Act is an evidenced based therapy modality. Act primarily helps clients by using mindfulness and acceptance to recognize the negative self talk, painful feelings, and unhelpful behaviors that have become habitual patterns of action, and helps client become disentangled from them in order to live a more full and meaningful life.

 

A core tenant of ACT is helping clients connect to values, and working with clients to focus on bringing those values alive in the present moment, not at some future point in time once they achieve x, y, or z. ACT is about helping clients create, and bring meaning to their life currently as it is in the present moment.  

 

ACT primarily uses six core therapeutic processes to help clients: 1) Contacting the present moment, 2) Defusion- learning to step back and separate from thoughts, images and memories and observe them, 3) Acceptance- making room for any, and all of our emotions (good and bad). That doesn't mean we have to like them. It just means making room for them and the possibility of relating to them differently, 4) Self-as-Context (This one is a bit tricky to understand). But, it basically refers to accessing an observer part of you, not the part that is thinking and getting all tangled up in worries and thoughts, but the part of you that can step back and see/recognize yourself getting caught up in the thinking, worries, ruminations, etc. 5) Values.  ACT helps clients fully contact and realize what their innate values are. This sounds easier and more simplistic then it is, because we often think of values as being easy to identify. However, this is not about the values of society or that we think we "should" have. This is really about connecting to what you, individually, really care about and see as important.  A lot of these usually end up being characteristics and ways of showing up in the world that you are probably already innately connecting to and living in your life. Sometimes our values can get hidden or glossed over by what we think we "should" like, or "should" value. In this part of ACT, we work closely to attune to what actually feels like a definitive part of you, and what you actually really connect to and care about. Values are really about how we want to behave on an ongoing basis. They are not goals, but rather, a quality of action. 6) Committed Action- This refers to, once we know what we care about, and how we want to show up, choosing to act in that manner even when fears, anxieties, anger, etc. comes up and makes it more difficult to choose that path.