Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is an action-oriented approach to psychotherapy that emerged stems from traditional behaviour therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy.
ACT moves beyond the traditional focus on problems and solutions, teaching clients to stop avoiding, denying, and struggling with their emotions and, to accept that their feelings are normal and appropriate responses. The core of ACT is a change in both self-talk and action/verbal behaviour. Understanding these concepts supports clients to accept the issues they face and the challenges life brings with a commitment to making the necessary changes in their behaviour, regardless of their life circumstance and how they feel about them. Rather than focusing on resolving symptoms, ACT focusses on the creation of a more adaptive relationship between the client and their symptoms.
The experience of observing one’s own feelings and recognizing and accepting that feelings are a natural outcome of circumstances has been a liberating factor for clients engaging in ACT.
The ACT approach is not to pursue the elimination of difficult feelings; but to ‘be’ with them and with what life brings their way. ACT encourages people to open up to undesirable feelings, and to react to them mindfully whilst not avoiding situations where they are provoked.
This workshop will provide an overview of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy during which participants will experience the impact ACT techniques can make and will gain experience applying ACT to a variety of different clinical presentations.