ACT Techniques: Key Strategies To Overcome Tough Times

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has emerged as a powerful approach to mental health treatment. This innovative form of therapy focuses on helping individuals accept their thoughts and feelings while committing to actions that align with their values. As a result, ACT techniques have gained popularity because of their effectiveness in addressing a wide range of psychological issues, from anxiety and depression to chronic pain management.

The Foundations of ACT: Philosophical Roots, Relational Frame Theory, and CBT

First of all, let’s dive into the past to understand ACT’s unique perspective and techniques. So in this section, we will explore its philosophical roots and the psychological theory that underpins it.

Philosophical Roots

Various philosophical traditions have influenced ACT’s development, contributing to its distinctive approach to human suffering and well-being, some of them are:

Contextualism

At its core, ACT is explicitly contextualistic, meaning that it emphasizes the importance of understanding behavior within its context. This philosophical stance aligns with pragmatism, which focuses on the practical consequences of beliefs and actions rather than abstract truths.

Existentialism and Phenomenology

ACT also draws inspiration from existential philosophy, which emphasizes individual responsibility and the search for meaning in life. This influence is evident in ACT’s focus on values-based living and the acceptance of life’s inherent challenges.

Phenomenology, the study of subjective experience, has also shaped its approach. ACT encourages clients to observe their thoughts and feelings without judgment, a practice rooted in phenomenological inquiry.

Behavioral Traditions

However, while incorporating these philosophical influences, ACT remains grounded in behavioral science. It builds upon earlier waves of behavioral and cognitive therapies, aiming to create flexible and effective behavioral repertoires, important ones being RFT and CBT.

Relational Frame Theory (RFT)

First, we have RFT which is the theoretical cornerstone of ACT. This psychological theory of human language and cognition was developed by Steven C. Hayes and colleagues.

Key Concepts of RFT

Derived Relational Responding: RFT argues that humans can learn relationships between stimuli without direct experience. For example, if we learn that A is related to B, and B is related to C, we can derive a relationship between A and C without being explicitly taught.

Transformation of Stimulus Functions: RFT explains how the meaning or function of one stimulus can change based on its relationship to other stimuli. This concept is crucial in understanding how language can shape our experiences and behaviors.

Verbal Behavior: RFT views human language as a special kind of relating, emphasizing how our use of language can significantly impact our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

RFT and Human Suffering

These concepts allow RFT to provide a framework for understanding why cognitive fusion (getting caught up in our thoughts) and experiential avoidance (trying to avoid uncomfortable internal experiences) are both ubiquitous and potentially harmful. These processes, explained by RFT, are key targets in ACT interventions.

ACT From CBT to Third-Wave Therapy

Another important stop in the journey of ACT is CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). ACT has its roots in CBT. However, while CBT focuses on identifying and changing negative thought patterns, ACT takes a different approach. It encourages individuals to accept their thoughts and feelings as a natural part of life, rather than trying to change or eliminate them.

This is why it is considered a “third-wave” therapy, meaning it builds upon and extends the principles of traditional CBT. For instance, it incorporates mindfulness techniques, acceptance strategies, and a wide range of behavioral approaches known to be effective from CBT.

Differences from Traditional CBT

However, while ACT and CBT share similarities as behavior-based therapies, they differ in their fundamental perspectives on thoughts and emotions. Here are some key distinctions:

1. Approach to Thoughts: In CBT, the goal is to identify and modify distorted or negative thoughts. In contrast, ACT encourages individuals to accept their thoughts as they are, without trying to change them.
2. Focus: CBT aims to reduce symptoms of psychological disorders, while ACT sees symptom relief as a potential side effect. ACT’s primary focus is on increasing psychological flexibility and helping individuals live a life aligned with their values.
3. Therapeutic Relationship: In CBT, the therapist plays a more prominent role in guiding the treatment process. In ACT, the work is divided more equally between the therapist and the client, with an emphasis on the client’s active participation.
4. Treatment Duration: CBT is typically a short-term, goal-oriented therapy focused on specific problems. ACT, on the other hand, is designed to be an ongoing process integrated into daily life.
5. Acceptance vs. Change: CBT emphasizes changing or correcting thoughts and behaviors, while ACT emphasizes accepting internal experiences (thoughts, feelings, memories) and committing to actions that align with one’s values.

So, as ACT continues to evolve, the boundaries between it and CBT are becoming less distinct. Both approaches are moving toward a model that emphasizes being open, mindful, and actively pursuing values, blurring the lines between these two influential forms of psychotherapy.

ACT Techniques: Strategies For A Better Life

ACT techniques and exercises are the cornerstone of this therapeutic approach. These methods are designed to increase psychological flexibility, allowing individuals to navigate life’s challenges with greater ease. By incorporating acceptance and commitment therapy exercises into their practice, mental health professionals can help clients develop a more adaptive relationship with their thoughts and emotions.

Acceptance and Willingness

First, we have acceptance and willingness. Acceptance in ACT does not imply approval or resignation; rather, it involves actively embracing one’s thoughts, emotions, and experiences without unnecessary attempts to change or avoid them, especially when doing so would cause psychological harm. This principle serves as an alternative to experiential avoidance, which often exacerbates distress.

Willingness, on the other hand, is the practical skill of allowing oneself to experience the present moment, even if it is uncomfortable or painful. It involves tuning in and engaging with what one is currently experiencing, without judgment or resistance. Some key aspects of willingness include:

• Being present and grounded in the body, acknowledging and describing sensations with curiosity and openness.
• Practicing self-compassion by treating oneself kindly, rather than engaging in self-criticism or harsh judgment.
• Recognizing and detaching from unhelpful narratives or “stories” that may arise, without getting entangled in them.
• Shifting focus toward what truly matters, rather than expending energy resisting or avoiding difficult experiences.

This doesn’t mean wallowing, surrendering, or giving up; Willingness is about consciously choosing to experience the present moment, even when it is challenging, in service of living a life aligned with one’s values.

Cognitive Defusion

The second technique is cognitive defusion, which refers to the process of creating psychological distance from one’s thoughts, rather than becoming entangled or fused with them. It encourages an objective examination of thoughts, cultivating the skill to observe them without getting consumed by their content.

In ACT, cognitive defusion technique aims to alter the unhelpful functions of thoughts and other private events, rather than attempting to change their form, frequency, or situational sensitivity. The goal is to relate to thoughts as transient mental events, rather than absolute truths or reasons to suffer.

Some examples of cognitive defusion strategies include:

• Watching thoughts as an observer, rather than engaging with them directly.
• Repeating a thought slowly or singing it, to disrupt the literal meaning and create distance.
• Labeling thoughts as “just a thought,” to reinforce their transient nature.
• Visualizing thoughts as clouds passing by, or leaves floating down a stream.

By changing one’s relationship to thoughts through defusion, we can experience greater psychological flexibility and engage in values-driven actions, even in the presence of unhelpful or distressing thoughts.

Present Moment Awareness

Another technique is present-moment awareness, also known as mindfulness. This is a central component of ACT because involves bringing non-judgmental awareness to the current moment, participating fully in one’s life experiences, both pleasant and challenging, with curiosity and openness.

The goal of present-moment awareness is to help us experience the world more directly, so our behavior becomes more flexible and aligned with our values. It counters the tendency to ruminate on the past or worry about the future, which can lead to disconnection from the present.

ACT encourages the development of this technique through various mindfulness exercises, such as:

• Setting reminders to periodically check in with one’s surroundings and bodily sensations.
• Engaging in mindful activities, like eating or walking, with full attention to the experience.
• Practicing guided mindfulness meditations or breathing exercises.
• Distinguishing between “noticing” and “thinking,” to cultivate a more objective perspective on thoughts.
• Get help from mediation apps like Headspace that can provide you with hundreds of guided meditations.

These practices can train the mind to stay focused and engaged in the here and now, even amidst challenging circumstances, which is crucial for increasing psychological flexibility and living a values-driven life

Psychological Flexibility

Finally, we have psychological flexibility, which refers to the capacity to be present and act on long-term goals rather than short-term urges. It allows us to adapt to changes in our environment and react in new, creative, and healthy ways that align with our goals and values.

In day-to-day life, psychological flexibility enables us to adjust our behaviors and routines to respond effectively to situational demands in ways that serve our goals and adhere to our core beliefs. So, rather than remaining stuck in unhelpful patterns, being flexible allows us to view situations from novel angles and make necessary adjustments.

To cultivate psychological flexibility, we need to be willing to tolerate a range of emotions, even those that are uncomfortable. Instead of suppressing or avoiding these feelings, flexible people can accept what they are feeling, acknowledge their emotions, and find ways to grow from their experiences.

To enhance psychological flexibility, there are various exercises that you can do:

• Mindfulness Practice: Mindfulness is about being present in the moment, fostering awareness of emotions, thoughts, sensations, and perceptions of the environment. Pausing to be fully present and aware is the first step toward becoming mentally flexible.
• Challenging Unhelpful Thoughts: Instead of focusing on whether a thought is negative, identify if it is helpful. When an unhelpful thought arises, challenge it and replace it with something more constructive. Aim for a neutral thought that opens the door to success and learning, rather than an unrealistic or overly positive one.
• Embracing Novel Experiences: Part of flexibility is being open to new ideas, experiences, and perspectives. Seek opportunities to push the limits of your comfort zone by engaging in conversations with people from different backgrounds, reading books, watching movies in unfamiliar genres, or trying new activities.
• Seeking Diverse Perspectives: Foster open-mindedness by actively seeking out perspectives other than your own. Follow people from diverse backgrounds on social media, engage in conversations with individuals from different walks of life, and listen to their viewpoints. This can enhance empathy and expose you to more flexible ways of thinking.
• Cultivating a Growth Mindset: Adopt a growth mindset that focuses on your ability to learn and take actions that shape your destiny. View life’s challenges as opportunities for growth, believing that your actions can effect positive change. This mindset encourages flexibility when approaching problems and motivates you to make changes to better reach your goals.

These exercises can gradually enhance your psychological flexibility, enabling you to navigate life’s challenges with greater adaptability, resilience, and alignment with your values.

ACT Metaphors and Their Therapeutic Value

Other than practical techniques, ACT also employs powerful metaphors to help people understand and apply its core principles. These metaphors serve as vivid illustrations, making abstract concepts more relatable and easier to grasp. Two prominent metaphors used in ACT are “The Passengers on the Bus” and “Leaves on a Stream.”

The Passengers on the Bus

The “Passengers on the Bus” metaphor was developed by Steven Hayes, the founder of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). It provides a useful way of understanding our internal experiences (thoughts, emotions, memories, and sensations) versus external experiences.

Think of your life as a bus, and you are the driver. From the moment your life begins on the road of life, you begin to pick up passengers. These passengers come from all of your unique life experiences and form the symphony of emotions, beliefs, bodily sensations, and impulses inside you. However, these passengers always sit in the back and out of our view.

But, these passengers tend to come into awareness whenever we need to move in the direction of something important to us, such as a new relationship, a new job, or any significant change. These new experiences can be seen as shining a spotlight on these hidden passengers or turning on the lights in a dark room. They can make us quite uncomfortable because we start seeing things that were always there but not noticed before. As a result, we develop emotional habits – ways of thinking and behaving – to ensure that these passengers stay at the back of the bus and out of our awareness (or consciousness).

Emotional Habits are actions and ways of thinking that protect us from uncomfortable internal experiences (passengers). These habits become our tacit solution to the problem of difficult internal experiences, and they can be helpful initially. However, as the road of life changes or our habits become overused, they begin to be less effective.

So, the goal of mindful mastery is to help you decipher what is an objective fact (on the road) and what is a passenger, and then drive (behave) as skillfully and effectively as possible to reach your ambitions.

Leaves on a Stream

The “Leaves on a Stream” metaphor is a way of seeing how transient thoughts are. They come, they do their dance, and then they’ll be carried off. They don’t change the nature of the stream itself; they just float on top of it.

Sometimes, our minds are overly eager beavers; instead of letting the leaves (thoughts) float by, they start making a dam to try to manage them or keep them away. The thoughts then get caught up in the dam rather than being able to float by. When we try to fight the thoughts, our beaver mind thinks it’s going to be helpful and strengthen the dam, but that just makes the situation worse by getting those thoughts even more entangled.

This can mean that thoughts related to transient, minor safety threats get caught up in your head and stick around far longer than they should. On the other hand, if you just let the thoughts be, they would eventually flow along.

The “Leaves on a Stream” exercise encourages us to imagine our thoughts and feelings as leaves floating down a stream. The task is not to grab the leaves or stop them from flowing but simply to watch them go by. This means letting your thoughts and feelings come and go without getting caught up in them or trying to control them.

These two metaphors present a powerful way to practice cognitive defusion (which we mentioned above), which is the willingness to let go of the attachment and over-identification with thoughts that cause suffering. This way, instead of becoming fused with thoughts, we learn to observe them with a sense of detachment, allowing them to engage in values-driven actions and live more fulfilling lives.

Applying ACT to Specific Mental Health Challenges

While the decision to apply ACT to a mental health issue is solely dependent on the therapist, which we do not advertise or assume taking place of, we can give you some information on how ACT helped people overcome some mental health challenges like anxiety disorders, depression, and chronic pain management:

ACT for Anxiety Disorders

ACT can help people with anxiety disorders by teaching them to disconnect from their anxious thoughts and understand that those thoughts are not absolute truths. It also encourages them to tolerate anxiety without judging themselves and identify values that can motivate them to take action despite their fears.

For people with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), ACT helps clarify values and commit to actions aligned with those values rather than allowing anxiety to control their lives. Additionally, ACT mindfulness techniques can also help reduce rumination and catastrophizing.

In addition, for cases of panic disorder, ACT assists patients in accepting bodily sensations associated with panic attacks and defusing their identity from catastrophic thoughts about the fear of future panic attacks.

For social anxiety, ACT can be used to identify values around social connections, which can motivate people to engage socially despite their anxiety. Experiential exercises in ACT are especially beneficial for desensitizing individuals to their fears in social situations.

ACT also helps individuals with specific phobias defuse their identity from catastrophic thoughts about the feared object or situation.

Overall, ACT utilizes acceptance, mindfulness, and defusion skills to help individuals unhook from their anxious thoughts and take action based on their values, even in the presence of anxiety. However, in addition to treatment using ACT, learning how to help someone you know to overcome anxiety can be a life changer for them.

ACT for Depression

ACT can also be an effective treatment for depression, helping people suffering get “unstuck” from difficult thoughts and feelings, become more accepting of themselves and their experiences, and live life in a way that aligns with their values.

ACT skills can help anyone with this issue:

• Accept, rather than avoid, or battle, painful thoughts and emotions, reducing their impact on your life.
• Stay focused on the present moment, rather than ruminating on the past or worrying about the future.
• Clarify what matters most to you in life.
• Take action and live your life based on their values.

ACT for Chronic Pain

ACT aims to increase activity and function for anyone with chronic pain, enabling them to improve and enjoy their lives without necessarily eliminating their pain.

Key aspects of ACT for chronic pain include:

• Acceptance of pain experiences, rather than constant struggle and avoidance.
• Psychological flexibility, which allows individuals to live consciously and commit to valued behaviors, despite unpleasant thoughts, emotions, or sensations.
• Mindfulness and present-moment awareness, helping individuals disengage from rumination and worrying.
• Identifying and pursuing valued activities, even in the presence of pain.
• Committed action towards goals aligned with personal values.

Simply put, ACT encourages patients with chronic pain to think about what their lives could look like without pain and helps them understand that they can live well, with or without it.

Additional Resources:

• Dr. Steven Hayes’ book “Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life” is a good follow-up. This book goes into more depth about how to break free from self-limiting patterns and start living a more fulfilling, values-driven life while maintaining a compassionate approach.

• “The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Depression: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Move Through Depression and Create a Life Worth Living” by Dr. Patricia J. Robinson and Dr. Kirk D. Strosahl is also worth checking out. This workbook combines ACT principles with mindfulness strategies, offering practical exercises for overcoming depression.

• “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Anxiety Disorders: A Practitioner’s Guide to Using ACT in Treating Anxiety” by Dr. Matthew McKay and Dr. Jeffrey C. Wood. As the name suggests, it focuses on anxiety and provides insights and techniques for applying ACT to manage anxiety disorders.

Conclusion

ACT techniques offer a powerful toolkit to navigate life’s challenges and improve mental well-being. By embracing acceptance, practicing mindfulness, and aligning actions with personal values, we can live more fulfilling lives. Whether you’re dealing with specific mental health challenges or simply looking to enhance your overall well-being, ACT’s principles can help you move towards a more values-driven and meaningful life.

Stay safe, loving, and compassionate to yourself and others.