What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)?

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. It can be a gentle and effective therapeutic approach with evidence for treatment of mental health conditions including Depression, Anxiety, Stress and burnout, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), chronic pain, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), and in situations of chronic grief and unresolved loss.  It helps individuals develop greater self-awareness and acceptance of their emotional state and current experience.  ACT helps us shift away from maladaptive-avoidance or stuck-distress into more effective options of authentic self-acceptance and committed, value-based actions. 

ACT can be a powerful extension of traditional CBT in that it helps us accept and manage our automatic thoughts and urges.  It has more specific and varied skills to defuse or ameliorate thoughts and emotions, rather than changing or challenging them. ACT involves seeing thoughts as just thoughts rather than applying the label of “positive or negative”, and “good or bad”.  Importantly, it can help us navigate through difficult emotional terrains with greater psychological flexibility and less need for avoidance-based coping. 

You can read more about ACT here:

• ACT Mindfully

• Australian Family Physician (AFP)