Live Online Course: Less Compliance, More Interoception: Understanding What Our Bodies Need to Participate Successfully
$0.00 USD
FREE in honor of International Less Compliance Month this July!
Many of us have been taught that when participation becomes difficult, the solution is more pressure. More rewards. More behavior charts. More plans to change outward behavior. But what if there is another way?
In a recent survey, more than 300 parents, educators, therapists, and self-helpers shared their perspectives on what “less compliance” really means. While their experiences were diverse, a common theme emerged:
When participation becomes difficult, more compliance is rarely the answer.
This course explores what happens when we stop asking, “How do we make someone do it?” and start asking, “What might this person need in order to participate successfully?” Through community insights, practical examples, and an interoception-informed lens, you’ll discover why lasting participation is built through curiosity, validation, and collaboration…not pressure, rewards, or control. You’ll also gain practical language for responding to common misconceptions and advocating for less compliance approaches in everyday settings.
Can’t make it to the live course? No problem! A recording is provided to every registrant.
Description
This Live Course Includes:
- 2 hours of live instruction with Kelly (approximately 90 minutes of instruction + 30 minutes of Q&A)
- 6 months of access to the recording
- Personalized certificate of completion
- 3 exclusive handouts
Course Description:
The Less Compliance movement emerged from a simple but powerful question:
What if the problem is not that people won’t participate, but that they need a different type of support to participate successfully?
This free course explores the growing shift away from compliance-based approaches and toward approaches grounded in curiosity and interoception.
Drawing from insights shared by more than 300 members of our community, participants will explore common myths about compliance, why increasing pressure often fails to create lasting change, and how understanding internal experiences can help us support participation in more effective and sustainable ways.
For many people, the shift toward less compliance can be bumpy. There is often fear that reducing compliance means lowering expectations, creating chaos, or allowing people to avoid hard things. Yet the goal of less compliance is not to eliminate challenges, it is to help people better understand what they need to navigate challenges successfully.
Participants will also gain practical language for navigating one of the most challenging parts of getting “less compliance”: responding to common misconceptions, pushback, and fear from colleagues, family members, school teams, and other professionals.
Rather than focusing on controlling behavior, this course invites participants to become more curious about what may be happening underneath behavior and how supports can be adjusted to better meet a person’s needs.
Whether you are a parent, educator, therapist, or self-helper, this course offers a practical introduction to the ideas shaping the growing Less Compliance movement.
What You’ll Learn:
- What less compliance means and what it is not
- Why more pressure often fails to improve participation
- How compliance culture shapes the way we think about participation, success, and support
- The connection between less compliance and interoception
- Why interoceptive curiosity often reveals supports that compliance cannot
- Common forms of misconceptions, pushback, and fear regarding “less compliance” and practical language for responding to pushback with confidence
- The difference between training performance and building capacity
- Practical examples of helping people do hard things through support, body awareness, and collaboration rather than pressure and control
- First steps for beginning your own Less Compliance journey
Who This Course Is For:
This course is for you if:
- You are tired of power struggles, behavior charts, rewards, and punishment systems that do not create lasting change
- You are looking for alternatives to compliance-based approaches
- You are interested in neuro-affirming approaches to participation, regulation, and support
- You want to better understand the relationship between interoception and participation
- You are curious about the Less Compliance movement and what it actually means in practice
- You want practical ideas and language you can begin applying immediately
- You believe people deserve support in understanding what they need, not simply pressure to comply
More about Kelly Mahler: I earned a Doctorate in Occupational Therapy from Misericordia University, Dallas, PA and have been an occupational therapist for 24 years, serving school-aged children and adults. I’m winner of multiple awards, including the 2026 American Occupational Therapy Fellow Award and the 2020 American Occupational Therapy Association Emerging and Innovative Practice Award. I am an international speaker and enjoy presenting on topics related to the twelve resources I’ve authored including:
- The Interoception Curriculum: A Step-by-Step Framework for Developing Mindful Self-Regulation-used in over 30 countries world wide
- Interoception Activity Cards
