Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a modern therapy involves combination mindfulness and behaviour change to help individuals live more meaningful and fulfilling lives.
ACT aims to promote flexibility by being open to experience and taking value-driven action despite challenging emotions.
Steven C. Hayes and colleagues created ACT in 1980s as an extension of earlier CBT therapies.
ACT based on functional contextualism studies behaviour in context for meaningful change.
ACT is based on RFT which studies how humans connect concepts. This can create negative thought cycles that lead to distress.
Promotes acceptance of challenging thoughts, feelings, and sensations without resistance. Uses mindfulness techniques to reduce past regrets and future anxieties.
Promotes detached observation to foster stable self-separate from momentary experiences for self-improvement.
Therapeutic Environment Setup
Visual Aids and Metaphors
Behavioral Tracking Tools
Introduction of psychological flexibility, the core processes of acceptance, defusion, mindfulness, self-as-context, values, and committed action, and the focus of ACT on changing thoughts and feelings.
ACT uses practical mindfulness techniques instead of long mediation. Acceptance involves making space for emotions to reduce their power.
Address doubts about process collaboratively and connect ACT principles with patient’s goals through MI.
Patient should comfortably in neutral posture for support and attentive ease during appointments.
Chairs should be arranged for effective non-confrontational face-to-face communication.
Acceptance techniques:
Visualize thoughts as leaves floating down a stream, then acknowledge the patient without trying to control them.
Guide patients to identify a specific feeling and allow it to be present without resistance.
Use metaphors to show how resisting emotions intensifies distress and encourages willingness to “turn off the struggle.”
Cognitive Diffusion Techniques:
Patient should repeat a problematic word aloud until it loses its emotional charge.
When a distressing thought occurs, practice thanking the mind for its input to detach from the thought.
Encourage patients to precede negative thoughts with this phrase to create distance and recognize thoughts as mental events.
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