Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an offshoot from the tradition behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. ACT encourages people to embrace the negative thoughts and unpleasant feelings rather than trying to avoid or fix them. Psychological flexibility comes from combining self-acceptance and mindfulness. In addition, ACT allows the therapist to incorporate the client’s values into therapy helping the client to feel motivated and invested in the work.https://positivepsychology.com/act-acceptance-and-commitment-therapy/
ACT was created by professional Steve C. Hayes in 1980s. ACT emerged from Hayes’s own experience with panic attacks. He started with stop avoiding the experience and accept it head on.https://positivepsychology.com/act-acceptance-and-commitment-therapy/
The hexaflex is ACT’s unique diagnostic tool. It has a shape of a hexagon with six domains corresponding to six core principles: Acceptance, Cognitive defusion and expansion, Present moment, Self as context, Committed Action, and Values.https://connectability.ca/2020/12/10/introduction-to-acceptance-and-commitment-therapy/
Acceptance refers to accepting both positive and negative experiences in our life. Unpleasant experience is inevitable, so acceptance allows us to welcome it without trying to deny or change them. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/acceptance-and-commitment-therapy
Present moment is all about being mindful and practice living in the moment without judgement. We are not trying to predict the future or change it.
Cognitive defusion refers to the techniques intended to change how an individual reacts to their thoughts. Rather than allowing the thoughts to control us, cognitive defusion decrease the fixation between us and our thoughts. Expansion refers to the techniques dealing with feelings.
Self-as-Context offers a idea that we are not the sum of our parts. There is a self outside of the current experience. “We are not only what happens to us. We are the ones experiencing what happens to us.”
Values – Our values act like the compass to guide our direction in life. ACT aims to help us live our lives in accordance with our values.
Committed action – knowing our top values, committed action allows us to take concrete actions to move us closer to living a life that is adherence with our values.
Category:Therapy