A key message of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)  is to accept what is not within your personal control and commit to actions that make your life better. As a team, we will work together to help you clarify your values so that you can work towards becoming (by behaving like) the person you want to be and building the life you want to have. (Do first, the feeling will follow.) This complements DBT very well, where the goal is to build a life worth living.

Learning skills and practicing mindfulness are essential in ACT. One of our objectives will be to learn ways to be with difficult or painful thoughts and feelings more effectively so that they don’t stop you from doing the things that make or will make your life meaningful. This means dropping the struggle with your feelings and thoughts (“I can’t take this! or I need to make this anxiety go away!”) and making space for the painful thoughts or emotions. Contrary to what you might feel, noticing and allowing emotions let’s them (come and) go! The aim is to be present, connected, and effective despite the thought or feeling instead of investing more time and energy in evaluating or disputing it.

For more information on ACT, you can visit the ACT tab of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science.