ACCEPTANCE AND COMMITMENT THERAPY (ACT): what it is, techniques and exercises

Humans have ideas, memories, feelings and we react to them. We give them a value, a meaning and a connection. According to Dra. Carmen Luciano, researcher and author, acceptance and commitment therapy allows us to understand the behavior of the human being and its objective is to people learn to interact with themselves and build the life they want to live by making things that are important to them more present themselves.

Acceptance and commitment therapy increases resilience and the meaning of life. In this Psychology-Online article, we will know in depth acceptance and commitment therapy, its background, principles, components, techniques and exercises.

Index

1. What is acceptance and commitment therapy
2. Background to acceptance and commitment therapy
3. Principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
4. Components of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
5. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Techniques and Exercises
6. Metaphors of acceptance and commitment therapy
7. The therapist in acceptance and commitment therapy
8. Acceptance and commitment books

The Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a set of psychological intervention techniques and processes whose main objectives are accept emotions, thoughts, and events that are experienced and commit to one's own values.

What is ACT? Acceptance and commitment therapy is the most comprehensive of the third generation therapies. It is framed in a functional philosophical position and is based on a new theory of language and cognition. ACT defends a new vision of psychopathology in which many disorders are understood as a consequence derived from the unconscious desire not to feel pain.

ACT is a treatment oriented to the values ​​of each person, it defends discomfort as something normal and aims to highlight the paradox of behavior: the more you try to avoid, the more suffering is gets. It affirms that what produces suffering is resistance to discomfort and that the objective must be to tolerate discomfort, in order to generate flexibility in the regulation of behavior and direct the life of the person towards the goals he considers valuable.

Acceptance and commitment therapy is included in a type of therapy called Third Generation Therapies. According to Steven C. Hayes, we found three generations of therapies with scientific evidence:

• First generation: classical behavior therapy. They were useful, but the need to attend to the cognitive part was revealed.
• Second generation: the cognitive behavioral therapy. These are aimed at changing thoughts and emotions as well as changing actions. They have been widely studied and applied and their effectiveness is proven.
• Third generation: the dialectical therapy, functional analytic psychotherapy and acceptance and commitment therapy, among others. What are contextual or third generation therapies? Third generation therapies are oriented to the responsibility of choosing the person and not the symptoms of it. They focus on altering the context that makes the symptoms problematic. For this reason, they are also called contextual therapies.

Acceptance and commitment therapy postulates that previous therapies propose techniques to solve symptoms that are sometimes natural, while they are human.

Acceptance and commitment therapy is based on the proposition that the more effort is devoted to solving or removing something that bothers, the more present it becomes. How does acceptance and commitment therapy work? The following principles explain acceptance and commitment therapy:

• The human condition: both the experience of pleasure and suffering are part of the human being. It is so inevitable to enjoy, as also to have unpleasant sensations.
• What guides behavior: behavior can be guided by the basics, the pursuit of pleasure, or by ideals or values ​​such as honesty and respect.
• Experiential non-avoidance: against the tendency to flee from pain and eliminate discomfort with all possible resources, experiential non-avoidance is born, arguing that when you try to prevent or avoid unpleasant thoughts and emotions, what you get is that increase. Experiential avoidance is an inflexible and limiting pattern of functioning and is one of the components of disorders affective, anxiety, addiction, eating behavior, impulse control, psychotic and in coping with diseases.
• Cognitive fusion: it consists of the error of taking as true what is thought without it being so.

The goal of acceptance and commitment therapy is that life has a greater meaning. Since the problems will continue to be there and you will continue to experience negative thoughts and unpleasant emotions, however, the actions will be aligned with the values ​​and will possess greater sense. Acceptance and commitment therapy aims to help people live a full life, not free from unpleasant experiences, by endowing it with meaning.

Acceptance and commitment therapy is made up of the following components. The 6 components that make up ACT are:

1. Full consciousness: be present here and now, paying attention to the present moment.
2. Cognitive defusion: cognitive defusion or thought defusion consists of the separation between internal events and identity. The person is not his thoughts or his emotions, these are products of the mind. It is about observing your own sensations, thoughts and emotions as passengers in the mind.
3. Acceptance: acceptance is the abandonment of the fighting attitude. Stop fighting unpleasant sensations, allow them to occur, and observe them with curiosity.
4. Contextual me: not to identify with the thoughts, since these are events that occur in the mind and the self can perceive and observe them. You can contemplate what happens in the mind and who observes is really the Self.
5. Values: values ​​are what is really important to each person. It is important to identify and keep them in mind to guide behavior.
6. Action: carry out actions aligned with values. The acts that must be aligned with the values-based objectives.

The techniques used in therapy are the following:

Meditation

Meditation is mindfulness. It consists of being present and being aware of sensations, impulses, thoughts and emotions. It serves to realize that you have a thought or an emotion, knowing that you are much more than that. Observe with curiosity what happens inside, letting go of fears and prejudices. In the following article, you will find several mindfulness meditation exercises.

Regulation augmenting

From a behavioral perspective, it would be necessary to reinforce a behavior so that it is more likely to occur again. For example, giving a prize after a passed exam for a person to study. What the ACT proposes through augmenting regulation is that a behavior acquires a meaning with a reinforcing function. For example, if the title (which will mean applying for the desired job position) is related to studying today for tomorrow's exam, the behavior is reinforced because of the meaning attached to it.

The exercise, in this case, consists of reflecting, detecting socially established associations and resignifying some concepts.

No avoidance of unpleasant emotions

If emotions such as fear or sadness are identified as "bad", the tendency is to want to avoid them and escape from them, something that increases the discomfort. Being able to even go to the extreme of total avoidance that would be suicide.

However, from experiential non-avoidance, suffering is reduced. To do this, one of the techniques of acceptance and commitment consists of contextualizing pain, emotions and unpleasant sensations as something normal and human from which it is not necessary to escape, if not from what can learn.

One of the exercises of acceptance and commitment therapy consists of the predisposition to perceive and feel emotions, sensations, thoughts, etc.

Acceptance and normalization of discomfort

Currently, the functioning of society has no place for discomfort and pain, associating well-being with immediate pleasure and linking pain with something abnormal.

How to work acceptance in therapy? Acceptance is about stopping fighting unpleasant sensations, allowing them to occur, and observing them with curiosity. Tolerance to discomfort is worked on by being willing to experiment without resisting thoughts and emotions.

Not controlling the uncontrollable

The thoughts and emotions running through the mind cannot be avoided or controlled. Trying to control internal events such as memories or sensations is not possible, in addition, it reduces the ability to live fully. Destructive experiential avoidance can be reached, which involves the need to control or avoid thoughts, memories, sensations, and the circumstances that generate them.

The technique proposed by the ACT is to avoid controlling what cannot be controlled.

Thought observation

It is about becoming aware of thoughts and differentiating ourselves from them. Distance ourselves from our cognitive events understanding them as products of the mind. You can practice, for example, the observation of thought to achieve cognitive defusion. It is about understanding that the person is not the thought, but rather that the person is behind and can observe the thoughts, sensations and any cognitive content.

By observing the thought, you can choose how to act on it.

Clarification of values

It is about finding what is truly important to you, the objective is to clarify what the person wants for her life and the reason for choosing her. The exercise to achieve this consists of reflecting around questions such as:

• What would you be doing every day if you could dedicate yourself to something other than trying to take away your suffering?
• If you could spend an afternoon with whoever you wanted, who would it be? And if it was your last afternoon, would it be the same person?
• What would you give the person you love the most for their birthday if you had infinite money? And if it was his last birthday, would you give him the same?

Commitment

Commitment translates into acting responsibly towards the chosen direction. Set objectives based on the values, place the person in charge of his actions, create a strategy to direct the action towards the values ​​and act based on the values.

Use of metaphors

Metaphors, comparisons and examples are very useful to illustrate the paradoxes of the psychological functioning and, therefore, they are a widely used strategy in acceptance therapy and commitment. Next, we will look at various metaphors for acceptance and commitment therapy.

Some of the metaphors used in acceptance and commitment therapy are the following:

Chess metaphor

Black tiles can be negative thoughts while white tiles can be positive thoughts. While the self is the chips, but the board. This metaphor used in acceptance and commitment therapy allows understand the mind as a space in which things happen that we can perceive and observe without being those things.

Wall metaphor

When there is no acceptance, the person finds himself lamenting in front of a huge wall that cannot be crossed. However, when it is accepted that this wall exists, they begin to look for tools and ways of pass to the other side of the wall or even find a new path.

Garden metaphor

Imagine that for a gardener the most important thing is the plants. He plants them in the best place and takes care of them. One day he starts to see weeds growing and he goes to pull them up. As soon as he starts to grow a weed starts running. But he does not manage to eliminate them completely, but weeds continue to grow.

What do you think will happen if the gardener puts all his effort into removing weeds? He will not be able to spend time taking care of the plants, watering them, pruning them, fertilizing them... Do you think that if the gardener is always aware of pulling the weeds will you be able to enjoy the plants in your garden? What would plants say if they could talk?

Stone metaphor

"The distracted tripped over it. The violent used it as a projectile. The entrepreneur builded it with her. The tired farmer used it as a seat. It was a toy for the kids. David killed Goliath and Michelangelo took out the most beautiful sculpture from him. In all cases, the difference was not in the stone, but in the man."

Metaphor of man in the hole with a shovel

"A man was walking through the field, wearing a blindfold and a small bag of tools. He had been told that his task was to run through that field blindfolded. The man did not know that in the farm there were large and very deep holes, he was completely ignorant of it. So he started running across the field and fell into one of those big holes. He began to feel the walls of the hole and realized that he could not jump out and that there were no other escape routes. He looked in the tool bag they had given him, to see if there was anything he could use to escape the hole, and found a shovel. That's all he had. So he started diligently, but very soon he realized that he was not coming out of the hole. He tried to dig deeper and deeper and faster and faster, but he was still in the hole. He tried with big strokes and small strokes, throwing the dirt away or throwing it close… but he was still in the hole. All that effort and all that work, and all he did was make the hole get deeper and deeper. Then he realized that digging was not the solution, it was not the way to get out of the hole, on the contrary, digging is how holes are made bigger. Then she began to think that maybe all the plan she had was wrong and that she had no solution, since digging she couldn't get a way out, all she did was sink deeper. "

Acceptance and commitment therapy is not structured in sessions or follows a closed protocol. The therapist offers explanations and exercises aimed at reflecting the patient on himself and her problem, emphasizes the role of the patient in her life and her ability to cope with discomfort and redirect her life. Through examples and exercises, the therapist shows the patient that controlling and avoiding are strategies that do not work and is accompanied to normalize and tolerate discomfort.

If you want more information, you can consult the following books:

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): A Values-Oriented Behavioral Treatment by Kelly G. Wilson and M. Carmen Luciano Soriano.
• Acceptance and commitment therapy: Process and practice of conscious change (Mindfulness) by Steven C. Hayes, Kirk Strosahl, and Kelly G. Wilson.
• Get out of your mind and into your life. The new acceptance and commitment therapy by Steven C. There is.
• A Liberated Mind: The Essential Guide to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) by Steven C. There is.
• The Happiness Trap: Stop Suffering, Start Living by Russ Harris.
• Dealing with... Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: Core Therapeutic Skills for Effective Application by Francisco Montesinos Marín when we have the information.
• ACT by Values: Basic Manual of Interventions Based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy by Juan Aníbal González-Rivera when we have the information.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Acceptance and commitment therapy: what it is, techniques and exercises, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical psychology.

• Wilson, K. G. and Luciano, M. C. (2002): Acceptance and commitment therapy. A behavioral treatment oriented to values. Madrid: Pyramid.
• Luciano, M. C., & Valdivia, M. S. (2006). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Fundamentals, characteristics and evidence. Psychologist Papers, 27 (2), 79-91.