What Is a Pathway?
A Pathway is a curated learning sequence designed to help you build understanding over time, without overwhelm.
Think of pathways as guided learning tracks. Each one brings together articles, short videos, audio segments, slides, and practical reflections around a specific theme. In many ways, they function like self paced online courses, but without rigid timelines, required completion, or a single “right” order.
Pathways are designed to support real world learning. They prioritize clarity, usefulness, and integration over volume or complexity.
How Pathways Are Structured
Each pathway is organized around a central focus and typically includes:
- Core overview articles that introduce key ideas
- Short videos or audio segments to deepen understanding
- Visual slides or diagrams to support integration
- Optional reflections, exercises, or next steps
- Suggested resources for continued learning
Some pathways are introductory. Others are more advanced or application focused. All are designed to be returned to repeatedly as your understanding deepens.
How to Use a Pathway
Pathways are intentionally flexible.
You can move through them sequentially or jump to the sections most relevant to your current needs. Start with the overview content to orient yourself, then explore the supporting materials at your own pace.
There is no expectation to “complete” a pathway in one sitting. These are living resources meant to support ongoing learning, reflection, and practice.
Why Pathways Are Organized This Way
Learning complex material works best when it is contextual, layered, and revisited over time.
Pathways are designed to:
- Reduce overwhelm by organizing material into coherent themes
- Provide a clear map rather than isolated content
- Support both new learners and experienced clinicians
- Encourage functional understanding rather than memorization
- Allow learning to unfold alongside real clinical or professional work
Rather than offering disconnected resources, pathways help you see how ideas fit together and why they matter in practice.
Where to Begin
If you are new to a topic, start with the introductory pathway. These are designed to orient you to the language, assumptions, and foundational ideas that support everything else.
If you are returning to a familiar area, use pathways as a way to refine, deepen, and reconnect with the material from a more experienced perspective.
Each pathway is a doorway into a larger body of work. You decide how far and how fast to go.
Foundational Pathways
1. ACT Basics
An introduction to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as a functional, contextual approach. Covers what ACT is and is not, the six core flexibility processes, and how ACT works in real clinical practice. Designed for new learners or those wanting a clean, organized refresher.
RIACT
Future Roadmap
Pathways that are under development and/or being transferred to this platform:
2. FACT (Focused ACT)
A practical pathway focused on delivering ACT efficiently and intentionally. Explores session structure, clinical focus, and how to work flexibly without overcomplicating the model. Emphasizes direction, workability, and in the moment decision making.
3. Subtle Essence
A deeper exploration of ACT as a stance rather than a set of techniques. Focuses on presence, relational depth, therapist behavior, and the subtle interpersonal processes that shape therapeutic change. Less about doing ACT and more about being an ACT therapist.
Theory and Philosophy Pathways
These pathways support conceptual clarity and deepen functional thinking.
4. Functional Contextualism
An accessible, clinician friendly pathway into the philosophical foundation of ACT. Focuses on function over form, context over content, and workability as the primary question. Designed to help clinicians think in terms of patterns, processes, and behavior in context.
5. Relational Frame Theory (RFT)
An applied orientation to RFT without requiring academic fluency. Covers relational framing, language, fusion, and how human cognition creates both suffering and flexibility. Emphasizes clinical relevance rather than theory mastery.
6. Process Based Therapy (PBT)
Introduces Process Based Therapy as an evolution beyond diagnosis driven models. Focuses on idiographic assessment, targeting change processes, and building flexible treatment plans that adapt to the individual rather than the label.
Clinical Application Pathways
These pathways translate theory into action inside the therapy room.
7. Metaphors and Clinical Application
A practical pathway on using metaphors intentionally and effectively. Covers why metaphors work, how to deliver them experientially, and how to adapt them in the moment based on client response and context.
8. Experiential Interventions
Focuses on experiential exercises, mindfulness practices, and in session activities. Explores how and why experiential work creates change, and how to use it without forcing, performing, or overexplaining.
9. Case Conceptualization and Planning
A functional approach to understanding clients and guiding treatment. Covers pattern recognition, the Three T’s, workability questions, and process informed planning rather than protocol driven care.
Professional Development Pathways
These pathways support sustainability, supervision, and long term growth.
10. Supervision and Therapist Development
Explores ACT informed supervision, therapist self awareness, use of self, and ongoing skill development. Designed for supervisors, residents, and clinicians committed to reflective practice.
11. Business Development for Therapists
A pragmatic pathway focused on building a sustainable private practice. Covers structure, systems, marketing, financial planning, and decision making through a functional and values aligned lens. Emphasizes sustainability over hustle.
12. Integrating ACT Into Real World Practice
A synthesis pathway focused on applying ACT across settings and roles. Covers integration with existing training, interdisciplinary work, documentation, and working within real world constraints without losing the ACT stance.