Aspen Stand Counseling, PLLC

Therapy for individuals, pairs, and families

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) differs from some kinds of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in that, rather than try to teach people to control their thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories, and other internal experiences, ACT asks us to “just notice.” Our goal in ACT is get comfortable with, accept, and embrace our internal experiences, especially the unwanted ones.

ACT does not mean that we have to accept everything the way it is. In fact, a core component of ACT is discovering and aligning our lives with our values through committed action. The goal of ACT is to develop psychological flexibility, which is a key indicator of psychological health.

However, in the face of circumstances that cannot be changed, ACT helps us develop the capacity to tolerate uncomfortable internal experiences, rather than letting the circumstances take over our lives.

ACT uses six areas of focus to develop psychological flexibility:

  1. Cognitive defusion: Learning methods to “unhook” from painful thoughts, images, emotions, and memories.
  2. Acceptance: Allowing unwanted internal experiences (thoughts, feelings and urges) to come and go without struggling with them.
  3. Contact with the present moment: Awareness of the here-and-now, experienced with openness, interest, and receptiveness.
  4. Self-as-Context: Accessing a transcendent sense of self, a continuity of consciousness which is unchanging, even in the face of difficult thoughts, feelings, images, and urges.
  5. Values: Discovering what is most important to oneself.
  6. Committed action: Setting goals according to values and carrying them out responsibly, in the service of a meaningful life.

I pull from the following published works, among others:

  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques (Bennett & Oliver, 2019)
  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change (2nd ed.) (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 2012)
  • Trauma-Focused ACT: A Practitioner’s Guide to Working with Mind, Body & Emotion Using Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (Harris, 2021)