Psychotherapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
The Therapy
Acceptance and commitment therapy is an effective treatment for depression, anxiety, substance abuse, psychotic symptoms, post-traumatic stress disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorders.
Send us a message and we will create an individual offer tailored to your needs and goals.
What brings true positive change is not the elimination of difficult feelings, but a safe and effective method of dealing with them
What is ACT?
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a type of psychotherapy that is included within the so-called third-generation therapies or contextual therapies, a type of therapy that was developed in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s.
ACT, pronounced as the word ‘act’, is about making actions. These actions are those guided by your core values, which will help you move toward the person you want to be or toward the life you want to live. These values guide you, inspire you and motivate you. It is also about being mindful and conscious about your own actions, being aware and engaging with whatever you are doing in the present moment.
ACT is scientifically supported. Its objective is for the patient/client to maximise their potential for a rich and meaningful life, while handling the pain and suffering that inevitably goes with facing life, accepting that life is difficult and that humans come with a full range of emotions, both pleasant and painful. Unfortunately, most of us don’t handle pain very effectively. Often, when we experience painful feelings, thoughts and sensations, we respond in ways that seem to help in the short term, but are self-destructive or self-defeating actions with negative consequences in the longer term.
How can ACT maximise your potential helping you to achieve a rich and meaningful life?
Firstly, by helping you to clarify what is truly important to you and what gives you purpose. These clarifications will guide your actions, inspire you and motivate you to act in a way that will enrich your life; helping you to be the person you want to be.
Secondly, by enabling you to handle difficult thoughts and feelings in an effective way, teaching you psychological skills such as mindfulness to help you to fully engage in the present moment, appreciating every aspect of life.
Of note, although ACT interventions do not focus directly on symptom change, research has shown that symptom reduction is a by-product of re-engaging in life in meaningful ways and increasing acceptance of difficult internal experiences.
What ACT consists of
ACT is based on a number of principles. Each of these principles has a specific methodology, so the exercises used in each one are different.
Connect with the present moment: teaches you how focus on the present, actively participating in what is happening in the physical world around you or the psychological world within you.
Acceptance: With practice, you will learn how to open up and make space for unpleasant or painful emotions, allowing them to come and go as they choose, rather than resisting or suppressing them.
Cognitive defusion: You will learn how to adopt a more distanced, detached vision of things, allowing them to guide you, but not dominate you.
The “Observing Self” or “Noticing self”: where you get to become aware of the part of your mind that notices that you are thinking, doing in any moment, feeling, or sensing.
Know what matters, what are your values: During the sessions, we will clarify your values. They will help to give direction and guide your life, to be the person you want to be, to have the life you want to have.
Committed Action: Consists of setting value-driven goals and achieving them through meaningful action. This includes physical but also psychological actions. It is only through putting your values into action that your life will become rich and meaningful.
Questions & Answers
Currently, ACT has been identified by the American Psychological Association as an empirically supported treatment for depression, anxiety, substance abuse, psychotic symptoms, post-traumatic stress disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorders
It has been recognised that having good mental health is more than simply the absence of mental illness. Studies have demonstrated the relevance of wellbeing for mental health care. In this sense, ACT has been proven to help promote wellbeing.
People going through difficult situations, such as the loss of someone or something really important in their life, the break up of a relationship, parenting challenges, ‘burnout’ from work or studies, any stress-related event or situation can all positively benefit from learning and applying the principles of ACT.
All you need is a laptop, phone or tablet with camera and microphone for video calls. Additionally, please ensure you have good internet speed and to be set up in a comfortable space where you feel safe to talk freely. We will preferably use Zoom or Skype, both of which are private and secure.
The device you use for your session/s needs to be positioned in such a way that it allows all of your face and the upper part of your body to be in the camera frame during the session/s. It is also required that all notifications on the device you choose to use for the session is turned off until your session ends. Because of confidentiality, please bear in mind you have to be in a room by yourself.
Care after therapy sessions
After a therapy sitting, you must keep up the practical exercises learnt during the session. In this sense, you should continue to do mindfulness and exposure exercises, and work with personal values, among other techniques that characterise the ACT approach and methodology.
What clients say
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