Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a cognitive-behavioral approach that takes its name because of its central propositions: acceptance of reality and emotional and behavioral reactions, choosing a direction according to the individual's values and commitment to the desired change.
ACT began to be used in the 1980s and was founded by the American clinical psychologist Steven Hayes, a professor at the University of Nevada.
As it belongs to the group of therapies known as the third generation, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy places greater weight on aspects such as acceptance, mindfulness, cognitive deactivation, dialectics, values, spirituality and relationships.
INFLEXIBILITY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FLEXIBILITY
ACT believes that human suffering arises from a psychological inflexibility caused by experiential avoidance, cognitive meltdown, attachment to a rigid concept of self, and loss of contact with the present moment.
All this leads the individual to find it difficult to act according to their own values, often making decisions that they consider to be wrong and accumulating difficulties in their life.
In turn, psychological flexibility implies a direct and completely conscious contact with the present moment, without the person being carried away by automatic thoughts and emotions, acting according to their own values.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, therefore, aims to teach the patient psychological flexibility to deal with his painful thoughts and feelings effectively , in such a way that they have much less impact and influence on him.
It also aims to help the individual clarify what is truly important and meaningful to him, i.e. his values (the person he truly would like to be in this world), and then use this knowledge to guide, inspire and motivate him to change. your life for the better.
PRINCIPLES
The two major principles that serve as the basis for interventions in third-generation therapies, such as ACT, are therefore acceptance and activation.
Acceptance means radically abandoning the incessant search for happiness and immediate well-being. The key is to see discomfort as a normal life experience.
In turn, the idea of activation is to pursue personal goals and values despite symptoms of malaise.
In this type of therapeutic approach, effectiveness is not measured by the number of symptoms eliminated, but by the patient's personal successes based on a process of understanding their own values.
CHANGE
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is defined as a form of psychotherapy of experience, behavior and cognition based on the Relational Frame Theory (RTF), whose research arose from the interest in understanding how verbal behaviors guide other human behaviors.
It represents a major shift from previously available therapies. Mainly in relation to the way people relate to their mental contents.
Also innovative is the rejection of a diagnostic classification, invoking the patient's behavior and function within a context as the only element of analysis and intervention planning.
EXPERIENTIAL AVOIDANCE
In this sense, it is possible to enumerate important concepts within Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. One of them is experiential avoidance, which supposes the rejection or escape from any symptom, emotion or thought that generates discomfort.
In creating this rejection, the patient tries in every way to control his private events, sensations and feelings, as well as the circumstances that generate them.
Experiential avoidance arises because people are embedded in a culture that promotes well-being above all else, including their own values. It, however, is not necessarily pathological, but it can be from the moment that it limits what the individual does or wants to do with his life.
PERSONAL VALUES
Another important concept of ACT is personal values, that is, what people give more importance to in their lives. They assume goals that individuals would like to achieve or accomplish because they believe they will generate satisfaction.
According to these two main concepts of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, the person is trapped in a vicious circle in which, because he is not willing to suffer (experiential avoidance), he ends up holding himself hostage to things that are dissonant with his personal values.
Such a solution, however, is superficial and ephemeral. In order to reach your true goals and manage to become who you really are and want to be, it is necessary to radically accept the discomfort that can appear along the way.
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