Act with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Professional)

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So far it has helped me make look at life with optimism and purpose, instead of angst and dread, and I am forgoing my life of hermitude and actually look forward to relationships and inter-connectivity with others. Unexpectedly, it has helped immensely with caregiving for my elder dad of 86 - helping our interactions be calm instead of oppositional, as well as my siblings and spouse, and generally any interaction.

And emphasize the dynamic nature of the observed, while the self remains unchanged: “ Your breath is continually changing, in and out, and in its very nature. But the you that observes your breath does not alter.” Let yourself engage with and truly relate to the thought you’ve identified. It might help if you verbalize the sentence you’ve landed on or repeat it mentally. The feeling of love comes and goes on a whim; you can't control it. But the action of love is something you can do, regardless of how you are feeling.”

Try The Observer meditation yourself to practice decentering and reappraising your cognitions (Hayes-Skelton & Graham, 2013). The full exercise can be found in our Positive Psychology Toolkit. Values Clarification Worksheets 6. Values and Problems

Picture a beggar and a prince—in terms of physical characteristics, they look almost identical. The beggar wears rags and lives on the street, however, while the prince lives in a palace and is richly dressed. Problem Behaviors: Describe some actions that you engage in which are harmful over time—things that: Leisure and fun – What kinds of activities appeal to you for fun? How would you enjoy spending your downtime? What’s exciting for you? Relaxing?

As the Observer of yourself, watch, listen, and simply notice any turbulence you might otherwise allow to consume or define you. Note how these experiences are constantly shifting, and try letting go. Recognize that ‘you’ remain unaltered. This book is definitely a must-read to anyone who feels they struggle in relationships or feel they could do better, or e.g. wanna improve their current relationship or wanna be better prepared for a new relationship. Then, over a period of several minutes, invite them to try and suppress the unwanted thought, any way they might like to go about it. The third prompt on this worksheet asks them to approximate how often it crossed their mind through that brief period. In this space, make a note of it so this figure is visual. Third, such guidebooks present their contents (I am talking about this book here) convincing you that it has accepted what’s happened already and make you see what actually has happened making you see different scenarios with examples, and then give you the chance to choose what would happen next all by yourself. To illustrate, you might touch your nose; your client might then cover their ears while saying out loud: “I must touch my nose”.

Relational Frame Therapy (RFT) premises that our uniquely human ability to evaluate, mentally connect, and verbally communicate phenomena can be as damaging as it is useful. Closely related to RFT, ACT is based on the idea that over-identifying with language contributes to psychological inflexibility (Hayes et al., 1999; Stoddard & Afari, 2014). How to effectively handle the painful feelings and stressful thoughts that inevitably occur in every relationship." Letting go of it will mean it’s floating around in the water’s surface, but in time it will drift elsewhere in the pool. While it might be uncomfortably close by at first, you wouldn’t have to keep struggling with it and you could use your energy to enjoy your time in the water instead. 2. The Prince and the Beggar – A Self as Context Metaphor It turned out this book was surprisingly good ! It's probably one of the best books out there on the subject of relationships (and better than general self help books).

Friends – What social relationships do you consider important to develop? What do you consider an important social life to have? How would you like your friends to see you as a person? Use this free Personal Values Worksheet to help you. Committed Action Worksheets 8. Commitment, Obstacles, and Strategies For instance, expansion and acceptance interventions might include one or more exercises to challenge over-identification; similarly, they may introduce or encourage the client to practice ‘unhooking’ from negative thoughts (Ciarrochi & Robb, 2005). As an intervention, the former could be a single exercise, or it could involve practice over a period of time. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a “third-wave” cognitive behavioral intervention aimed at enhancing our psychological flexibility (Hayes et al., 2006).

Being present is very helpful in appreciating what’s actually taking place in reality rather than simply in our heads. It empowers us to commit to bigger goals rather than getting caught up in past events and internal ongoings while strengthening our ability to accept and overcome our struggles. Author and ACT practitioner Russ Harris suggests that we can think about two critical categories when we’re aiming to reduce struggle and suffering in our lives. We can also use two equally important categories when thinking about how to create a meaningful, rich life. Using these following four categories, reflect on and write down your thoughts. Both ACT and CBT focus on cognitive distortions—the latter is geared predominantly toward restructuring them, however, while ACT is about creating space for these through acceptance. Without an awareness of cognitive distortions in the first instance, we’re hard-pressed to do either. Here’s a short but sweet activity designed to encourage a Self-in-Context perspective. It’s actually a succinct thought experiment that emphasizes the transient yet continual nature of our feelings and thoughts. Therapists can work with clients to recognize when they are cognitively trying to escape distress through common habits like distraction or rumination (Moulds et al., 2007; Wolgast & Lundh, 2017).

3 ACT Assessments and Questionnaires

Thus, ACT and RFT both use metaphors as a means of helping clients understand the impact of their thoughts and emotions on their behaviors while enabling them to reconceptualize those psychological processes in more adaptive ways (Foody et al., 2014). Suppression and avoidance have detrimental effects over time. As maladaptive strategies, they often tend to work against us rather than in our favor—amplifying the psychological experience we’re trying to escape. By eliciting this ‘rebound’ effect, this acceptance exercise allows therapists to help clients recognize this. Patti Robinson, PhD, consultant, trainer, and coauthor of The Depression Toolkit and The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Depression Cognitive Defusion – This is a mindfulness strategy that involves recognizing our psychological experiences objectively rather than perceiving them as perceived threats or realities. Our feelings, therefore, are simply feelings and not omens of impending doom. Thoughts are thoughts and not necessarily true, clever, or important. Guided meditations and scripts are useful for cognitive defusion.