What is ACT (And Why We Love It)
What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy?
ACT is an empirically-supported therapy that helps folks build awareness and perspective of our experiences, open up to our thoughts and feelings in new ways, and enhance our connection with the person we want to be by building commitments around our values.
ACT is what’s known as a “transdiagnostic” therapy, which means that the approach we take can be useful with a really wide variety of struggles: whether you’re struggling with depression or anxiety, chronic pain or substance use, working with a skilled ACT therapist may be helpful.
How does it work?
Let’s start with a metaphor—we love metaphors in ACT. Have you ever wondered why there are so many palm trees in Miami? Or why do the redwoods grow so big and tall in California?
One reason might be to think about how often those parts of the world see extreme weather. If a hurricane were to blow through northern California, it might not end well for the redwoods. Because redwoods are so tall and sturdy, a strong wind might knock them over pretty easily.
By contrast, the palm trees we find in Florida are able to bend in high winds and are incredibly hard to uproot. They’ve evolved to grow and thrive in that environment, by harnessing the power of flexibility.
In the same way, being human is filled with difficult moments. We all experience stormy weather as we move through the seasons of our lives, in the form of sticky thoughts, painful emotions, or difficult urges. And, show of hands: how many of us struggle with those thoughts, emotions, and urges when they arise? For many of us, we can find ourselves reacting rigidly to those internal experiences–we find them so aversive that we work really hard to avoid, escape, or control our thoughts and feelings. Which makes sense! None of us want to deal with that stuff. But the dilemma is that when we do, we can find that our thoughts and feelings begin to dominate our lives—we’re no longer growing toward the life we want to build but are instead uprooted in a never-ending quest to control the “weather.”
In working with an ACT therapist, you’ll practice the skills most commonly associated with psychological flexibility. Like the mighty palm tree, we’ll work to plant our roots in soil that will nourish and sustain us by connecting to our values and commitments. We’ll work to build a new awareness of the weather when it arises and find new ways to relate to our thoughts and feelings so that they don’t push around us quite as much. Using these skills will help place you firmly in the driver’s seat of your life so that you can focus on moving toward who or what is most important to you.
The team at Mind Chicago are flexibility experts and are here to support you on this journey. Reach out for more information at hello@mindchicago.com.
Authored by friend of Mind Chicago and amazing ACT Therapist, Tony Bates, JD, LCSW!
Tony offers virtual ACT therapy to adults in Illinois and Washington.
