A Clinician’s Guide to Acceptance-Based Approaches for Weight Concerns: The Accept Yourself! Framework

This clinician manual presents the Accept Yourself! Program, which is derived from empirically supported interventions (including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Health At Every Size) that have a demonstrated ability to enhance women’s mental and physical health. This book offers a clear, research-based, and forgiving explanation for clients’ failure to lose weight, helpful guidance for clinicians who are frustrated with poor client weight loss outcomes, as well as a liberating invitation to clients to give up this struggle and find another way to achieve their dreams and goals.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Part I: Why Use an Acceptance-Based Approach to Weight Management? Introduction: Choosing and Using a Self-Acceptance Based Approach: Cautions and Language 1. The Science of Obesity and Weight Loss: Why Weight Control Doesn’t Work 2. Clinician Stigma in Weight Management Treatment: First, Do No Harm 3. A New Alternative: Acceptance-Based Approaches to Client Weight Concerns Part II: Accept Yourself! Skills and Techniques 4. Exploring Weight Control as a Problem 5. Identifying and Producing Programming 6. Mindfulness and Self-Acceptance 7. Building Size Acceptance, Building Self-Acceptance 8. Identifying and Committing to the Values of Self-Nourishment 9. Identifying, Displaying, and Committing to Values with Self-Presentation 10. Embodying Values 11. Values and Barriers Part III: Special Situations in Treatment 12. Acceptance-Based Approaches When Clients Have Weight-Related Physical Health Concerns 13. Special Topics in Self-Acceptance Based Treatment References

About the Author :
Margit I. Berman is an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and associate professor of clinical psychology at the Minnesota School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University. She was the recipient of the 2015 Hitchcock Foundation Scholars Career Development award for her research and development of the Accept Yourself! intervention for women with obesity and depression. She is the past chair of the Society for Counseling Psychology’s Section for the Promotion of Psychotherapy Science, and is on the editorial boards of The Counseling Psychologist and Journal of Counseling Psychology.

Review :
"To end the profound struggle with weight and health that so many people today endure, we must stop the insanity of doing what we have always done and develop new ways to truly help people. Accept Yourself! provides an in-depth guide to doing just that, using evidence-based strategies to improve how a person relates to food, their bodies and themselves. The results can be just what the doctor ordered." Marsha Hudnall, MS, RDN, Co-owner, Green Mountain at Fox Run and 2016-2018 President, The Center for Mindful Eating. "This book is the "crash course" clinicians need to practice from the weight-inclusive paradigm with greater confidence and satisfaction. Packed with the latest weight and health science, practical counseling tools, and experiential exercises this indispensable guide will quickly become a well-worn desk resource for helping professionals who value Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Health at Every Size principles." Rebecca Scritchfield, RDN, EP-C, author of Body Kindness "Dr. Berman provides a remarkably holistic perspective about helping clients with weight-based concerns. A thoughtful and integrative approach that provides powerful ways for clients' to effectively cope with societal, medical, and psychological issues." Ty Tashiro, Ph.D., Author of Awkward: The Science of Why We're Socially Awkward and Why That's Awesome and The Science of Happily Ever After.