Dancing around the hexaflex: Using ACT in practice 3

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) can be slippery to describe. It’s an approach that doesn’t aim to change thought content, but instead to help us shift the way we relate to what our mind tells us. It’s also an approach focused on workability: pragmatic and context-specific analysis of how well a strategy is working to achieve being able to do what matters. Over the next few posts I want to give some examples of how non-psychologists can use ACT in session (remember ACT is open for anyone to use it!). Cognitive defusion I’m guessing that for psychologists and those who primarily work with thoughts, it feels natural to begin here, but maybe all humans jump to talking rather than doing because this is the biggest distinction between us and other animals. Cognitive defusion refers to making some space between a thought or belief, and what we do next. It’s not just about actions we take, but also how seriously we hold on to the opinions of our mind. The language theory underpinning ACT is relational frame theory. This theory explains how humans rapidly acquire an understanding of relationships between concepts, and why these learned relationships become so ‘sticky.’ For a full description of RFT, this is a great place to begin [Youtube playlist]. If you’re a reader, not a video watcher, I love the paper by Beeckman and colleagues (2019) (listed below).The topic is pretty technical, so I’ll simplify it and...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: ACT - Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Coping strategies Occupational therapy Pain conditions Physiotherapy Psychology Science in practice acceptance and commitment therapy cognitive fusion pain managem Source Type: blogs