Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: It ’ s not about giving up

Last week someone asked how I can reconcile using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) alongside hypnosis, because ACT is all about giving up on pain reduction. This belief is common I suppose because ‘acceptance’ is in the name, and acceptance means ‘giving up’ (Biguet et al., 2015). It might also come about because ACT is so often helpful for people with chronic or persistent pain, though I’ve heard some commentators argue that ACT is unhelpfully used with people who may still have pain resolution or reduction available to them. I can’t comment on when or how ACT is used, but I can point out misinterpretations – and in this post, I will. The basis of ACT is found in its philosophy. ACT draws on functional contextualism, which is aligned with pragmatism (Pepper, 1942), and concerns itself with establishing ways to predict and influence behavioural phenomenon with precision, scope, and depth. ‘Behaviour’ in this context is the ‘act in context’ and the purpose of analysis is to predict and influence ‘successful working’ (Biglan & Hayes, 1996). A therapy developed from functional contextualism and employing relational frame theory (RFT) is ACT. There are other variants, and increasingly, Hayes and colleagues are calling for us to employ process-based therapy where particular processes are influenced, rather than applying a generic recipe (see Hayes et al., 2023). ACT aims to help peop...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: ACT - Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Coping strategies Pain conditions pain management Therapeutic approaches Source Type: blogs