Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Different Types Of Suffering Can Affect All Areas Of Your Life
It can be hard being human. Many struggle with the endless cycles of “negative” feelings and thoughts that get in the way of living life. Stress, trauma, and distractibility can hold you back from getting where you want to go. Sometimes, you may feel stuck without a way forward.
Anxiety, depression, and feelings of loneliness can lead to cycles of indecision.
Trauma can make you feel powerless. At Robert Allison Counseling, you can build workable skills to stop struggling with negative thoughts and feelings. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a way to identify behavioral patterns that are holding you back, and engage in a rich, fulfilling life.
The Most Common Conditions I See In My Practice That ACT Helps With:
- Anxiety disorders
- Depressive disorders
- Substance abuse/misuse
- Attentional difficulties (ADHD)
- Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Relationship struggles
- Shame
I Provide A Safe And Compassionate Atmosphere Where You Can Heal From Trauma And Take Back Control Of Your Life
Working with a professional and experienced therapist can help you find healing. You don’t have to suffer alone. Evidence based therapy methods, like ACT, can help you change your relationship with thoughts and emotions in order to find peace.
Many people struggle with the relationship between thoughts, emotions and behaviors. It’s normal to want to suppress and avoid distressing thoughts, emotions and memories; however, this often has the opposite effect of reinforcing the things we want to get rid of, making them worse.
I am passionate about helping people identify the get to the bottom of the unworkable behaviors holding them back from their goals. By using well-researched and evidenced-based therapy methods, I can help you move from suffering to contentment.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Acceptance And Commitment Therapy (ACT)?
ACT is a behaviorally based form of psychotherapy. Anxiety, anger, depression, grief, and other “negative” emotions are inevitable parts of life. We all learn patterns of behavior to suppress, avoid, deny, ignore and otherwise eliminate these unwanted emotions. Patterns of behavior that ultimately get us into trouble and leave us stuck playing out the same patterns. The aim of ACT is to build more workable patterns to respond and relate to these thoughts and emotions in order to limit the influence they have on your behaviors. ACT also places an emphasis on clarifying and being aligned with what we value and find important in life.
How Does ACT Help People Feel Better?
Awareness and processing the effects of trauma, anxiety, anger, pain, depression, etc. are important, but only take us so far. A fuller understanding of your thoughts and feelings is the first step toward recovery, but only the first. ACT addresses issues like betrayal, substance abuse, anxiety, depression, and chronic pain by using this awareness to interrupt counterproductive and unworkable behavioral patterns, and learn skills to build more adaptive, workable ones. ACTR has also shown effectiveness with helping people find relief from childhood trauma, emotional abuse, eating disorders, and PTSD.
What Is The Difference Between ACT And Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)?
ACT and CBT are both forms of psychotherapy, and are similar in that they address distressing thoughts, emotions and behaviors. CBT holds the stance that negative thoughts and emotions are responsible for symptoms while ACT views our relationship with, and response to, difficult thoughts and emotions as the real core of the problem. We don’t have as much control over our thoughts and emotions as we would like to think, but we do have complete agency over our behavior. While CBT focuses on symptom reduction and skill development, ACT takes a more holistic approach in viewing the goal of therapy to improve your overall quality of life, and to develop skills to maintain that long term. I use ACT to help people identify their core values and learn how to live in a way that aligns with them.
How Does ACT Work?
ACT focuses on core principles and techniques that help ground individuals in each session as they move toward healing. The six principles are acceptance, defusion, self as context, committed action, values clarification, and mindfulness. I help people focus on the parts of themselves they can change and embrace the parts that align with their goals and identity. Mindfulness and value clarification link to overall improvement in quality of life and maintained focus on their goals.