Acceptance & Commitment Therapy

Q: What is ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy)?

A: ACT (said as the word ‘act’, not the initials ‘A.C.T.’) is an evidence-based therapy, drawing heavily on mindfulness, values and compassion.
The main aims of ACT are to reduce psychological suffering, foster health and wellbeing, and help people build richer, fuller lives.
ACT  achieves these aims  through fostering an ability known as psychological flexibility.

Q: What is ‘Psychological Flexibility’?

A: Psychological flexibility is our ability to focus on and engage in what we are doing; to open up and respond flexibly to our inner world; and to act effectively, guided by our values.

In simpler language: Psychological flexibility is our capacity to be present, open up, and do what matters.

Psychological flexibility involves three interconnected skill sets:

Be Present
Focus attention on what’s important, and engage fully in activity.
When you focus on what you’re doing, you do it better.
And when you engage fully in what you’re doing, especially if it’s something potentially pleasurable, you get more satisfaction from doing it.
So the better you can focus and engage, the more effective you are at whatever you’re doing, and the more fulfilling it will be.

Open Up
Develop new skills to handle thoughts and feelings more effectively.
You learn how to make room for and take the power out of difficult thoughts and feelings; how to reduce their impact and influence, so they can’t keep jerking you around, holding you back, or running your life.
And you also learn how to effectively utilise any thoughts and feelings that are potentially helpful.

Do What Matters:
Use values to inspire, motivate and guide effective, ongoing action.
Values are your heart’s deepest desires for how you want to behave as a human being; how you want to treat yourself, others and the world around you.
ACT teaches you to use your values to guide, inspire and motivate you: to help you do what matters, face your fears, live meaningfully, tackle your problems, and take action to change your life for the better.

 

Q: What Is The ‘Acceptance’ Part of ACT?

A: ‘Acceptance’ is a commonly misunderstood term. It does not mean tolerating it, putting up with it, giving in, giving up, sucking it up, surrendering, settling, etc. What we mean by ‘acceptance’ in ACT is responding to your inner world – your thoughts, feelings, emotions, urges, and memories – in a radically new way. It means opening up to those difficult inner experiences, taking the power out of them, and letting them flow through you. It means stripping them of their power, impact, and influence – and allowing them to freely come and stay and go, without any struggle. This is an important skill to learn, because when we respond to difficult thoughts and feelings in more typical ways – fighting them, avoiding them, suppressing them, challenging them, distracting ourselves from them – this often paradoxically amplifies their frequency, intensity and impact.

 

Q: What Is The ‘Commitment’ Part of ACT?

A: ‘Commitment’ is a commonly misunderstood term. It means, we commit to building and living a a rich and meaningful life. We use our values to inspire, motivate and guide us to take action: to tackle our problems, face our fears, and do things that make our lives better.

 

Q:  Where Is ACT Used Around The World?

A: ACT is arguably the fastest growing evidence-based therapy in the world. Endorsed by the World Health Organization, ACT is now widely practiced throughout Europe, Asia, USA, Canada, Central and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and even in many countries in Africa. ACT research does not just come from High Income ‘Western’ Countries; increasingly we’re seeing ACT research coming from LAMIC countries, such as India, China, Iran, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.

 

Q: What Kind Of Health Professionals Use ACT?

A: ACT is widely used by therapists, coaches, counsellors, physicians, nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, GPs (family doctors), social workers, physiotherapists, dietitians, occupational therapists, youth workers, BCBAs, speech therapists, and support workers – as well as students and researchers in these fields.

 

Q: Is ACT Top Down Or Bottom Up?

A: ACT is both ‘top down’ (working with cognition) and ‘bottom up’ (working with the body, movement, and somatosensory experience). Some sessions are more bottom up in emphasis; others are more top down. It varies from client to client, session to session, and issue to issue.

 

Q: How Did ACT Originate? Where Did It Come From?

ACT was originally developed in the 1980s by Professor Steven C. Hayes, at the University of Reno, Nevada, USA – and his colleagues, Kelly Wilson and Kirk Strosahl.  It was further developed by numerous ‘ACT pioneers’, including Robyn Walser, John Forsyth, Georg Eifert, Robert Zettle, and Russ Harris.

Q: Is ACT An Evidence-Based Approach?

A: Absolutely. Out of all the different models of therapy that currently exist (about four hundred of them!), ACT has the second largest evidence base. There are now thousands of papers on ACT published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. This includes over 1400 published RCTs (Randomised Controlled Trials, the gold standard of research.)

Q: What Can ACT Help With?

A: The massive body of research on ACT shows it can be helpful with everything from addiction, trauma, and depression to chronic pain, anxiety disorders, and psychosis.
The depth and breadth of the research is truly astonishing – covering everything from OCD, ADHD, and eating disorders to the challenges of coping with cancer,  raising autistic children, or living with diabetes.
Russ Harris’s books on ACT cover everything from grief and loss (The Reality Slap), confidence and performance (The Confidence Gap), and relationship issues (ACT With Love), to trauma (Trauma-Focused ACT), depression & anxiety (ACT Made Simple), and finding happiness (The Happiness Trap).
Outside of the mental and physical health arena, ACT is widely used for enhancing performance in both sports and business. For example, within the Australian Institute of Sport, over 90% of coaches and psychologists use ACT as their primary model (although they title it ‘Psychological Flexibility Training’ rather than ACT, so as to avoid any stigma around the word ‘therapy’).

To download a simple, non-technical article which gives a basic overview of ACT, click here