ACCEPTANCE & COMMITMENT THERAPY

Evidence-based psychotherapy used to navigate suffering, life experiences and treat many mental and emotional health conditions.

"Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced."
James Baldwin

OVERVIEW

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

ACT is a third-wave Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) proven effective for treating depression, anxiety disorders, AD(HD), OCD, eating disorders, addiction and substance use disorders, chronic pain, PTSD and trauma-related psychosis and flashback. Third-wave therapies incorporate mindfulness as a distinguishing factor. In a few words, ACT helps clients embrace their demons and follow their hearts (Harris, 2006).

ACT entails six core principles designed to increase your psychological and emotional flexibility and resiliency that provide the ability to:

Process painful emotions and stressful thoughts.
Calmer nervous system and more 'feel good' neurochemicals like oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin, and less stress chemicals like adrenalin and cortisol.
Experience clearer, focused thinking and chosen behaviors.
Less maladaptive protective reactions (fight-flight-fawn-freeze).
Resolve anxiety and mood disorders, like depression.
Move forward productively, fueled by your own values and sense of purpose, instead of shaming or fear-based beliefs.

"What you resist, persists. What you accept, transforms."
Shamash Alidina

SELF-LEADERSHIP (WISE MIND) OVER THOUGHTS AND BELIEFS WITH ACT

"Accept - then act, whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it not against it."
Sam Owen

6 CORE PRINCIPLES OF ACT

1. ACCEPTANCE

Instead of fighting against your thoughts and feelings, notice and accept them.
The more you fight them, the more nervous system activation it causes.
Putting a judgment on thoughts is what gets people stuck in negativity, Inner Critic loops, shame, depression, chronic stress and inflammatory conditions.
Thoughts, like feelings, are innocent, authentic and personally informative, not something abnormal that need to be judged, shamed or changed.
Thoughts and emotions that keep surfacing may need your intentional attention, even if they seem frivolous, irrational or 'bad' (learn to take time to work with them by accepting them, writing them down and finding the balance in them, rather than fighting against them).

2. COGNITIVE DEFUSION

Also called Expansion, it creates space and time between yourself and your thoughts and feelings.
Observe thoughts, rather than through their lens or from them.
Our feelings are simply feelings and not omens of impending doom.
Thoughts are thoughts and not necessarily true, clever, or important.
Guided meditations and scripts are useful for cognitive defusion.
Fosters regulation by seeing extremes in thoughts so you can balance them out and find the value in them.

3. PRESENT MOMENT (WISE MIND)

Allows for Wise Mind and Self-Leadership so you can work with your thoughts and emotions instead of them having power over you and your behaviors.
This happens in the moment. The only place reality exists.
With presence we can observe, allow and work with our thoughts and emotions.
ACT exercises on mindfulness are helpful in this respect.

4. SELF AS CONTEXT (WISE MIND)

Along with presence, our real self is the observer of our thoughts and feelings.
Similar to the Common Humanity construct of Self-Compassion.
Viewing psychological experiences as ever-changing and peripheral, rather than as forever-true, stagnant definitions of self and others.
Learn to detach from the part of yourself that is caught up in its experience so it may focus on moving forward with ideal behavior that meets your values.

5. PERSONAL VALUES

Part of ACT is figuring out what you stand for and what you care about for real.
We are intrinsically motivated to achieve behavior that matches our values.
Value-aligned desire and envisioned action-planning is a powerful fuel source that taps into energizing neurochemicals and hormones like dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin.
Realize and actualize your real values, needs, wants and needed limits.
Values worksheets in ACT are self-reflection exercises that help clients find direction and motivation and make therapy discussions more helpful.

6. COMMITMENT TO ACTION

We need value-aligned action to feel a fulfilled in life.
It is the commitment, plan and pursuit of happiness that makes us happy from a neurochemical and sensory perspective.
The clearer our plan of action, the more motivating it is.
Having a Sense of Purpose and Inspiration is part of what fuels us.
This is different from CBT. With ACT, new behaviors are fueled by our own authentic values and desires.

"Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery.”
JK Rowling

ACCEPTANCE ALLOWS FOR CALM AND HEALING

The more you try to deny, judge, wrestle with or "depress" your feelings and thoughts (including regrets) the more activated your nervous system and stress-response becomes.

Much like how dishonesty / denial would show up on a lie detector test due to the excreted stress hormones.
Overtime, this way of being can result in chronic stress (chronic nervous system activation) and self-neglect.

IMPORTANT NOTE

When going through loss or traumatic situations you are actually powerless over, it can be adaptative to allow yourself to be in shock, dissociation (freeze mode), rather than intentional acceptance (reality and feelings). Ensure comforting support and therapy as needed to navigate and heal slowly at an ideal pace for you, rather than forcing yourself to be 'in acceptance' of traumatic, confusing or overwhelming life events.

"Your experience of pain changes relative to how you react to it. When you move toward it in an adaptive way, pain shrinks. When you move away from it, pain grows. If you flee from it, pain pursues you like a monster in a dream."
Tony Fahkry

INTENTIONAL ACCEPTANCE

Why Can't We Just Force Happy?

Many of us were trained to put on rose-colored glasses and try to force happiness. There is a time and place to put on a happy face, like at work or around certain people. However, trying to ALWAYS feel joy, while denying our authentic thoughts and feelings, is disingenuous and unhealthy.

Why can't we just force ourselves to feel happy? It's not realistic. The emotion "joy" occurs as a physiological and neurochemical response to our internal and external environment - and only when our nervous system is in a state of focused curiosity ('in the zone') and/or calm and presence where sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are balanced.

This is what makes acceptance and present moment (mindfulness) practices so imperative, as they allow for our nervous system to calm which is important for our mental, emotional, physical and relational well-being.

"The goal is not to 'fix' people but rather to empower them."
Steven Hayes, PhD, Founder of ACT

WATCH ACT VIDEOS

"You don’t need to eliminate your negative thoughts. Take them with you and do what matters. What a relief!"
Steven Hayes, PhD, Founder of ACT

WORKSHEETS AND PRACTICES

ACTION-ORIENTED SELF-CARE

REALIZE YOUR VALUES

CONSCIOUS ANXIETY

“The process of living is like taking a very long road trip. The destination may be important, but the journey experienced day to day and week to week is what is invaluable."
Steven Hayes, PhD, Founder of ACT

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