ACT is more than something to explain. It's something to experience.
The ACT Experience is a six-week, live online professional-development program for mental-health clinicians. Through a shared tabletop adventure and guided reflection, you'll encounter opportunities to notice thoughts, make room for discomfort, identify values, and choose your next move.
You don't need to know how to play a tabletop role-playing game. And you don't need to want to become a therapeutic game master.
Six live sessions · 90 minutes each · Small-group format
A physical participant kit is mailed to you. Each week combines ACT learning, collaborative play, and reflection. Dates and enrollment details are announced as new cohorts are formed.
What might you take away?
- An experience of ACT: notice psychological flexibility processes in the moment rather than only discussing them in the abstract.
- A different kind of professional learning: participate, reflect, and connect concepts to your own choices and experiences.
- Clinical possibilities: consider what carefully designed role-play can offer clients and groups, even if you never plan to facilitate a TTRPG yourself.
The six-week experience
Week 1 — Getting Started
Meet the group, learn how the game works, begin building a character, and explore self-as-context alongside the stories we tell about ourselves.
Week 2 — Finding Your Bearings
Set safety preferences, clarify values, and practice present-moment awareness as the group prepares for the adventure.
Week 3 — The Adventure Begins
Notice thoughts, predictions, and fears as the story unfolds. Explore cognitive defusion without needing to make difficult thoughts disappear.
Week 4 — Loss and Uncertainty
Use the adventure's setbacks and surprises to explore acceptance and willingness to experience what shows up.
Week 5 — Choosing the Next Move
Explore committed action by taking meaningful steps even when outcomes are uncertain or uncomfortable.
Week 6 — Beyond the Adventure
Bring the story toward a close, revisit the six ACT processes, and consider how these experiences connect to life and clinical work.
Why use a tabletop adventure?
An unfolding story creates opportunities for uncertainty, perspective-taking, connection, risk, failure, persistence, and values-based choice. These moments can become material for reflective learning. The game isn't a treatment in itself, and participation isn't a test of gaming ability; it is a carefully facilitated context in which psychological flexibility can be explored.
What if role-play is unfamiliar or uncomfortable?
That's expected for some participants. You'll be introduced to the rules as you go, and the group establishes safety preferences before play. The goal is curiosity and participation at a pace you can work with, not theatrical performance.
Do I need to be familiar with ACT?
Not at all! The ACT Experience introduces the core processes of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy through shared adventure, guided reflection, and discussion. If you're new to ACT, it's an opportunity to learn about psychological flexibility by experiencing the processes firsthand. If you're already familiar with ACT, it's an opportunity to practice what you know and perhaps gain a fresh perspective by experiencing the processes from the participant's point of view.
Your participant kit
Each participant receives a printed guide and workbook, Dungeon Crawl Classics dice, a dice map, character sheets, an Academy pencil, and other materials needed during the six sessions. The workbook and materials support in-session and between-session reflection.
Does The ACT Experience qualify for continuing education credit?
The ACT Experience provides nine hours of live, experiential professional development. Clinicians participate in the same kinds of activities they may later facilitate with clients, with additional discussion and reflection focused on understanding and applying the Heroes Quest approach.
Heroes Quest Academy will provide a certificate documenting attendance, training hours, and program content. The program is not currently pre-approved by NBCC, NASW, or other national continuing education approval organizations. Whether these hours qualify for continuing education credit depends on your licensing board and jurisdiction. If CE credit is important to you, please confirm your board's requirements before enrolling.
Interested in a future cohort?
You can tell us about your interests and general availability without committing to enroll. Joining the Academy list also includes a free copy of Roll for Flexibility, our short guide to experiential ACT and therapeutic tabletop role-playing.
