Suffering is a basic fact of life for humans. But suffering is not just about pain, psychological or otherwise. Humans don’t just have pain; they agonize over their painful memories, uncomfortable emotions, and difficult self-evaluations. They worry about them, they dread them, they engage in all kinds of activities to avoid them.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is about the problem of human suffering, and it’s also about much more than that. It’s about reaching beyond suffering to the larger purpose of people’s lives and helping them get active in really living. ACT is centered on such questions as “What do you really want your life to be about?” or “If you lived in a world where you could have your life be about anything, what would it be?”
ACT (said as one word, not the letters) is a new cognitive-behavior therapy that has gained increasing attention in recent years. ACT emphasizes such processes as mindfulness, acceptance, and values in helping clients overcome obstacles in their lives. A basic assumption of ACT is that suffering is a normal and unavoidable part of human experience and that it is actually people’s attempts to control or avoid their own painful experiences that lead to much long-term suffering and what doesn’t work in people’s lives. ACT helps people learn ways to let go of the struggle with pain, be more mindful, get clarity on what really matters to them, and to commit to living full, vibrant lives. The goal of therapy is not to eliminate certain parts of one’s experience of life, but rather to learn how to experience life more fully, without as much struggle, and with vitality and commitment.
For an Audio Introduction to ACT
- Interview with Dr. Steven Hayes where he talks about ACT for anxiety and his own history with panic disorder
Empirical Support for ACT
ACT is considered an evidence-based psychotherapy in that its practitioners and researchers are dedicated to the development of science and empirical evaluation of its effects. ACT has, as of 2019, been evaluated in over 300 randomized clinical trials for a variety of client problems (one of which was conducted by people at this clinic). ACT has also been adapted to create a non-therapy version of the same processes called Acceptance and Commitment Training. This training process, oriented toward the development of mindfulness, acceptance, and values skills in nonclinical settings, such as businesses or schools, has also been investigated in a handful of research studies with good preliminary results.
ACT is based on a behavioral account of language and cognition called Relational Frame Theory (RFT). RFT now has over 100 studies supporting its basic tenants and implications and has been researched for over two decades. RFT holds that while language has been key in allowing us to dominate the planet and create amazing levels of wealth and security, it also has a dark side. Basic properties of language seem to lie behind much of the suffering that humans experience. ACT, the applied technology resulting from RFT, attempts to help people circumvent language in those areas of life where it is less helpful, and strengthen the most useful aspects of language in the domains where it tends to be most helpful.
For a listing of therapists in the Portland area who draw from ACT, please click on our Portland ACT Therapist Webpage.
Mindfulness and Acceptance Exercises
We’ve compiled a page of online audio files and exercises.
ACT for Personal Growth
Here’s a page of other online ACT resources.
Looking for an ACT Therapist in Portland?
Many of the therapists at Portland Psychotherapy have expertise in ACT. So, feel free to look at our list of ACT trained therapists here and find one that focuses on the kind of concerns you have.