LEARN TO BE IN THE PRESENT MOMENT, NOTICE YOUR INNER EXPERIENCES, AND ENGAGE IN ACTIONS THAT ARE PERSONALLY IMPORTANT AND MEANINGFUL

​What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)?
ACT promotes psychological flexibility, which is the ability to be in the moment, just noticing inner experiences, while engaging in actions that are personally important. In order to increase psychological flexibility, ACT targets six core processes of change:
  1. Acceptance: Embracing unwanted internal events (i.e., thoughts, feelings, memories, physical sensations, and other internal experiences) without attempting to change them. Acceptance is the opposite of experiential avoidance, which is the tendency to avoid such inner events even when doing so interferes with one's values).
  2. Cognitive defusion: Changing how one interacts with internal events by allowing one to experience such events for what they are, rather than what they present themselves to be.
  3. Awareness of the present moment: The ability to attend non-judgmentally to that which is occurring now, rather than getting lost in thoughts about the past or future
  4. Self as context: Taking a perspective as the place where inner experiences occur rather than being defined by them.
  5. Values: statements about areas of life that are meaningful to the individual. Values are life directions that help to guide actions (e.g., "pursuing knowledge") rather than achievable goals.
  6. Committed action: Specific actions taken that produce movement toward values.​​
Our therapists often use ACT it in conjunction with exposure therapy in order to help our patients pursue valued-based living regardless of one's anxiety, uncertainty, and distress. Patients learn a willingness to be open to having inner experiences for as long as they occur without attempting to change them - even if he/she does not like or enjoy the inner experience. Patients learn to view their intrusive thoughts, anxiety, or distress as "mental/physical noise" rather than facts or dangers. Finally, patients learn to engage in meaningful activities despite experiences of intrusive thoughts, anxiety, bodily sensations, and other unpleasant inner experiences. 

EMPOWERING COURAGEOUS, COMPASSIONATE, AND CONNECTED LIVING ​WITH TREATMENTS THAT WORK
P H O N E   219.228.7630 | Call us for FREE CONSULT
​F A X   219.228.1083
M A I N  O F F I C E   322 Indianapolis Blvd., Suite 105, Schererville, IN 46375
S A T E L L I T E  O F F I C E  1100 S Calumet Road, Suite 3B, Chesterton, IN 46304
I N - P E R S O N   Easily traveled from within the state of Indiana; south/southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois; and West Michigan
​T E L E H E A L T H   Illinois, Indiana, New Mexico, and PSYPACT States