Acceptance and Commitment Therapy For Dummies

Overview

Harness ACT to live a healthier life

Do you want to change your relationship with painful thoughts and feelings that are holding you back from making changes to improve your life? In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy For Dummies, you'll discover how to identify negative and unhealthy modes of thinking and apply Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) principles throughout your day-to-day life, creating a healthier, richer and more meaningful existence with yourself and others.

Closely connected to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), ACT is an evidence-based, NICE-approved therapy that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies mixed in with commitment and behaviour-changing strategies to help people increase their psychological flexibility in both their personal and professional lives. With the help

of this straightforward and authoritative guide, you'll find out how to target unpleasant feelings and not act upon them—without sending yourself spiraling down the rabbit hole. The objective is not happiness; rather, it is to be present with what life brings you and to move toward valued behaviour.

  • Shows you how to banish unhelpful thoughts
  • Guides you to making room for painful feelings
  • Teaches you how to engage fully with your here-and-now experience
  • Helps you cope with anxiety, depression, stress, OCD and psychosis

Whether you're looking to practice self care at home or are thinking about seeing an ACT therapist, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy For Dummies makes it easier to live a healthier and more productive life in spite of—and alongside—unpleasantness.

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About The Author

Freddy Jackson Brown is a clinical psychologist and has worked in the NHS for over 20 years. Duncan Gillard is a Senior Educational Psychologist and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy practitioner. He provides psychological services to children, young people, families and school-based professionals.

Sample Chapters

acceptance and commitment therapy for dummies

CHEAT SHEET

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps you improve your relationships in all areas — work, family, and friendships — and how to manage anxiety in these areas as well. Gain skills in mindfulness and learn to clearly define and live out your personal values with these valuable tips. Improving your relationshipsRelationships — be they with family, friends, or lovers — are processes.

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Use the following ten Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) tips to help you live a life defined by your values and not by your mind: Practise mindful awareness: Being aware of what you think and feel as you go about your daily life helps you to connect with the world in which you live. It's all too easy to spend lots of time in your mind, wondering, worrying, ruminating and planning, which, while sometimes useful, can also disconnect you from the real world.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps you improve your relationships in all areas — work, family, and friendships — and how to manage anxiety in these areas as well. Gain skills in mindfulness and learn to clearly define and live out your personal values with these valuable tips. Improving your relationshipsRelationships — be they with family, friends, or lovers — are processes.
Following an initial meeting with Marco and his parents, Duncan agreed to carry out a brief Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) intervention that focused on defusion and setting value-based goals. When Duncan met Marco, he was 19 years old. His documented case history indicated that he was experiencing panic attacks and associated paranoid thoughts.
Anger isn't actually a problem. It's a natural emotion, just like happiness and sadness. How you respond to anger, however, can be problematic. How you feel and what you think aren't choices – but you can choose how to act. Allowing yourself to feel anger but responding in a way that's non-destructive and consistent with your values is clearly important.
Many therapeutic approaches are seen as relevant only to those with a clinically diagnosed mental health problem. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) differs in this respect. Anyone and everyone can benefit from ACT; it can be applied to everyday difficulties as well as serious problems, such as depression.
Relationships – be they with family, friends or lovers – are processes. And no matter how happy and contented you are with the important relationships in your life, there's always room for improvement. Relationships, like all processes, also ebb and flow and present you with challenges.Here are a few great techniques to help you engage in relationships in a way that represents the kind of person you most want to be: Practise mindful listening when engaging in conversation.
Committed action is a core acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) process. It involves turning your values into actions in your everyday life. Your values represent what's most important to you and the kind of person you want to be. Committed action is about behaving in ways that reflect your values, even when doing so is difficult or inconvenient.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) aims to increase your psychological flexibility so that you can improve your wellbeing and live a more meaningful and vital life. Psychological flexibility involves being open to and aware of all your experiences so that you can move your life forward in valued life directions.
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