How To Upload Your Picture To The Act

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a "tertiary-moving ridge" cognitive behavioral intervention aimed at enhancing our psychological flexibility (Hayes et al., 2006).

Rather than suppress or avoid psychological events, ACT is based on the belief that acceptance and mindfulness are more adaptive responses to the inevitabilities of life.

Past experiencing our thoughts, physical feelings, and emotions in more flexible ways, acceptance commitment therapists argue, nosotros can reduce the negative behaviors they frequently atomic number 82 to (Hayes et al., 1996; Bach & Hayes, 2002).

As an intervention, Deed has empirical bases and has get a relatively well-established function of applied positive psychology in contempo decades. If you're hoping to add ACT approaches into your professional person practice or your personal life, read on for an all-encompassing drove of ACT worksheets, assessments, questionnaires, and activities.

Earlier you read on, we thought you might similar to download our 3 Mindfulness Exercises for gratuitous. These science-based, comprehensive exercises will not only aid you cultivate a sense of inner peace throughout your daily life but will also requite you the tools to enhance the mindfulness of your clients, students or employees.

ix ACT Worksheets and Useful Resources for Application

To put things into further context, Act has six central processes (Harris, 2006). If y'all're already familiar with these as a helping professional person, experience free to skip ahead to the worksheets in this section.

Acceptance – Sometimes called Expansion, this process is near creating space for emotions, impulses, and feelings that we might otherwise suppress or avoid (experiential avoidance, Hayes et al., 2012). This allows united states of america to avoid over-inflating them or wasting as well much energy on them so that we tin can move on more easily.
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 just feelings and not omens of impending doom. Thoughts are thoughts and not necessarily true, clever, or of import. Guided meditations and scripts are useful for cognitive defusion.
Existence Present – Fostering an awareness of how we're currently feeling, both physically and mentally. Rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the time to come, connecting with the present is about engaging completely with 'correct now'. Human activity exercises and activities on mindfulness are helpful in this respect.
Self as Context or The Observing Cocky – Quite like to the Common Humanity construct of Self-Compassion, this process is viewing our psychological and physical experiences as transient and ever-changing (Neff, 2003; Neff & Tirch, 2013). Becoming cocky-transcendent so that we perceive our emotions, sensations, thoughts, and more than as peripheral and dynamic is to step away from the alternative—where they define us (Koltko-Rivera, 2006).
Values Clarification – A process in which we explore and clarify the things that nosotros concur personally meaningful. Values Clarification worksheets in ACT are often cocky-reflection exercises that assistance clients find direction and motivation, and coaching discussions can as well be very helpful.
Committed Activeness – This principle or process is about goal-setting, and the idea is that these are long-term life goals which are values-based. ACT practitioners can thus help clients commit to and work with appointment toward goals through action.

You lot tin read more nearly how Credence and Commitment Therapy works.

With these processes and principles in mind, here are some useful Act worksheets.

Expansion and Acceptance Worksheets

1. Don't Think About Your Thoughts Worksheet

Suppression and abstention have detrimental furnishings over time. As maladaptive strategies, they ofttimes tend to work confronting us rather than in our favor—amplifying the psychological experience nosotros're trying to escape. By eliciting this 'rebound' effect, this acceptance practise allows therapists to assist clients recognize this.

This worksheet has two parts. First, however, it helps to explicate the role of mindfulness in coping with unwanted thoughts, feelings, and memories. Then, the client is instructed to:

Recall or identify an undesired thought that is causing them to feel negative – often, this tends to be thought of as "A Trouble";
Have them estimate and write down how frequently it has crossed their mind throughout the week;
Then, over a flow of several minutes, invite them to try and suppress the unwanted thought, whatsoever way they might similar to go about information technology. The 3rd 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.
The terminal step takes a unlike approach. Rather than actively attempting to suppress the thought, have your client spend the aforementioned amount of time thinking of annihilation else they like—tell them to walk effectually or practise whatever comes naturally. Later on this, they estimate how many times the thought popped into their mind. This figure can at present be compared with the figure from the previous step.

Information technology also helps to debrief your client afterward this practise. Some good prompts include:

"Tell me nigh your feel while you were consciously trying to suppress the idea…" and
"During that menstruum, did the thought lose any perceived importance or go less salient? Or did it go more than restricting and more prominent?"

Download the Don't Recollect About Your Thoughts worksheet from our Positive Psychology Toolkit.

two. Identifying Emotional Avoidance Strategies Worksheet

Emotional avoidance is some other ineffective strategy that people tend to apply when uncomfortable thoughts or feelings arise. As short-term responses avoidance may seem helpful, but over the longer term it reinforces the seeming intolerability of these mental experiences.

Therapists can piece of work with clients to recognize when they are cognitively trying to escape distress through common habits similar lark or rumination (Moulds et al., 2007; Wolgast & Lundh, 2017).

This exercise is best worked through after you accept introduced the concept of emotional (or experiential) abstention to your customer. If yous are engaging with this practice for yourself, you'll notice a helpful theoretical groundwork and examples to go you started.

In the main section of this worksheet, you'll find some writing space.

Brainstorm past recalling some previous experiences where you accept avoided an unwanted feeling, event, or memory rather than acknowledging or engaging with information technology.
Remember of different domains in your life if this helps, such every bit at work, with your family, or with friends. Perchance you've played video games rather than having a serious conversation near something which upsets y'all. Or, possibly you lot've turned down a bang-up new function at work because it involved public speaking.
Whatever it is yous call back, write down your responses as you reverberate on three things:
- The feelings that experience conjured up (Difficult Emotions);
- How you attempted to avoid those feelings, mentally or through certain behaviors (Emotional Avoidance Strategy); and
- The extent to which that abstention was useful (Result/Effectiveness).

Later on y'all or your client have filled out the sail, it is generally useful to reflect on the insights gleaned from the exercise. Can y'all spot any patterns? Any alternative behaviors or approaches you could take adopted?

Download this worksheet on Identifying Emotional Avoidance Strategies to use with your clients.

Beingness Present Worksheets

'Being present' is ane of the most difficult nonetheless cardinal facets of mindfulness. In ACT, as noted, the goal is to accept what nosotros're feeling without over-inflating or over-identifying with information technology. Being honest about our mental experiences helps u.s. create space for thoughts, memories, and sensations that inevitably arise as a natural function of life.

three. Five Senses Worksheet

Starting with some bones mindfulness exercises is a good arroyo if your client isn't familiar with the concept. The V Senses Worksheet offers a simple applied sequence that encourages you to bring your awareness to what's correct here, right now.

Start, by noticing v things you lot encounter. Rather than getting defenseless upward in feelings or thought patterns that might seem overwhelming, try to melody in visually – what's here, outside your head?
Second, by shifting your awareness to 4 things that yous can feel. Draw your focus gently away from internal processes and beginning to notice sounds that y'all might not otherwise take paid attention to. As you stride more and more into a mindful state, we tin can become more detached from a negative idea or painful emotion.
Try noticing three things you can hear; then
Two things you can smell.
Lastly, focus on one affair y'all're able to gustatory modality at this precise moment in fourth dimension. As you gently describe this mini-exercise to a close, try to remember how this mindful state feels whenever you experience yourself over-identifying with a thought or emotion throughout the day.

Being present is very helpful in appreciating what's actually taking place in reality rather than simply in our heads. It empowers united states to commit to bigger goals rather than getting caught up in past events and internal ongoings while strengthening our ability to have and overcome our struggles.

Nosotros take a huge assortment of mindfulness exercises that you lot tin browse and depict from if yous feel it volition assist your client or your personal exercise.

Cognitive Defusion Worksheets

four. Moving from Cognitive Fusion to Defusion Worksheet

Cognitive defusion exercises are designed to accost the (sometimes overwhelming) perceived credibility of painful cognitions and feelings. Taking thoughts like "I'm terrible" or "I'm useless" too literally makes it much more difficult for the states to come across them as what they are—to encounter thoughts as thoughts.

This ACT cognitive defusion worksheet from our larger Toolkit gives more than coverage of how the arroyo tin exist used for more adaptive ways of relating to psychological experiences.

Start by identifying an unhelpful or hurtful self-criticism that you or your client would similar to defuse, for instance, "I'chiliad an uncaring partner". Information technology may be hard to articulate at first, simply try shortening it into a sentence that really gets to the heart of the issue.
Let yourself engage with and truly relate to the thought you lot've identified. It might help if you verbalize the sentence yous've landed on or repeat it mentally.
So, replay the thought simply precede it with "I'one thousand having the thought that…", so your sentence will go "I'm having the idea that I'm an uncaring partner".
To further defuse this thought, we have another mental pace back. This time precede the painful thought with "I notice I'one thousand having the thought that..."; so, "I notice I'thousand having the idea that I'chiliad an uncaring partner".
Requite yourself a adventure to reflect on the mental shift which likely occurred, or at least started to take place. How would you describe the experience as you moved from 'fusion with' to 'defusion from' the idea?

Self every bit Context Worksheets

5. The Observer Worksheet

More than immersive exercises often help with learning to go an observer of yourself. The Observer Meditation is both a guided script and a PDF—use this to help your customer transcend memories, emotions, or personal experiences that they might feel absorbed or preoccupied with.

As an example, ane instance of condign an Observer might wait like this:

Reflect on the roles that you play daily—are y'all a mother? A leader at work? Sometimes a team actor? A daughter? A caregiver? Even when we aren't consciously adopting a part in the earth around us, we are doing then. And yet, a part of us remains constant despite this function shifting.
Your Observer Self ways is not defined by the roles y'all have identified; rather, it'south the constant that can view the changes taking place. The Observer experiences what you're doing, thinking, and feeling, and simply watches.
As the Observer of yourself, watch, listen, and only observe whatsoever turbulence you might otherwise allow to consume or ascertain yous. Note how these experiences are constantly shifting, and try letting get. Recognize that 'you' remain unaltered.

Endeavor The Observer meditation yourself to practise decentering and reappraising your cognitions (Hayes-Skelton & Graham, 2013).

Values Clarification Worksheets

6. Values and Issues

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 ii every bit important categories when thinking about how to create a meaningful, rich life. Using these following four categories, reflect on and write down your thoughts.

Problem Emotions and Thoughts: What self-criticisms, worries, thoughts, fears, memories, or other thoughts tend to preoccupy you? List some feelings, sensations, or emotions that you find difficult to bargain with.

Problem Behaviors: Describe some actions that you engage in which are harmful over time—things that:

- sap your free energy, time, or finances;
- foreclose you from moving forrard in life;
- keep you from things you'd rather exist doing; or
- have a detrimental affect health-wise?

Values : List some things that matter personally to you in the long run. Which of your character strengths and qualities would you like to build on? What things do yous (or exercise you want to) represent/stand for? In what ways do you hope to farther yourself past tackling your problems? What are some ways you'd like to enhance or boost your relationships?

Goals and Actions: List some of your present behaviors or deportment which are designed to enhance your life over the longer term. What are some things you'd like to practise more or new things you lot'd like to brainstorm? Tin can you recall of some steps y'all desire to make to improve your life? Skills you aspire to build on farther?

This Values and Bug worksheet is adapted from Russ Harris' Consummate Happiness Trap Deed Worksheets.

7. Values Worksheet

This values give-and-take sheet, resource, or handout offers a framework that clients tin utilize to explore and reverberate on their personal values. Besides as helping them (or you) get some clarity, they stimulate thinking about potential life goals in 10 different areas (Wilson & Murrell, 2004). Later the first few examples, you'll exist able to create your own questions forth the same lines.

The categories and some example questions are:

Romantic relationships – What sort of partner would you ideally like to exist? How would you describe your ideal relationship? What sort of behaviors exercise you aspire to bear witness toward a significant other?
Leisure and fun – What kinds of activities appeal to you for fun? How would you enjoy spending your reanimation? What'south exciting for yous? Relaxing?
Job/career – What career goals matter to you? What kind of employment? Do you aspire to particular qualities equally a worker? What sort of professional relationships do you lot desire to develop?
Friends – What social relationships do you lot consider of import to develop? What practice you lot consider an of import social life to accept? How would yous like your friends to come across you as a person?
Parenthood – What kind of mother or father do you aspire to exist? Are there particular qualities you'd like to part model for your kids? How would you draw your ideal relationships with them?
Health and physical wellness – These questions will be based on fitness goals, aspirations, as well equally the importance of personal wellness, physical well-being, and personal care.
Social citizenship/Environmental responsibleness – This category is near beingness part of the community, environmental aspirations, and can include volunteer piece of work.
Family unit relationships – Like parenthood above, these values pertain to relatives like siblings, extended family, and and then forth.
Spirituality – Relevant questions here will concern faith, personal beliefs about anything that'south meaningful at a deeper or bigger level.
Personal development and growth – Reflections in this category should chronicle to personal capabilities, competencies, skills, knowledge, and growth.

Apply this free Personal Values Worksheet to assist you.

Committed Activity Worksheets

8. Delivery, Obstacles, and Strategies

Commitment is nearly maintaining motivation to the standing pursuit of a client's life goals over time. Drawing on goal-setting theory, therefore, it helps to have clear, concrete objectives for positive 'arroyo' goals (Locke, 1968; Locke & Latham, 2002).

Using these three headings, create a three-column filigree like the following:

Delivery	Potential Obstacles	Strategies for Boosting Delivery
In this column, your client designs goals that reflect the values from any of the above exercises.	Alongside each delivery from the list, place the possible roadblocks…	…so that you tin can come upward with potential alternative pathways in this cavalcade.

The Delivery, Obstacles, and Strategies Worksheet can be accessed hither.

nine. Exploring Willingness and Commitment

This Exploring Willingness and Commitment worksheet focuses in on 1 value that you or your customer have identified. Whether information technology's beingness a more than patient father or working toward more than integrity, unmarried out 1 commitment and work through the post-obit questions.

What is the value that you'd like to bring more of into your life? A annotation: this should not exist a goal, just rather something that you or your client notice personally meaningful and important.
Then, choose a goal which is related to this value—one which you'd like to accomplish, and which allows yous to evaluate your progress.
Next, choose one or more actions that you experience volition have you closer to achieving the goal.
What personal 'stuff' might your committed action crusade to arise? Try to suspension these down into three areas: a) physical and psychological feelings, b) unproductive/unpleasant self-criticisms or thoughts, and c) visuals and memories.

After working on these sections, the focus is the personal 'stuff'. It'due south time to reframe these as 'stuff'—feelings and thoughts—rather than reality, as powerful or unpleasant every bit they may seem. Even though they exist, nosotros tin notwithstanding accomplish what we commit ourselves to. There is 1 more question on this worksheet:

Are you prepared to create space for the emotions and thoughts that come up from your activeness?

If the answer is no, starting time again with another valued goal. If it's yeah, then become for information technology.

This worksheet is adapted from Letting a Piffling Non-verbal Air Into the Room, an academic publication past Ciarrochi & Robb (2005).

3 ACT Assessments and Questionnaires

1. Revised Acceptance and Action Questionnaire

Bail and colleagues' (2011) Acceptance and Activeness Questionnaire-II (AAQ-Two) was designed to measure diverse core Deed constructs. This 10-item instrument uses a vii-point Likert Calibration to appraise psychological flexibility, credence, action, and experiential abstention and can be used as part of therapy.

Particularly helpful in interventions that adopt acceptance and mindfulness approaches, the Revised Credence and Activity Questionnaire is a unproblematic self-report tool to administrate and score. With 1 representing "Never True" and 7 for "Ever Truthful", some example items include:

I worry about not being able to command my worries and feelings;
Information technology seems similar most people are treatment their lives better than I am; and
My painful memories forestall me from having a fulfilling life.

Discover the acceptance and activity questionnaire in our Toolkit.

2. The Brief Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (BEAQ)

Avoidance, or more technically experiential avoidance, describes behavior which aims to

"modify the frequency or form of unwanted private events, including thoughts, memories, and bodily sensations, even when doing so causes personal harm" (Hayes et al., 2012: 981).

Adult past Gámez and colleagues (2014), the Cursory Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire is one psychometric assessment of experiential avoidance that has demonstrated good internal consistency. It comprises 15 six-signal Likert Scale Items and has stronger construct validity than the (perhaps) better-known Acceptance and Avoidance Questionnaire-Two (AAQ-Two) (Tyndall et al., 2018).

With one being "Strongly Disagree" and 6 representing "Strongly Concord," this self-report measure includes the following example items (Gámez et al., 2014):

I effort to put off unpleasant tasks for equally long every bit possible;
I piece of work hard to proceed out upsetting feelings;
Fear or anxiety won't stop me from doing something important (reverse scored);
I rarely do something if at that place is a gamble it will upset me; and
When unpleasant memories come to me, I try to put them out of my heed.

The full and original BEAQ is available in this publication.

three. The Bull's-Heart Values Survey

This personal values questionnaire is similar to the Values Worksheet given above, however, information technology provides more background theory and uses different domains. Somewhat more structured and extensive, therefore, it's a useful style to help your client both explore their values and place any discrepancies with actual valued living.

Throughout the course of Deed therapy, it is a helpful method for tracking progress once a commitment is established.

Part One of this tool introduces iv wide domains in which your client can place personally meaningful ways of living—this is a Values Identification exercise. Included domains are Work/Education, Leisure, Relationships, and Personal Growth/Health. Below this, you and your customer can work with a 'dartboard' visualization where they mark how they are living their life in relation to the 'Bulls Eye'; their platonic way of living.

In Part Ii, yous'll find space for writing downwards any perceived barriers between your client's electric current and platonic life. In this same space, in that location is a rating organization that can be used to judge how powerful this barrier is perceived to be, from "Doesn't prevent me at all" to "Prevents me completely".

The terminal office of this survey is a Valued Action Plan—here is a designated space for your client to write down actions that will take them from where they are to the metaphorical Bulls Eye. Piece of work through this space by considering what values-based action your client would willingly take to tackle or overcome the obstacles from Part Two higher up.

Notice the Bulls-Eye Values Survey here.

iii Useful Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Interventions

At that place is no one type of Human activity intervention—Acceptance and Delivery Therapy can vary from the very-curt, lasting a few minutes, to lengthy interventions that span numerous sessions. Typically, they involve techniques based on the 6 core processes we looked at above.

For example, expansion and acceptance interventions might include ane 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 practice, or it could involve practice over a period of time.

Cocky as Observer interventions might contain any number of defusion exercises, such as The Observer meditation we considered to a higher place, or they might involve working with metaphors—perspective shifting exercises for 'creative hopelessness' (Hayes et al., 1999).

In that location are myriad mindfulness techniques that form part of Existence Present interventions, and Cognitive Defusion Interventions for reappraising painful thoughts, and the list goes on. Information technology's impossible to provide an exhaustive list of ACT interventions in this one article, simply here are a few that you lot might notice useful as a helping professional.

i. Increasing Sensation of Cognitive Distortions

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 cerebral distortions in the first instance, nosotros're hard-pressed to do either.

This Increasing Awareness of Cognitive Distortions intervention works well in conjunction with mindfulness interventions equally part of ACT therapy (Burns, 1980). It begins by introducing the cognitive distortion concept and outlines 11 examples that your client may be able to relate to. Examples include All-or-Aught Thinking, Personalization, Should Statements, and Jumping to Conclusions.

While this comes as a helpful PDF, therapists will likely discover this a very useful step to work through with your client. Existence able to reply any questions will be helpful as your client moves to the next phase; filling out a worksheet with cognitive distortions that they can identify.

Three columns, every bit shown below, provide some structure for a guided awareness intervention that will ideally take place for at least five minutes daily over a week.

Feelings	Thoughts	Cerebral Distortion?
Effort to identify and/or label the emotion that'due south present in the moment. Is it fright? Unhappiness? Embarrassment? This works for bodily sensations, too. Is it tension? Heaviness? Lethargy?	What thoughts are passing through your caput equally these feelings are occurring? Ideally, this is a proficient start to agreement how the two relate to i another.	Use the table if necessary to identify which cognitive distortion might exist at work. Are yous perhaps discounting the positive in this state of affairs? Or overgeneralizing?

ii. Interim Independently of Language

Adjusted from an experiential practise by Monestès & Villatte (2013), this intervention encourages your customer to act independently of their thoughts. It's a form of exposure in a sense, fostering their ability to comport as per their values rather than reacting instantaneously to their mental processes. So, it'due south about developing psychological flexibility.

Starting in a contiguous standing position with your client, start a sequence of actions—leap on the spot or wave your artillery, anything that they can and then verbalize to you as they comport out something completely different. They should preface this verbalization with "I must…".
To illustrate, you lot might impact your nose; your client might and then cover their ears while saying out loud: "I must touch my olfactory organ".
Repeat this exercise up to ten times to assist your client appreciate the feeling of disobeying literal instructions.

It'southward always good to debrief afterward with some discussion about how information technology felt, and the salience of independent activity which isn't driven by language. Endeavour not to let your client'southward actions become the direct opposite of what you're doing, however, as this still leaves some link to language rather than encouraging psychological flexibility.

A full version of this appears in Stoddard and Afari's (2013) Consummate Volume of Human activity Metaphors.

three. Attending Your Own Funeral

Walking the customer mentally through their own funeral is a guided intervention that aims to aid them analyze their values. To open the give-and-take as a therapist, ask your customer to imagine that they've suddenly passed away. As the universe would accept it, they're able to attend their own funeral, albeit as a ghost of their former self.

The discussion can be used to explore what they'd like their friend'south eulogies to include, also every bit their family member'south speeches. They tin think about what they'd similar on their tombstone, prompting an exploration of questions similar:

What they would similar to have accomplished?
What kind of a person would they like to be remembered as?
What qualities would be mentioned?
How would they have contributed to or shaped others' lives?

At that place are numerous variations of this Values intervention, but the original is from Hayes' (2004) vignette in A Practical Guide to Acceptance and Delivery Therapy.

A little earlier, I introduced the thought of metaphors. Permit's look at a few examples and how these can exist used within your Human activity intervention.

3 Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Metaphors

Relational Frame Therapy (RFT) bounds that our uniquely human being 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 thought that over-identifying with language contributes to psychological inflexibility (Hayes et al., 1999; Stoddard & Afari, 2014).

Thus, Deed and RFT both apply 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 than adaptive ways (Foody et al., 2014).

Use these three metaphors as they are or adapt them based on your clients' situation.

ane. Ball in a Puddle – An Expansion and Acceptance Metaphor

Trying to command our emotions and thoughts is as fruitless equally trying to control an inflatable ball in a swimming pool.

Think most your memories, emotions, and thoughts as a beachball in a pool. You know they aren't doing you any favors, and you want to become rid of them. But when y'all endeavour to submerge them abroad from your conscious mind, they continue bouncing back up again to the water's surface.

Only pushing the ball back downwardly repeatedly or past forcing it downwards will keep information technology submerged, which takes free energy and attempt—and information technology means you need to keep the ball close by at all times.

Letting go of information technology volition mean information technology's floating around in the water's surface, merely in time it will drift elsewhere in the pool. While information technology might be uncomfortably close by at get-go, you wouldn't have to keep struggling with it and y'all could apply your energy to savour your fourth dimension in the water instead.

two. The Prince and the Beggar – A Cocky as Context Metaphor

While our circumstances and psychological experiences might change, an element of ourselves remains stable throughout.

Picture a beggar and a prince—in terms of concrete characteristics, they look most identical. The beggar wears rags and lives on the street, however, while the prince lives in a palace and is richly dressed.

On crossing paths, they make up one's mind to swap roles for solar day; the ragamuffin puts on the prince'south robes and is waited on by his servants. The prince changes into the ragamuffin's rags and gets shooed abroad on the street.

The richly dressed, luxuriously treated beggar is intensely grateful for the delicious food he's served and shares his feast with other vagrants. The prince still sees himself as deserving of good food, and then he steals from others. He won't mingle with the other vagrants and turns his nose up at them.

While the two are in dissimilar apparel for a day and others around them treat them as they see them, each is still the same person within.

three. The Anthropologist – The Observing Self Metaphor

Anthropologists are social scientists who study unlike cultures across the world; while they report diverse ways of living and being, they oftentimes remain discrete from the phenomena at hand. Becoming an observer of your cocky is like existence an anthropologist, but instead, you're studying your own psychological and physical experiences.

Being constructive as an anthropologist means using your powers of observation. Without disrupting or interrupting the phenomena that yous're studying, you lot need to arm-twist information well-nigh these thoughts, emotions, memories, and sensations.

As a discrete scientific observer, you need to be impartial. You lot're split from these experiences and avoid merging into them to maintain your perspective. Y'all are a carve up observer.

The last two metaphors were adapted from Cerise (2013), and Stoddard (2013) respectively. You lot tin can discover the original versions in The Big Book of ACT Metaphors: A Practitioner's Guide (Amazon) by Dr. Jill Stoddard and Dr. Niloofar Afari.

3 Unproblematic ACT Exercises and Activities

ACT interventions tend to be nigh constructive when those undergoing treatment get better at independently noticing and labeling feelings and cognitions without a therapist being present.

To this end, we present three useful exercises to assist with practices like cognitive defusion and mindful awareness in everyday life.

Therapists may find information technology useful to offset guide their clients through the following exercises in person and then encourage them to endeavor these for themselves as they become well-nigh their daily activities.

The independent practise of ACT activities such equally these can exist facilitated using digital blended intendance tools such as Quenza (pictured here), through which therapists tin can design and share the activities in either written or audio format.

Clients tin so consummate the activities using whichever technologies they have on-hand (e.g., smartphone, estimator) regardless of whether they are at abode, on the go, or in the office.

1. Credence of Thoughts and Feelings

This practise is about the mindful acknowledgment of our psychological experiences too as cognitive defusion. While it'due south best to allow at least v to 10 seconds for transitioning between steps, this exercise is mostly intuitive and your pace will reveal itself as you move forth with information technology. It's easily tweaked into a script of its own.

Commencement by sitting yourself or your client comfortably upright in a chair, in a relaxed position with no crossed arms or legs.
Shut your optics slowly and gently, then quietly feel your breath as it moves in and out your torso. Note whatever physical sensations across your body with relaxed disengagement.
Take several minutes to notice how information technology feels in your breast, in your lungs, as it moves through your nose, throat, and tummy. Don't worry about the pace or depth of your breathing, and equally you take some fourth dimension to be in the moment, other thoughts will drift along—just recognize their existence and endeavor creating some infinite inside for them.
Every bit you breathe in, visualize yourself making more than room in your body for these thoughts. Recognize that they are merely thoughts. Memories are only memories, and emotions are just emotions that come and go. If it helps, label them for what they are and gently bring your attention back to your breathing.
Worries or fears might likewise come up along, and you tin characterization those likewise before one time once more returning your mind to the present. You might take hold of yourself thinking cocky-critical thoughts, but there is space in your body for these before yous permit them go again. See if you tin detect them while not taking them as truth. If they persist, remind yourself that y'all're only observing your own experience.
When you're ready to wrap up, try to end with the feeling of discrete credence. Throughout your day, you lot could endeavor evoking the mindset of an observer, rather than a reactor.

This is adapted from The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Feet (Forsyth & Eifert, 2016)

two. Non This, Not That Do

Here's a short but sugariness activeness designed to encourage a Self-in-Context perspective. It's actually a succinct thought experiment that emphasizes the transient nonetheless continual nature of our feelings and thoughts.

Tell yourself or your client to detect something—anything tangible and nearby might exist a good start, or you could utilise the flow of breath equally part of an exercise.
Bring your awareness to the fact that you are distinct from this phenomenon: "In that location is that breath, and you are observing information technology."
To reinforce this sense of Cocky every bit an Observer: "If you lot're able to notice your jiff, you tin can't be your breath…"
And emphasize the dynamic nature of the observed, while the self remains unchanged: "Your jiff is continually irresolute, in and out, and in its very nature. Merely the you that observes your breath does non modify."

The original exercise was presented by Russ Harris at the 2009 ACT World Conference and can be found hither.

3. Milk, Milk, Milk Exercise

In 2009, Dr. Akihiko Masuda and colleagues released a paper that analyzed the cognitive defusion practice Milk, Milk, Milk. This uses wordplay to cognitively defuse a painful or persistent thought that we might be taking as well literally, and which may be contributing to upset or anxiety.

As a therapist, invite your client to conjure up all the characteristics they can think of which are related to the thought—Masuda et al. (2009), of course, used "milk". Then, white, common cold, creamy, and so forth.

And then take your client enunciate the discussion repeatedly for around 45 seconds. Masuda and colleagues' report institute this an effective manner of helping their participants remove the associations. "Milk, milk, milk," thus became a series of capricious sounds with little emotional bear upon.

You might try something with more perceived emotional valence, such as "failure", or "ugly". Going through the practise again should aid reduce your client's discomfort with the term, and after a longer period, it may help reduce its perceived credibility.

You lot tin can find more on this exercise in the researcher'south original paper: A parametric written report of cognitive defusion and the believability and discomfort of negative cocky-relevant thoughts.

Other Ways to Apply ACT

By no ways is ACT express to one-on-1 counseling. As an belittling and applied framework for beliefs change, its potential uses embrace a broad working envelope:

In educational contexts, Act can be seen as a means of supporting students and teaching professionals with the general pressures of academic life (Gillard et al., 2018). At a broader level—not dissimilar Emotional Intelligence and Social-Emotional Learning—information technology has less targeted potential applications when embedded in well-being curricula.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is also playing a growing role in sports contexts, where its impact on performance has shown more promising outcomes than hypnosis therapy (Fernández Garcia et al., 2004).
In social work, of course, Human action's key premises resonate well with core guiding principles such equally the importance of relationships and individual dignity (National Association of Social Workers, 2008). Here, it plays an important role in helping those facing bias and stigma at the societal level.
Clinically, ACT is used in treating addiction and trauma, the latter of which brings us almost full cycle back to private therapy (De Groot et al., 2014).

A practiced way to think about potential ACT applications is to consider its primal aim—the promotion of psychological flexibility equally a ways of enhancing well-being. With this and the half-dozen core principles or processes in mind, we'll probable be seeing a lot more than Deed applications as positive psychology moves forrard.

A Have-Dwelling Message

Compared to some other Positive Psychology fields, Human action is however a relatively immature discipline. It'southward not the youngest, by a long shot, but there are still promising directions emerging for its application.

If ACT is something you would similar to sink your teeth into, read our article Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Training: Tiptop 17 Courses for guidance on how to get qualified.

In addition, we hope there is something useful for either yourself or your client amidst this article'due south many resources, merely if y'all've spotted a super exercise is missing, let us know. Our Positive Psychology Toolkit is also full of worksheets, exercises, meditations, interventions, and informal practices that yous can admission alongside more than information on the theory behind each.

Have yous tried any of these? How would you draw your ain personal variants on any of the activities above? Let us know in the comments, or enquire us any questions y'all might have. Happy practice!

We hope yous enjoyed reading this commodity. Don't forget to download our 3 Mindfulness Exercises for free.

Source: https://positivepsychology.com/act-worksheets/

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