Tools for Addressing Childhood Emotional Dysregulation and Anxiety
Summary Emotional dysregulation and anxiety are increasingly prevalent among children, presenting significant challenges for families. Parents and caregivers often struggle to manage emotional storms, whether expressed as anger, withdrawal, or overwhelming anxiety,...
203. Let it Go: An Evidence-based, Biblically-anchored Forgiveness Program and Strategy
Summary Psychotherapy, couple therapy, and family therapy often require psychologists, licensed mental health professionals, and ministry leaders help clients forgive. The problem can be clinical, such as instances of abuse, recovery from injuries and illnesses,...
204. In Bondage to Food: A Biblical Model for Rewiring the Brain for Compulsive Eating Recovery
Summary Compulsive and addictive eating can significantly impact an individual’s physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual well-being. Many clients describe these behaviors as difficult to control, often characterized by persistent cravings, food preoccupation,...
205. Ethical Cyberpsychology: How to Work with AI in Clinical Practice
Summary AI is here to stay and is affecting how psychologists, licensed mental health professionals, medical personnel, and ministry leaders do their jobs. The real question is how to do this in an ethical manner. In this workshop, attendees will learn the three main...
206. Traumatic Memory: Tools for Helping Clients Tolerate and Integrate the Past
Summary Recent advances in neuroscience have greatly increased our understanding of how traumatic memories are formed, stored, and expressed in both the brain and the body. This knowledge has fueled the development of numerous therapeutic approaches to help clients...
207. When is the Line Crossed in Marriage? From Difficult to Destructive
Summary Research indicates that approximately one in four Christian women report being in a destructive or abusive relationship, yet many licensed mental health professionals, medical personnel, and ministry leaders receive little to no formal training in recognizing...
208. Leaving Imprints of a Christ Centered Marriage
Summary This faith centered workshop on marriage is based on scriptural steps, such as, Ephesians 5:25, and other biblical references that reflects the importance of building a marriage that focuses on helping clients build intimacy of God and each other. Coaches and...
209. Find a Way: The Connection between Relationships, Performance, Resilience, and Flourishing in Sports and Life
Summary Resilience does not emerge in isolation; it is formed, strengthened, and refined within relationships. This workshop for psychologists, licensed mental health professionals, medical personnel, academic faculty, and students explores how human connection serves...
210. Cultural Intelligence in Christian Counseling: Developing Spirit-Led Multicultural Competence
Summary This interactive session explores how faith-based pastoral counselors, coaches and ministry leaders can integrate cultural intelligence with biblical principles to foster authentic cross-cultural relationships. Drawing from his forthcoming book The Impact of...
211. Religion and Health: Empirical Evidence and Clinical Applications from a Christian Perspective
Summary This session reviews current empirical evidence on the relationship between religion, spirituality, and health, drawing from major findings presented in the third edition of the Handbook of Religion and Health (Koenig, VanderWeele, & Peteet, 2024) and related...
212. Addiction, Hope, and Recovery in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
Summary Addiction is often viewed through clinical and scientific lenses, but its nuanced portrayal in literature can provide profound insights into the human experience of substance use disorders and recovery. This workshop, co-led by a leading Tolkien scholar and an...
301. Alone: Anxiety and the Absence of Presence
Summary Anxiety is widely understood as a fundamental signal of distress in human beings, yet its deeper meaning and function require interpretation beyond neurophysiological measurement alone. While science allows clinicians to assess the biological expression of...
302. From Chaos to Clarity: Understanding and Treating ADHD, Mood, Anxiety, and Behavioral Disorders from Childhood through the Transition to Adulthood
Summary Adults often treat children and adolescents as “mini adults,” expecting immediate understanding, compliance, and performance. Their brains, emotions, and attachment systems are still developing from childhood through the transition to adulthood, and their...
303. OCD and Religious Scrupulosity/Doubt: Game-changing Transdiagnostic Techniques for Difficult Issues
Summary Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a debilitating condition marked by persistent, intrusive thoughts or images that cause significant anxiety, often leading to compulsive behaviors or mental acts aimed at neutralizing the distress. One specific form of...
304. Take a Seat: A Faith-based Clinical Approach to Using the 3 Chairs Model to Address Trauma, Pain, and Addiction
Summary Chairwork is a hands-on, experiential intervention that can meaningfully enhance clinical practice by helping clients engage directly with their internal experiences. Originating in early psychodrama and later refined within cognitive-behavioral and...
305. The Invisible Scars of Emotional Abuse: Clinical Conceptualization, Assessment, and Empirically-Supported Treatment Strategies
Summary Emotional abuse often leaves hidden wounds that impact mood, self-worth, relationships, physical health, and overall well-being. This workshop is designed for licensed mental health professionals, medical personnel, and ministry leaders to build confidence in...
306. Love After Trauma: Counseling Couples When One Has Survived Sexual Abuse
Summary When working with a couple with one of the spouses as a sexual abuse survivor, psychologists, licensed mental health professionals, medical personnel, and ministry leader need specific, key approaches for supporting couples who are navigating the effects of...
307. Help Children Self-Regulate and Self-Advocate: Remove Doubts, Increase Confidence, and Develop Healthy Independence
Summary In this practical and encouraging session, licensed mental health professionals, and ministry leaders will examine how helicopter parenting can inhibit children’s development of resilience, self-regulation, and self-advocacy. Participants will identify why...
308. Deeply Loved: Empathy Practices to Overcome Unconscious Resistances to Loving Attachments
Summary Empathy is not coddling and it’s more than listening skills; it is helping clients know they are deeply loved by God. Scripture, research, and clinical experience show that everyone needs empathy to develop loving attachments with God and others, but they are...
309. Solomon: The First Positive Psychology Practitioner
Summary Positive psychology is an emerging field that has significantly contributed to understanding human flourishing and personal well-being, but where did these principles originate? In this workshop, psychologists, licensed mental health professionals, medical...
310. Transformational Conversations: Master Coaching Skills for Lasting Life Change
Summary Research on effective coaching shows that people do not change primarily because they get more information or advice. Real, lasting change happens in transformational conversations, where a person feels safe, deeply heard, gently challenged, and supported to...
311. Standing on Solid Ground: The Foundational Role of Spirituality and Faith in a Holistic Approach to Counseling
Summary Ethical codes identify the spiritual dimension as a necessary component of competent mental health care; however, evidence suggests that many psychologists, licensed mental health professionals, and ministry leaders lack comprehensive training in the value of...
312. Spinning Out of Control: Addictions as a Trauma Response
Summary Many individuals with substance use disorders and other behavioral or process addictions have a history of trauma. These overwhelming experiences often set the stage for avoidant coping strategies to numb or escape. This workshop will explore the biological,...
401. The Science of Spiritual Healing: An Evidenced-Based Exploration of the Connection between the Mind, Body, and Spirit
Summary Human beings are tripartite with bodies, minds (souls), and spirits. Modern psychiatry focuses upon the body (brain) with its circuits, neurons, neurotransmitters, and biological interventions. Such treatments operate upon Newtonian physics, which is the...
402. The Desecration of Hope: Reframing the Adolescent Mental Health Crisis
Summary Today, adolescents are not merely experiencing a mental health epidemic; they are facing a crisis of hopelessness. Despite more mental health services, highly trained professionals, and reduced stigma, nearly half of adolescents have a diagnosable disorder,...
403. Ethics at the Edges: Navigating Counselor Vulnerability in Trauma and Attachment-Based Practice
Summary Research consistently shows that the therapeutic relationship between counselor and client is the most significant tool in the healing process. While ethics trainings often emphasize procedural steps on developing this relationship, fewer address the...
404. The Power of Boredom in Sexual Compulsivity Recovery: Rewriting Desire and Reducing Compulsion
Summary Neuroscience increasingly shows that boredom is not an empty state but a meaningful neurological event. When clients experience boredom, the brain shifts into a mode that is essential for self-reflection, emotional regulation, creativity, and long-term...
405. When Thrills Can Kill: High Risk Behaviors as Expression and Self-treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Summary Engagement in risky/self-destructive behaviors is a symptom of PTSD (DSM-5). More than 70% of the general population experiences exposure to trauma, and 10–15% may meet criteria for PTSD, with symptoms more common among veterans and first responders. Common...
406. The Rising Threat of Suicide: Recognizing, Preventing, and Responding to Suicidality Through Experiential Techniques
Summary Before the pandemic began, suicide was already a significant threat. With the ongoing traumatic pressure following the pandemic and other human-made and natural disasters, suicide has become an even greater crisis. This workshop will equip licensed mental...
407. Rhythms of a Healthy Home: Daily Practices That Build Joy, Connection, and Long-Term Family Wellbeing
Summary Healthy families know how to slow down and live in ways that allow them to intentionally build into their family’s relational and spiritual fabric. For families to enjoy life together and live at a healthy pace, they must develop daily practices and rhythms of...
408. Trauma Triggers Truth: Bridging the Gap Between Emotional Pain and Biblical Promise
Summary So many believers are living a divided life; their faith says one thing, but their trauma screams another. They love God, they know Scripture, yet their bodies still react as though danger is present. Shame tells them they should “be over it,” but trauma does...
409. Bounce Forward: A Whole-Person Care Approach to Resilience and Flourishing
Summary Resilience and flourishing are essential aims for individuals seeking to grow beyond the challenges, stressors, and life circumstances that keep them feeling stuck. This presentation introduces a range of simple, unsuspecting, innate, invisible and powerful...
410. The Confident Coach’s Toolkit: How the Core 9 Catalytic Questions Unlock Purpose, Resilience, and Breakthroughs
Summary Great coaching is not about fixing people or supplying answers. It’s about creating the conditions where insight can be drawn out. In The Confident Coach’s Toolkit, participants are introduced to a coaching framework that integrates SPA (Stillness, Presence,...
411. Repairing the Rupture: Attachment-Based, Neurobiological, and Biblical Approaches to Healing Shame
Summary Shame is more than an emotion. It is an attachment wound that speaks into one’s life on relational, mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical levels, often causing deeper pain and isolation unless repaired. For willing Chrisitan clients coming from a...
412. The Rapidly Changing Field of Substance Use, Addictions and Life Recovery
Summary The field of substance use and addiction are undergoing rapid changes including how substances are being used, how they are being acquired, and how they are being administered as well as misinformation regarding treatment. In this workshop, psychologists,...