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Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Bristol based psychological help with depression, anxiety, stress, substance abuse, and psychotic symptoms

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Based on Relational Frame Theory, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT, said as one word rather than A-C-T) is an empirically based psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness, together with commitment and behaviour change strategies, to increase psychological flexibility. ACT illuminates the ways language entangles clients into futile attempts to wage war against their own inner lives. Through metaphor, paradox, and experiential exercises clients learn how to make healthy contact with thoughts, feelings, memories, and physical sensations that have been feared and avoided. Clients gain the skills to recontextualise and accept these private events, develop greater clarity about personal values, and commit to needed behaviour change. This workshop will introduce basic ACT processes such as psychological acceptance, cognitive defusion and behavioural commitment strategies and show how to formulate clinical problems in terms of experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion.

Visit the ACT South-West network

How does ACT work? ¶

ACT teaches clients and therapists alike how to alter the way difficult private experiences function mentally rather than having to eliminate them from occurring at all. This empowering message has been shown to help clients cope with a wide variety of clinical problems, including depression, anxiety, stress, substance abuse, chronic pain, and even psychotic symptoms. The benefits of ACT are as important for the clinician as they are for clients and it has been shown empirically to quickly alleviate therapist burn-out.

If you've been trying to win the war with your mind, with your anxiety, with your urges, with your moods. Well, ACT is about letting the war roll on while you leave the battlefield.
Professor Steve Hayes

ACT Books ¶

Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. & Wilson, K. G (1999) Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An experiential approach to behavior change. New York: Guilford Press.

This is the ACT bible at the moment. One of the first books to read if you are interested in ACT and whatever else you read, it will not make full sense until you master this book.
Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. (2004) A Practical Guide to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. New York: Springer-Verlag.

This is another "must have" for ACT clinicians. Shows how to do ACT with a variety of populations. Until the panopy of speciality ACT books arrive (they are coming) this is one that any ACT clinican needs to think through how to fit the ACT model to a broad range of specific problems.
Hayes, S.C., & Smith, S. (2005). Get out of your mind and into your life. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.

So far the only general purpose ACT book for the public. This book can supercharge ACT clinical work when used as homework -- very easy to use as an aid to almost any course of ACT treatment. Cheap and easy for clients to get, since it is in most bookstores. Also designed to be useful on its own and can virtually be a treatment manual for beginning ACT clinicians.

Useful links for people interested in ACT and RFT ¶

ACT South-West - a local network for ACT practitioners and those wanting to find out a little more about the approach
ACT/RFT Podcast - check out "Functionally Speaking - A Third Wave Behavior Therapy Podcast" by DJ Moran. This is an interview with Steve Hayes, one of the primary developers of ACT and RFT.
Join the UKACT listserv - an electronic forum to discuss ACT issues in the UK context, make links with other therapists and researchers, and a way we can develop the UK ACT community.
The Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS) - the primary source of information about ACT, RFT and contextual behavioural science.