If you’ve ever felt stuck in your thoughts and have felt like your thoughts are pulling you out of day-to-day life or causing you to behave in ways that don’t feel in line with your values, you’re not alone. Many people come to therapy exhausted from trying to “fix” painful emotions or unhelpful thoughts. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT (pronounced like the word “act”), offers a different option for coping with these internal processes.
What is ACT?
ACT is an evidence-based practice. It’s a type of therapy known to be effective based upon scientific research. Research has demonstrated ACT to be effective in treating a variety of mental health disorders including (but not limited to) depression, anxiety, eating disorders, addiction, PTSD, and obsessive compulsive disorders (Harris, 2019).
ACT was created in the 1980s by a psychologist named Steven G Hayes and his colleagues. Dr Hayes created ACT in an effort to find a more effective therapy to address his own struggles with Panic Disorder (Hayes, 2016). ACT is considered to be a part of the “third wave” of behavioral therapies, meaning the focus has moved away from what we think and feel and towards how we relate to what we think and feel. Third wave therapies focus more on acceptance and mindfulness than prior behavioral modalities.
What are the core processes in ACT?
ACT isn’t about changing your thoughts or forcing yourself to “think positively.” Instead, it helps you build a more flexible and compassionate relationship with your inner experience. The aim of ACT isn’t to change our thoughts or feelings, but how we relate to them. The core idea is that pain is a natural part of being human—but struggling against that pain often adds to our suffering.
In ACT, we practice noticing difficult thoughts and feelings without getting tangled up in them, while also reconnecting to what truly matters to you. ACT helps us make changes in our lives that help bring us closer to our values, instead of moving us further away from them, which is what our sticky thoughts can do. ACT is a mindfulness-based modality, which means that it utilizes mindfulness to help you stay grounded in the present moment and accept your thoughts and feelings without judgment.
This approach emphasizes six core processes:
Acceptance – Making space for uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and sensations rather than pushing them away.
Cognitive Defusion – Learning to observe your thoughts and allow them to pass without getting hooked by them.
Present Moment Awareness – Bringing your attention to the here and now.
Self-as-Context – Recognizing that you are more than your thoughts, emotions, or roles.
Values – Clarifying what really matters to you, also seen as your “North Star.”
Committed Action – Taking meaningful steps toward those values, even when things feel hard.
The main goal of ACT
The primary goal of ACT is increasing one’s psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility refers to the ability to be aware of one’s thoughts and feelings and continue to act mindfully, and guided by our values, despite difficult or unhelpful thoughts or feelings. According to ACT, psychological flexibility is created by engaging in the six core processes listed above. The core message of this approach is “be present, open up, do what matters (Harris, 2019).”
Importantly, ACT isn’t about perfection. It’s about movement toward the kind of life you want to build, one that is in line with your values. In ACT work, you can gently explore the patterns that are keeping you stuck and practice skills to help you show up more fully for yourself, your relationships, and your goals.
ACT versus CBT
Although ACT and CBT are both behavioral types of therapy, there is a key difference. CBT focuses on changing negative or unhelpful thoughts in order to improve our behaviors. Conversely, the goal of ACT is accepting our thoughts and feelings and committing to actions that align with your personal values. Put more simply, CBT focuses on change while ACT focuses on acceptance.
Who might benefit?
If anything about sticky or challenging thoughts from this article has resonated with you, ACT might be able to help you, whether or not you have a diagnosable mental health disorder. ACT has been shown in research to best help teenagers and adults and can be done both virtually and in person.
Feel free to reach out to us through our intake form. We have many therapists trained in utilizing ACT, and our intake team can help you find the right fit for you. Also, Association for Contextual Behavioral Science offers a handy provider search tool.
Below I feature additional resources that walk you through how you can apply ACT to your life.
Websites
https://stevenchayes.com/ This is the website of Steven C Hayes, the creator of ACT. It offers more information on ACT, Dr Hayes, and a free mini course in ACT.
https://contextualscience.org/ The Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. This website provides a wealth of information about ACT and a tool to help connect to ACT practitioners.
Books
The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris. This book explains how trying to avoid or control negative thoughts and feelings often makes us more distressed—and offers Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) strategies to help people live a meaningful life by accepting their inner experiences rather than fighting them.
Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life by Steven G Hayes. This workbook guides readers through Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) techniques to help them stop avoiding painful thoughts and feelings and start living a values-driven, fulfilling life.
Related Wildflower Articles
Flexibility of the Mind series by Danelle Rhoades, MA, LCPC, PMH-C:
How Psychological Flexibility Can Help You Live Your Best Life
Flexibility of the Mind: The Present of Presence
Thoughts and Feelings: What Are They and What Do I Do About Them? By Danelle Rhoades, MA, LCPC, PMH-C
References
Harris, R. (2019). ACT Made Simple: An Easy-to-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (2nd ed.). New Harbinger Publications.Hayes, S. C. (2016, January 23). Psychological flexibility: How love turns pain into purpose [Video]. TEDxUniversityofNevada. YouTube.
