In November, Kelly G. Wilson leads The Poetics of ACT in Moab, where the hardest decision of the afternoon is which arch to visit. Kelly is a co-founder of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Mississippi, and founder of OneLife Education and Training.

In February, Tina Payne Bryson leads The Way of Play in Islamorada, where the main hazard is a pelican eyeing your lunch. Tina is the New York Times bestselling co-author of The Whole-Brain Child, founder of The Center for Connection, and one of the most recognized voices on the developing brain.

Moab is red and orange rock in the high desert, where water is scarce. The Keys are turquoise water and white sand, with water everywhere you look. The workshops are as different as the places. Both look closely at how we listen and respond to a client, moment by moment.

The poetics

Kelly describes poetics as a disciplined way of attending. In his words: “Poetry is a close read of experience — which is rarely straightforward, often contradictory, partly known and partly not. You have to sit with it to see what else is there.”

In Moab, that means three days of slowing down, learning to follow the tone and rhythm of what a client is living, and practicing a principle Kelly calls slow is fast — which, for a room of therapists who run on fifty-minute hours, takes some getting used to.

He describes the desert as somewhere to “sit in the hollow for a moment and see what rises up.”

The play

Tina’s teaching is rooted in interpersonal neurobiology. In The Way of Play, play is how human beings build regulation and connection — at four years old and at forty-four.

As Tina put it when we spoke with her: “Play is more than something you do; it’s a neurophysiological state, a mindset, a way of being in the world.”

She teaches seven strategies, with names like Make Yourself a Mirror and Narrate to Integrate. Her examples come from children and families. If your caseload is mostly adults, you will still recognize the work — attunement and making sense of a hard story are not just for kids.

She also does not treat play as something reserved for easy times. “The more threat and devastation present in our lives,” she told us, “the more we have to play.”

The Keys pull you outward and into motion, with kayaks and paddleboards waiting for anyone staying at the resort who wants to test the theory of play firsthand.

Where the two meet

Both workshops speak to the artistic side of psychotherapy. Kelly gets there through poetry, Tina through play. Either way, the work is our presence with a client, and the space that presence creates for meaning to rise up.

That takes a willingness to be curious, to wonder, to ponder. Each workshop gives you three days to practice it.

Open through play or open through poetics. Pick one, or come to both.

The details

Both programs offer 12 APA- and ASWB-approved CE hours in half-day sessions: Monday from 1:00 to 5:15 PM, Tuesday from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM with lunch provided, and Wednesday from 8:45 AM to 1:00 PM. Enrollment for each is capped at 70. The afternoons are yours — for the trail, the water, a long nap, or the people who traveled with you.

The Poetics of ACT — Moab, Utah, November 9–11, 2026. Seats remain. Learn more and register

The Way of Play — Islamorada, Florida Keys, February 8–10, 2027. Learn more and register