ACCEPTANCE & COMMITMENT THERAPY
WHAT IS ACT?
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a scientifically based treatment that has been used successfully to treat a wide range of disorders, including depression, addiction, anxiety, trauma, among many others. ACT teaches a wide array of skills, but at the heart of ACT, you learn how to identify your core values and how to structure your life so that you are acting in service of these values. Ultimately, ACT connects you with what really matters to you, and helps you identify how to live a life that is most meaningful to you. With this understanding, these values guide who you want to be and what you chose to do.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The ultimate goal of ACT is to connect you with a more purposeful, meaningful life, while learning how to handle the pain that inevitably goes with this pursuit. ACT assumes that:
1. Life is difficult.
2. A full human life experience includes the full range of emotions, both pleasant and painful.
3. Human minds naturally amplify psychological suffering.
In ACT, we assume that life inevitably involves pain. No matter how pleasant life is, we inevitably experience frustration, disappointment, rejection, loss, and sadness. On top of this, we have a mind that is very capable at conjuring up pain at any moment. ACT teaches you how to live a life that is most connected to who you are by identifying and connecting with your values and learning skills to maintain psychological flexibility in the face of life’s inevitable challenge.
WHAT CAN I EXPECT WITH ACT?
- You will learn how to identify what is most important and meaningful to you and how best to use this understanding to guide you to behave in ways that enrich and enhance your life.
- You will learn mindfulness skills that will enable you to handle thoughts and feelings more effectively.
NOTES ABOUT ACT
The ultimate goal of ACT is to create Psychological Flexibility, which refers to being present, opening up, and doing what matters. You achieve Psychological Flexibility by learning the six core therapeutic processes:
Contact with the present moment: When you are in contact with the present moment, you build your capacity to pay attention in the present moment. One of the primary tools to increase contact with the present moment is to build an individual mindfulness practice. Through mindfulness, you learn how to become more attuned to the physical world around you as well as the psychological world within yourself.
Defusion: Cognitive defusion allows you to learn how to “detach” from your thoughts. Defusion enables you to watch your thinking as opposed to becoming entangled by it. Ultimately, defusion allows you to hold your thoughts lightly instead of clutching them tightly, reducing the power that your thoughts can hold over you.
Acceptance: Often times, when we avoid, our problems tend to get worse. Acceptance allows you to make room for unwanted experiences, thoughts, and emotions. Instead of resisting them by fighting or avoiding them, ACT teaches you to open up and make room for them.
Self-as-context or noticing self: ACT posits that there are two different components to the mind: a part that thinks, and a part that notices. For many of us, we are constantly engulfed by the part that thinks; this prevents us from accessing the part of our minds that is aware of what we’re thinking, feeling, or doing in the moment. ACT teaches us how to utilize the noticing self to gain separation from our thinking selves and connect more with the present moment.
Values: Values guide our physical and emotional well-being similar to how a compass would navigate one to their destination. When you have a strong sense of what truly matters, you can clearly see how to take action to reach your ultimate destination. Understanding your deepest values helps you understand what you want your life to look like, what you stand for, and how you want to treat yourself and others.
Committed Action: Committed action means to take effective action towards our values. It’s helpful to have a deep understanding of what your values are; committed action helps you understand what actions to put into place to move closer to your values. Only when you take action towards your values, does your life become more rich, meaningful, and fulfilling.