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Check out our newest products made by VA mental health care providers and researchers. These products address topics that impact the mental health needs of Veterans and their families. Access our full collection of products.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Strategies Guide for Anxiety and Trauma-Related Problems in Living
This guide supplements the current VA Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) for ACT for Depression (ACT-D) protocol. It includes information and treatment materials relevant to anxiety and trauma-related disorders. It is meant for clinicians with training and experience in the ACT model, such as ACT-D EBP or similar training. This is not a treatment protocol.
The guide starts with a discussion of clinical anxiety and exposure therapy from an ACT perspective. It includes case examples.
It is organized into sections according to the core ACT processes.
The introductory sections:
Give clinicians a brief overview of each process as it relates to anxiety and trauma.
Suggest uses for the handouts and exercises.
List exercises and activities from the VA’s ACT Coach and Mindfulness Coach mobile/tablet applications to support work relevant to process areas.
The handouts and exercises for Veterans:
Were developed by the authors or adapted from various empirically supported ACT protocols for anxiety, trauma, and depression.
May be selected and used by clinicians as needed for individual case conceptualization with Veterans.
ACCESS: Adjusting to Chronic Conditions with Education, Support, and Skills
ACCESS is a psychosocial intervention specifically designed to address the physical and emotional issues faced by chronically ill patients. The goals of the intervention are to empower individuals via patient-centered education, teach self-management strategies, and use goals and action plans to increase skill use and success.
Involves six active treatment sessions (weekly meetings of 45-60 minutes for session 1, and 30-45 minutes for sessions 2-6).
Content in sessions 3-6 is flexible, allowing the flexibility to spend more than one session on focused skills, as needed.
Follow-up booster sessions (10-to 15-minute phone calls) are used to help solidify changes over time.
The length of the total treatment (active treatment and boosters) is 16 weeks.
The ACT on Health Toolkit helps VA medical center mental health leadership and clinicians implement 1-day acceptance and commitment training (ACT) workshops in community-based settings.
Supports collaboration between VA staff and partners at community-based organizations.
Provides brief overview of ACT and the ACT evidence base.
Toolkit organized into the workshop’s implementation phases:
Establishing community partnerships
Obtaining training and skills for workshop clinicians
Organizing and conducting workshops
Options for offering virtual online workshops and follow-up ‘drop-in’ sessions for Veterans who complete a workshop
Methods for gathering evaluation data if desired
Resources section details products that can be used to engage VA/community stakeholders and workshop participants.
Includes links to online trainings and cyber-seminars. Also has links to brief videos to publicize the workshops and train ACT clinicians.
NOT a “how-to” guide on becoming an ACT therapist.
An Active Approach to Recovering from Trauma: Breaking the Cycle of Safety Aids and Avoidance
This guide helps Veterans understand how trauma affects their lives. It will help them recover from any lasting reactions to trauma that are keeping them from living life to the fullest. They will learn to identify behaviors that are keeping them stuck in their recovery and learn a step-by-step method for changing them. This guide gives hope for recovery and the confidence to accomplish goals.
Learn about common reactions to trauma and specific ways it impacts life.
Understand how problematic avoidance behaviors (called “safety aids”) keep Veterans stuck in their recovery from trauma.
Discover what safety aids are being used to deal with distress and plan ways to learn how to live without them.
Review other resources that can assist recovery from trauma.
Bariatric surgery can have a positive impact on Veterans’ health and well-being. This self-help guide is for Veterans who are thinking about bariatric surgery and want to gain mental health skills and make their environments healthier. Their behaviors and mental health will directly affect outcomes of bariatric surgery. Making changes to their daily lives will help them succeed in their recovery after surgery. The guide:
Explains important considerations for bariatric surgery and the types of professional support Veterans can receive from their VA healthcare team before and after surgery.
Provides tools for setting goals to make bariatric surgery a success.
Reviews pre- and post-concerns to consider before having bariatric surgery.
Details the relationship between mental health and bariatric surgery.
Living with Purpose: A Guide for Getting More Out of Each Day
Many Veterans with depression do not engage in psychotherapy because of barriers like busy work schedules, chronic health conditions, or lack of transportation. This self-help workbook for mild to moderate depression provides an alternative that may better fit into Veterans’ busy lives.
Includes a clinician guide that provides a brief overview of the Veteran self-help workbook and behavioral activation.
Helpful as an adjunct to psychotherapy, allowing Veterans to learn skills independently between sessions. This allows the clinician to use face-to-face time to teach more advanced coping skills.
Incorporates behavioral activation and goal setting to get Veterans more active and more involved in rewarding activities.
Beneficial for Veterans with mild to moderate depression who are interested in self-management or those who may have mild comorbid disorders such as anxiety or PTSD.
The Great Outdoors: Engaging with Nature for Mental Health
These materials support Veterans by helping them engage in positive and healthy nature-based activities. The materials integrate the science of the benefits of engaging with nature, with the well-established approaches of behavioral activation, mindfulness, and other positive psychology exercises. The clinician manual supports the delivery of a very brief (1-2 session) or brief (3-5) session intervention in a variety of settings. The Veteran guide can be used as part of a clinician-delivered intervention, or as a self-help intervention. The material:.
Provides an overview of the science on the benefits of nature engagement and greenspace exposure.
Includes an activity to review one's past and current engagement in nature.
Integrates principles of motivational interviewing to resolve ambivalence.
Encourages value identification/prioritization and discovering nature-based activities that can support living out those values.
Uses goal setting, activity scheduling, and behavior monitoring to help Veterans increase their nature engagement.
Provides links to guided audio exercises, including 5 mindfulness exercises, 1 savoring exercise, and 2 guided imagery exercises.
Pro Tips for Coaching webSTAIR: A Transdiagnostic Web-based Program for Veterans Exposed to Trauma
webSTAIR is a Veteran-facing online version of Skills Training in Affective and Interpersonal Regulation (STAIR), which was developed for individuals who have experienced trauma. webSTAIR combines self-paced online training modules and virtual coaching sessions to support real-life skill application to improve emotion regulation, relationship functioning, and quality of life for Veterans who have experienced a trauma.The goal of this training manual is to increase the reach of webSTAIR to Veterans with mild-to-moderate levels of trauma-related symptoms.
Provides an introduction to webSTAIR and describes who is a good fit for the program, available models, and considerations when introducing Veterans to webSTAIR.
Helps clincians navigate the webSTAIR program clinician and Veteran dashboards, features, progress monitor, resources, toolbox, course list, user achievement badges, and module content.
webSTAIR is not an appropriate intervention for Veterans with severe mental health problems, or with primary clinical concerns that would be best treated by a specific type of intervention (such as Exposure Response Prevention for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Panic Disorder).
Please note that the health care information provided in these materials is for educational purposes only. It does not replace the role of a medical practitioner for advice on care and treatment. If you are looking for professional medical care, find your local VA healthcare center by using the VA Facilities Locator & Directory.
