The Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT, pronounced “act” not “act”, from the English Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), is a type of psychological intervention that has been developed coherently with a theoretical and philosophical framework that is at the base of this intervention, based on basic research. and applied.
Basics
It uses acceptance, understood as the human capacity to experience being aware, in the here and now, of sensations, thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, images, etc. (private events). This ability to be aware would be linked to the commitment to carry out actions in accordance with personal values and would also be linked to the change strategies necessary to increase psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility refers to the possibility of contacting private events that occur in the present, as much as possible as human beings, while choosing to either abandon or persist in an action that implies discomfort but is at the service of the values that one identifies as one’s own.
ACT maintains that language is at the base of psychological problems, making it inevitable that in certain conditions thoughts and sensations arise that can be experienced as annoying. The fact of being verbal also makes it easier for people to get involved in fighting against their own private events, and to persist in doing so despite the fact that the results of such struggles are often counterproductive. Through metaphors, paradoxes and experiential exercises, clients learn to contact thoughts, feelings, memories and sensations, both those previously feared and avoided and any others that arise. In this way, people learn the ability to re-contextualize these private events, clarify what matters to them in their life; what they deeply and radically value, and acquire the commitment to the necessary changes in action.
A basic assumption in ACT is that psychological distress is caused by “experiential avoidance.” This is understood as a wide range of behaviors intentionally aimed at avoiding contact with thoughts, emotions, feelings, memories… that are experienced as negative. The individual thus engages in a struggle that results in psychological rigidity that distances the person from what really matters most in life. From ACT, it is considered that “cognitive fusion” (being “fused” or entangled in thoughts, sensations…), the tendency to value internal experience as good or bad, avoidance, play an important role in psychological problems. experiential and the tendency to give reasons or justifications for one’s own behavior. The healthy alternative proposed by ACT would be focused on the acceptance of one’s own natural, automatic and inherent reactions to the human condition and making contact with the present moment, which would allow one to more freely choose a valuable direction, with personal meaning and commit to action and changes consistent with that direction.
ACT is based on the Functional Contextualism which connects with the position of the Radical and the , as it maintains that any event must be interpreted as an act inseparable from its current and historical context. From these perspectives, the analysis of the functions of human behavior, in general, and of the so-called psychological disorders, in particular, is decisive in order to understand their genesis and their persistence and extension. Functional analysis has a broad experimental base, but functional analysis of language and cognition has left its mark based on research in the last two decades on the emergence of new behaviors, relational behavior, and the derivation of psychological functions. The theory that has begun to integrate all these findings has been called and the fruits that are emerging are essential to understand the genesis of sensations and thoughts and both the function they show and the change of such function. In the field of psychopathology, this research has made it possible to isolate the concept of Experiential Avoidance Disordereither Destructive Experiential Avoidanceas a core pattern in most of the Mental Disorders typically differentiated in current classification systems.
The research program around the effectiveness of ACT and its basic foundations is still developing. However, ACT has been shown to be effective in numerous case studies and randomized clinical trials in a wide range of applications, ranging from chronic pain, addiction, smoking, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychosis, work stress, even complicated grief or coping with diseases such as cancer.
Affinities
ACT, along with other interventions such as , Analytical-Functional Psychotherapy and the Cognitive Therapy based on Mindfulnesshas been included in the so-called Third Wave of Behavior Therapy. These therapies have in common that they are empirically and theoretically founded, they are sensitive to the context and functions of psychological phenomena, not their form, and in this sense they tend to emphasize contextual change strategies that are added to other strategies aimed at direct change. These treatments tend to seek the construction of broad, effective and flexible repertoires as opposed to an approach more oriented towards the suppression or control of private events that is based on a narrower definition of psychological problems. The third wave reformulates and synthesizes previous generations of cognitive-behavioral therapy and advances them toward questions, issues, and domains hitherto primarily addressed by other traditions. In this sense, ACT has affinities with existential therapies and with Gestalt, although unlike these, its development is linked to research results and is consciously linked to a basic research program.
References
- Wilson, K. and Luciano, C. (2002). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). A values-oriented behavioral treatment. Madrid: Pyramid.
- Luciano, C. (2001) (Ed.), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). case book. Valencia: Promobook.
- Hayes, Steven C.; Kirk D. Strosahl, Kelly G. Wilson (2003). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change. New York: The Guilford Press.
- Luciano, M.C., and Hayes, S.C. (2001). Experiential Avoidance Disorder. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology1, 109-157.
- Luciano, MC, Valdivia, S., Gutiérrez, O., and Páez, M. (2006). Advances since Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). EduPsykhé. Journal of Psychology and Psychopedagogy, 5(2), 173-201.
external links
Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. Link to the content in Spanish of the website of this scientific society dedicated to ACT, RFT and functional contextualism.
ACT Institute. Made up of a team of ACT experts who are pioneers in the introduction of this therapy in Spain, and offers specialized training for professionals and clinical supervision.
Experimental and applied analysis research group at the University of Almería. Pioneer in the functional analysis of language, mainly in the emergence of new behaviors, in the transformation of psychological functions from the Relational Framework Theory and in the application of basic research for the analysis of clinical methods of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy .
Official Master’s Degree and Doctoral Program with Quality Mention “Functional Analysis in Clinical and Health Contexts” from the University of Almería.
Master in Contextual Therapies (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Functional Analytical Psychotherapy). Hosted by ACT Institute
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