We can’t be happy all the time. After all, happiness is a fleeting emotion just like any other. And that’s not what life is about, is it? Instead of chasing a temporary feeling, we want to build a life of sustained contentment and purpose. That is true happiness.

A natural part of our lives are those uncomfortable emotions, thoughts, or situations that we experience, some more than others. But it’s how we deal with them that allows us to live our lives in a fulfilling way.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy provides an approach that supports people to live with unwanted feelings and emotions in a more productive way, instead of trying to avoid them altogether.

What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy?

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, is a therapeutic approach where instead of trying to eliminate discomfort, or control it, it encourages you to accept that you’re experiencing these things and see the purpose in experiencing both “negative” and “positive” emotion.

It’s based on the premise that discomfort is a natural part of living. And that often, in trying to neutralise discomfort, it only serves to make us feel worse. This can lead to further unwanted emotions like anger, sadness, and guilt at feeling these things in the first place. Ironically, we can become anxious about our anxiety, or sad about our sadness. ACT helps us to minimise the suffering aroung experiencing difficult emotions by focusing instead on our values.

There are six core principles that support ACT.

Acceptance

The idea of accepting your feelings, acknowledge they’re happening, and to observe them in a non-judgmental way. Rather than struggling with them, trying to push them away or avoid them, we instead accept that they’re occurring.

Cognitive defusion

Reminding yourself that what you think about a situation isn’t necessarily what’s happening in reality. A thought is just a thought, that doesn’t make it true. The more we defuse from our thoughts, the less suffering we have.

Being present

Rather than worrying about the past, or the future, ACT is aimed at focusing on what’s occurring right then and there.

Self as the context

This involves beginning to develop a flexible sense of self. It could be something like, when anxiety rears its head, you tell yourself that your anxiety story has come around again. It’s not an absolute truth of who you are, it’s not actually who you are, it’s simply a story about you. Tools like this can make it easier to observe the thoughts objectively.

Clarifying your values

Like many things in life, it all comes back to the values that you hold. By clarifying your own set of core values and goals, this can help guide you in your thoughts and actions.

Action

This is where Commitment comes into it. Is what you’re doing in life  aligned to your values? Are you the partner/brother/sister/parent/colleague/boss that you want to be? The aim is to commit to actions that align with those values, working towards navigating through the discomfort, rather than avoiding it.

How Acceptance and Commitment Therapy works?

ACT is a therapy that can support you in living with your unwanted thoughts or feelings. It doesn’t provide a way to control your thoughts or feelings from popping up in the first place.

Instead, it’s a way of actively thinking about them as they happen and redefining how you act on them. Rather than categorising the thoughts, feelings, and emotions themselves as strictly negative, instead, it’s about understanding that all of our emotions serve a purpose and that they’re a part of life. The less we fight ourselves on our emotions, the happier we will be.

Yes, they will occur. And yes, they’re uncomfortable. But instead of trying to push them away, or deal with them in unhelpful ways, it’s a way to live your life through them. You can allow them to simply exist, while you act in line with the values and goals that you’ve set for yourself.

That’s the critical thing about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. It’s not about making easy decisions. It’s about accepting that things are difficult—and knowing that you have an approach that can help you deal with it.

Who can benefit from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy?

ACT is a tool that can help you build and nurture psychological flexibility, with the goal of strengthening the ability to change your behaviour.

So ACT can be a useful tool for people who have experienced a negative event in the past, and are looking for support in managing their feelings and thoughts about the event. This could be grief or loss, going through a relationship breakdown, or an event that has led to chronic pain or disability.

It may also be a helpful approach for those living with anxiety, depression, or substance abuse, as a way of coping with emotional distress.

ACT is not suitable for crisis situations, severe trauma, or domestic and family violence situations.

Does Acceptance and Commitment Therapy work?

ACT isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. So while we can’t give a definitive answer about whether it will work for you, we can tell you what the research says.

Research shows that ACT can be effective at supporting people through a range of psychological difficulties. That it can be useful in promoting overall wellbeing, and developing psychological flexibility—even in non-clinical situations, like a work or school setting. ACT can be an approach that helps to you enhance your quality of life, and live a life that is more aligned to the things that really matter to you, even if you don’t have clinical symptoms or a psychological disorder.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Psychology Sydney

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Sydney CBD

ACT can be a useful tool to help you focus on things that you can control, rather than those you can’t. It can help to normalise the experience of negative emotions, and adapt to them, rather than avoiding them.

If you’re interested in seeing if ACT is suitable for your situation, we can help. We provide Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Sydney’s CBD, and our team of compassionate clinical psychologists are ready to support you in your exploration of this practice.

Contacting us for more information on ACT, or email us at admin@brodieearl.com, or giving us a call on 0450 808 917, today with our Sydney psychologist.