3rd Wave: Mindfullness/acceptance based - ACT Flashcards
what does ACT integrate?
Acceptance of private experiences, behavioural changes and values
What makes up ACT?
your values, behaviours and barriers to thoughts/emotions
aiming to to develop a different relationship to these barriers
Key Features of ACT
1) Transdiagnostic action
- should be effective for a wide range of disorders unlike say CBT
2) Aim of therapy
- to increase psychological flexibility
- psychological flexibility is implicated in development and maintenance of psychopathology
What is the mechanism of change for ACT?
Psychological flexibility
what is psychological flexibility?
Hayes (2004)
psychological flexibility is the ability to contact the present moment more fully as a conscious human being and either change or persist with one’s behaviour according to one’s values
Hayes Strosahal and Wilson (1999)
6 processed contribute to psychological flexibility
4 are mindfulness related process
2 are behavioural processes which are changed once mindfulness is completed
Ruiz (2010)
reviewd 30 RCTs all focusing on ACT
found transdiagnostic support for ACT in relation to depression, SA, phobias, work stress, chronic pain and epilepsy
Clarke et al (2014)
Small RCT investigating transdiagnostic outcomes of ACT
16 week ACT group vs 16 week CBT-style TAU for patients with mixed diagnoses
significant reduction in symptoms in both conditions immediately after intervention
but imporvements were more sustained in the ACT group 6 months after
Arch and Craske (2008)
argues ACT hardly adds anything compared to CBT
Ost (2008)
criticised quality of ACT sudies
doubt was raised as to whether ACT meets formal criteria for an empirically based study
Guadiano (2009)
as with all new therapies 1st researchers could’t conduct big studies
so only small-scale poorer quality studies available
