What is acceptance and commitment therapy?
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT, pronounced as a word instead of separate letters) is a relatively new model of psychotherapy that is changing forever the way we think about the goals of clinical psychology and the very idea of mental health. Applied to a range of common behavioral, emotional, and even medical problems-from smoking cessation to depression and anxiety to managing the effects of type 2 diabetes-ACT is emerging as a powerful new tool we can use to change our lives for the better. Unlike other models of psychotherapy, ACT doesn’t focus on the control or elimination of unwanted thoughts and impulses. Instead it trains us to observe our thoughts, achieving distance from them without feeling a need for action or judgment. ACT techniques help us accept and even embrace uncomfortable experiences-and this is a critical skill for the second phase of the ACT process, in which we learn to identify our values. As simple as this might sound, it actually is a very challenging p
