week 10 Flashcards
What does ACT stand for
- Accept your reactions and be present
- choose a valued direction
- take action
What is mindfulness?
“Consciously bringing awareness to your here-and-now experience with openness, interest and receptiveness”
Living in the present moment, Engaging fully in what you are doing rather than ‘getting lost’ in your thoughts, Allowing your feelings to be as they are, letting them come and go rather than trying to control them (Harris, 2006)
How does ACT therapy differ from other therapies?
They don’t try to remove symptoms, or ‘fix’ people. They think that trying to control emotion makes suffering, and that strong emotion are part of the human expereience and aren’t something to be ashamed of. the aim is instead to change the relationship we have with these difficult thoughts and feelings.
What does experiential avoidance?
ACT posits that human language creates psychological suffering by setting us up to struggle with our thoughts and feelings
•Termed ‘experiential avoidance’
•E.g., symptom = something we don’t want
•Solution = try to work out how to get rid of it, or avoid it (quicksand metaphor)
What is Experiential avoidance disorder?
- Functional category that includes most of the psychological disorders •Claims that these disorders share the same functional pattern
- Destructive experiential avoidance = the attempt (struggle) to avoid thoughts, feelings, memories, sensation or any other private experience ➡ symptoms & suffering.
What is experienced when we have ‘psychological inflexibility?’
F usion with our thoughts
E valuation of experiences
A voidance of experiences
R eason giving for behaviour
What are the two main act processes?
1.Developing acceptance of unwanted ‘private experiences’ are out of personal control
2.Commitment and action toward living a valued life (Harris, 2006)
•Step 1: ‘Creative hopelessness’ strategy
•Step 2: Control is the problem, not the solution
What are the six core ACT processes
- defusion
- acceptance
- contact with the present moment
- the observing self
- values
- commited action
What is defusion?
ACT practitioner think that most people are ‘cogntiively fused,’ that is, consider their thoughts to be reality, the truth, lack the ability to step back and be like ‘this is just a randomly generated memory/idea/whatever and it doesn’t define me and it’s not gospel. Defusion is seperating from that. E.g, the distinction between thinking ‘nobody cares,’ to ‘i’m having the thought nobody cares.’
What is acceptance?
Accepting the current moment, making room for unpleasant thoughts and feelings without fighting them
Self-as-context
the perspective from which people accept and observe experiences, where they make observations. kinda hard to explain, but the metaphor that we forget the sky is there behind shit weather, but if we went high enough we’d see its still there and its ok
What are values within ACT
different from goals; the direction we want to move in, goals are the steps along the way. Four broad groups, work play relationships and health.
Comitted action.
commiting to change and to therapy. So like, practicing mindfulness, establishing your values, tune in to your observer self, accept things you can’t control etc
