Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT for short, maintains that suffering is part of life and emphasizes the importance of accepting our experience without wishing it were different. This does not mean we cannot work towards change. We create meaning in our lives with a commitment to evolving values and goals as we move forward. Acceptance does not mean simply tolerating or lapsing into helpless resignation. However, ACT shows us we must be willing to start where we are at by not avoiding, denying, or pushing away unpleasant thoughts and feelings, judging them and ourselves as stupid or weak for having them. Suppression only leads to more pain, wasting energy we could use to create desired change. The therapist helps clients identify areas in which denial may be working against them, providing more helpful strategies to better manage struggles and challenges. The way Steven Hayes, one of the pioneers of ACT puts it, “The ACT goal is to drive a wedge between a person’s legitimate anxieties” and any unhelpful coping strategies designed to avoid the anxiety. He says we often try to “turn down” unpleasant feelings and end up adopting more and more desperate strategies to do so. Instead, he says to “turn up” our level of acceptance so we can stop fighting, focus more energy on creating any desired changes, and find peace in our authentic selves. ACT helps us with this, targeting better mental health through the therapeutic use of self rather than creating illusion and building up lies.