Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a mindfulness-based therapy that teaches clients to accept the full range of their emotional experiences, define their personal values, and commit to behaving according to those values. The ultimate objective in ACT is to achieve “psychological flexibility,” the ability to stay present with and allow one’s experience and choose effective behavior given the current circumstances and one’s values.
ACT can help with:
- Stress Management
- Test Anxiety
- Social Anxiety Disorder
- Depression
- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
- Psychosis
- Addictions including Eating Disorders and Substance Use Disorders
Skills you can learn through ACT:
- Observing your thoughts, feelings, and sensations without judgment, “hooking” onto them, or pushing them away
- Offering yourself compassion in the face of uncertainty
- Recognizing attempts to avoid, suppress, or neutralize distressing thoughts or experiences
- Acknowledging and gaining healthy distance from unhealthy cognitive patterns
- Establishing a more consistent sense of self that contains ever-changing thoughts, feelings, and sensations, as opposed to letting those elements define you
- Using your values to guide moment-to-moment decision making