Dancing around the hexaflex: Using ACT in practice 4

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!). Willingess (Acceptance) – Choosing to experience it all Do you remember the poignancy of a beloved pet dying? ‘Crossing the Rainbow Bridge‘ was written by 82-year-old Edna Clyne-Rekhy, who wrote the poem at age 19 in 1959, at the passing of her beloved dog, Major (Wikipedia entry) and tells of the reunion of pet and pawrent years later when the pawrent dies. It’s sweet and sad at the same time, and while I’m not convinced there is a Rainbow Bridge, the loss of a pet is a time of heart-wrenching grief. And yet the years of unparalleled love of a pet leads inevitably to this time. If you love, you hurt when that love isn’t there any more. Willingness is like that. It’s about recognising that for every ‘up’ emotion, there are equivalent ‘down’ emotions. And that by feeling all the feels that life offers, we move through life moment by moment. Willingness for pain Willingness in pain manage...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: ACT - Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Chronic pain Coping strategies Occupational therapy Physiotherapy Professional topics Psychology Science in practice acceptance and commitment therapy pain management Therapeutic approaches Source Type: blogs