|
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, ACT (pronounced "act" not "ay see tee"), is a branch of cognitive-behavioral therapy, an empirically based psychological intervention, hat uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies, together with commitment and behavior change strategies, to increase psychological flexibility.[1] Empirical is an adjective often used in conjunction with science, both the natural and social sciences, which means an observation or experiment based upon experience that is capable of being verified or disproved. ...
Psychology is an academic or applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes such as perception, cognition, emotion, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. ...
See: Intervention (counseling) - an orchestrated attempt by family and friends to get a family member to get help for addiction or other similar problem. ...
Acceptance, in spirituality, mindfulness, and human psychology, usually refers to the experience of a situation without an intention to change that situation. ...
Mindfulness is the practice whereby a person is intentionally aware of his or her thoughts and actions in the present moment, non-judgmentally. ...
Basics
ACT is developed within a pragmatic philosophy called functional contextualism. ACT is based on Relational Frame Theory (RFT), a comprehensive theory of language and cognition that has emerged within behavior analysis. ACT differs from traditional Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) in that rather than trying to teach people to better control their thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories and other private events, ACT focuses on what they can control more directly: their arms, legs and mouth. ACT teaches them to "just notice", accept, and embrace their private events, especially previously unwanted ones. ACT helps the individual get in contact with a transcendent sense of self known as "self-as-context" — the you that is always there observing and experiencing and yet distinct from one's thoughts, feelings, sensations, and memories. ACT aims to help the individual to clarify their personal values and to take action on them, bringing more vitality and meaning to their life in the process. Pragmatism is a school of philosophy which originated in the United States in the late 1800s. ...
This article is 58 kilobytes or more in size. ...
Relational frame theory, or RFT, is a psychological theory of human language and cognition, developed and tested largely through the efforts of Steven C. Hayes and Dermot Barnes-Holmes. ...
Look up Cognition in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Behaviorism (or behaviourism) is an approach to psychology based on the proposition that behavior is interesting and worthy of scientific research. ...
A Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a psychotherapy based on modifying everyday thoughts and behaviors, with the aim of positively influencing emotions. ...
In philosophy, transcendental/transcendence, has three different but related primary meanings, all of them derived from the words literal meaning (from Latin), of climbing or going beyond: one that originated in Ancient philosophy, one in Medieval philosophy and one in modern philosophy. ...
The core conception of ACT is that psychological suffering is usually caused by experiential avoidance, cognitive entanglement, and resulting psychological rigidity that leads to a failure to take needed behavioral steps in accord with core values. As a simple way to summarize the model, you can say that ACT views the core of many problems to be FEAR:
- Fusion with your thoughts
- Evaluation of experience
- Avoidance of your experience
- Reason giving for your behavior
And the healthy alternative to be to ACT: - Accept your reactions and be present
- Choose a valued direction
- Take action
Evidence ACT is generally considered to be an empirically oriented psychotherapy. ACT has, as of February 2006, been evaluated in over 20 randomized clinical trials for a variety of client problems. Overall, when compared to other active treatments designed or known to be helpful, the effect size for ACT is a Cohen's d of around 0.6, which is considered a medium effect size. Effect sizes that large are not surprising when comparing well designed treatments to wait list controls, but they are not common when the comparison conditions are themselves evidence-based approaches (across the whole empirical clinical psychology literature the average effect size for such comparisons approaches zero). // Psychotherapy is a range of techniques based on dialogue, communication and behavior change and which are designed to improve the mental health of a client or patient, or to improve group relationships (such as in a family). ...
A randomised controlled trial (RCT), also known as randomised clinical trial, is a form of clinical trial, or scientific procedure used in the testing of the efficacy of medicines or medical procedures. ...
Effect size is a measure of the strength of the relationship between two variables. ...
As of 2006, ACT is still relatively new in the development of its research base. Nevertheless, ACT has shown preliminary research evidence of effectiveness for a variety of problems including chronic pain, addictions, smoking cessation, depression, anxiety, psychosis, workplace stress, diabetes management.[2] 2006 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Clinical depression (also called major depressive disorder, or sometimes unipolar when compared with bipolar disorder) is a state of intense sadness, melancholia or despair that has advanced to the point of being disruptive to an individuals social functioning and/or activities of daily living. ...
This article includes a list of works cited but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ...
Psychosis (not to be confused with psychopathy) is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state in which thought and perception are severely impaired. ...
This article is about the disease that features high blood sugar. ...
Mediational analyses have provided evidence for the possible causal role of key ACT processes, including acceptance, defusion, and values, in producing beneficial clinical outcomes. Correlational evidence has also found that absence of these processes predicts many forms of psychopathology. A recent meta-analysis showed that ACT processes account for about 25% of the variance in psychopathology at baseline, using correlational methods. A meta-analysis is a statistical practice of combining the results of a number of studies. ...
Similarities ACT is sometimes grouped together with dialectical behavior therapy, functional analytic psychotherapy, and mindfulness based cognitive therapy as The Third Wave of Behavior Therapy which Steven C. Hayes defined in his AABT President Address as follows: "Grounded in an empirical, principle-focused approach, the third wave of behavioral and cognitive therapy is particularly sensitive to the context and functions of psychological phenomena, not just their form, and thus tends to emphasize contextual and experiential change strategies in addition to more direct and didactic ones. These treatments tend to seek the construction of broad, flexible and effective repertoires over an eliminative approach to narrowly defined problems, and to emphasize the relevance of the issues they examine for clinicians as well as clients. The third wave reformulates and synthesizes previous generations of behavioral and cognitive therapy and carries them forward into questions, issues, and domains previously addressed primarily by other traditions, in hopes of improving both understanding and outcomes." Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a psychosocial treatment developed by Marsha M. Linehan specifically to treat Borderline Personality Disorder. ...
Steven C. Hayes is Nevada Foundation Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. ...
Similarities are also found with the awareness-management movement in business training programs, where mindfulness and cognitive-shifting techniques are being employed to generate rapid positive shifts in mood and performance. Cognitive-shifting is a descriptive term identifying a specific mental process, emerging from perceptual and cognitive psychology, and also from business-oriented awareness-management programs - with an ancient boost from mindfulness meditative methodology. ...
ACT has also been adapted to create a non-therapy version of the same processes called Acceptance and Commitment Training. This training process, oriented towards the development of mindfulness, acceptance, and values skills in non-clinical settings such as businesses or schools, has also been investigated in a handful of research studies with good preliminary results.
The emphasis of ACT on present-mindedness, directions and action is similar to other approaches within psychology that are not as focused on outcome research or consciously linked to a basic science program, including more humanistic or constructivist approaches such as narrative psychology, Gestalt Therapy, Morita Therapy, or Re-evaluation Counselling among many others. Gestalt Therapy is a psychotherapy which focuses on here-and-now experience and personal responsibility. ...
To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
Re-evaluation Counseling, or RC is the worlds major organization for Co-counseling. ...
It is also similar to many eastern approaches (particularly Buddhism), and the mystical aspects of most major spiritual and religious traditions. ACT did not arise from these related areas directly — it is the result of a 25 year course of development inside Western science — but it arrived at a similar place which is interesting in and of itself. The connections have been explored in several articles that can be found on the ACBS website (see external links below). The intellectual history of ACT can be found there as well. Buddhism is a dharmic, non-theistic religion, which is also a philosophy and a system of psychology. ...
Notes Steven C. Hayes is Nevada Foundation Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. ...
2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the Anno Domini (common) era. ...
January 2 is the second day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Steven C. Hayes is Nevada Foundation Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. ...
2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the Anno Domini (common) era. ...
January 2 is the second day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
References - Hayes, Steven C.; Spencer Smith (2005). Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. New Harbinger Publications. ISBN 1-57224-425-9.
- Hayes, Steven C.; Kirk D. Strosahl (2004). A Practical Guide to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Springer. ISBN 0-387-23367-9.
- Hayes, Steven C.; Kirk D. Strosahl, Kelly G. Wilson (2003). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy : An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change. The Guilford Press. ISBN 1-57230-955-5.
See also In philosophy, contextualism describes a collection of views in the philosophy of language which emphasize the context in which an action, utterance or expression occurs, and argues that, in some important respect, the action, utterance or expression can only be understood within that context. ...
Cognitive therapy or cognitive behavior therapy is a kind of psychotherapy used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, phobias, and other forms of psychological disorder. ...
External links - Contextualpsychology.org - Home for the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, a professional organization dedicated to ACT, RFT, and functional contextualism. Also helpful for training opportunities for professionals interested in ACT and RFT.
- Jason Luoma, Ph.D. - Resources for ACT therapists.
|
Feeds |
Contact