Dawn Johnson ACBS Board Member - UK And Ireland Chapter

Tell us a bit about yourself

Dawn Johnson

I am based in Birmingham, my childhood town, having returned following studies that took me to various places around England for a decade in my 20s. Birmingham has more canals than Venice and more trees per person than any other city in Europe, so I love the green spaces and being so close to nature that is easy to access and explore with my partner and super energetic dog.

Dawn Johnson

I feel most at home in a large body of water. However, despite my wild swimming passion, I have a hilarious fear of what else is sharing the water with me! Never were it truer to say, “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. My swimming adventures have taken me to some amazing places in the UK, and I love that I can be someone who undertakes a challenge.

I’m getting that feeling I always get when I write a bio for something. I look at what I have written in the paragraph above and think, “Hey, I like the sound of your life!” And, life isn’t always hunky dory, right!? I laugh, I cry, I hurt most days with chronic pain, I can be full of energy, or stuck to a sofa. Life is a mix of fabulous moments, and moments of difficulty.

If I’m being honest about who I am, I am someone who loves to feel my feelings, learning all the time about how I want to navigate the world with my feelings, and listen to the wisdom that they offer. I sometimes mess that up, and sometimes I am proud of being a person who is willing to tune in, connect, and make kind choices, both for myself as well as those around me.

I feel most at home in a large body of water. However, despite my wild swimming passion, I have a hilarious fear of what else is sharing the water with me! Never were it truer to say, “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. My swimming adventures have taken me to some amazing places in the UK, and I love that I can be someone who undertakes a challenge.

What do you do?

1

I work as a Clinical Psychologist. I worked in the NHS until 2022 and now work solely in private practice, offering therapy, supervision, and training. I have worked with people with intellectual disability and neurodiversity for most of my career. I have also worked with children and their families, and in acute mental health services.

2

I love running self-care workshops and away days for people working in helping professions. I think contextual behavioural sciences are a fantastic way to help people tune into their own needs, and make changes to their own behaviours to better nourish and nurture themselves. I also love applying this to large organisations and using values to help guide behavioural changes.

3

I have recently co-authored an ACT textbook with Dr Richard Bennett, “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: Responses to Frequently Asked Questions”. It is aimed at people with some knowledge of ACT and addresses the 50 most common questions we are asked in supervision and training events.

4

I co-deliver ACT training with Dr Richard Bennett via our training platform, ‘ACTivatingYourPractice.com’.
This is a long-form ACT programme, which aims to help people working in caring/helping professions of any kind to integrate ACT into their work, whilst being able to obtain feedback on their practice and access our supervision.

5

As part of my commitment to CBS, I volunteer on the ACBS Conference Strategy Committee and I am also the admin for a local peer supervision group called ACT BIG (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: Birmingham Interest Group).

Why are you a member of ACBS?

After learning the basics of ACT and wanting to implement the model into my clinical work, I found myself feeling rather alone and a little adrift, since I didn’t work with other clinicians who were familiar with ACT/CBS models. Joining ACBS gave me access to a worldwide network of professionals. This network has shown to be a very generous bunch of humans, who often share their knowledge and resources with the entire community. ACBS has become a homeland of people around the globe who are all committed to improving the human condition. Connecting with many of these professionals about our scientific underpinnings, current research and clinical application of CBS has brought me personal and professional nourishment and space in which I can continue to learn and grow as a fellow human being and as a clinician.

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