ACT - Acceptance and Commitment Therapy - A psychology thread

I have been studying and practicing the principles of this therapy and i am really into it now.

So how to deal with hardship and negative emotions?

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy tells you to change how you think, you feel bad because you think negative, so change to positive thoughts and good emotions will follow. They tell you to manage and control your emotions by controlling your thoughts.

But ACT - Acceptance and Commitment Therapy - will tell you to let them be, ACT will tell you to commit to your true dreams, goals and values and accept how travelling the path makes you feel, don't fight it, just observe it, and let it be, bad emotions are like fire that, if accepted, will gradually loose power and die.

So do what you have to do to get to your dreams and goals, stick to your greatest values and accept life events and how they make you feel.

Lets suppose that you have a dream of having a family, a loving wife and kids and a great house, full of abundance.

You have to study and work to get there, meet the right partner etc etc, you have a lot of things to do and goals to reach and you have to accept the moments when its not working, you are not getting there, you are not progressing, life seems to be against you. ACT tells you to accept life events (while working to achieve your goals) and accept how you feel, its no use fighting your emotions, just observe, recognize them, don't judge or despair, don't do nothing about it, accept it, be brave, life is not all light and love, there is darkness and hardship, there is black and white, aknowledge it, embrace it, accept it, be brave and strong, don't be a weak, running away from hardship, person, take it and keep following your dreams.

This therapy gives great importance to mindfulness skills, the neutral observer, recognizing the one that watches everything and its not thoughts and emotions. And it emphasizes the need to stick to your true values, goals and ambitions because you can take the up and downs, you are brave and strong enough to accept hardship, you cant aim for the light if you are not willing to go through darkness.

I am truly loving it.

Anyone has tried it?

Here is a link to explore it: About ACT

Take care

a reply to: Manula

I haven't heard of it, but it sounds a lot like MBCT (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy), which I did a course of last year.
I don't know if that's what you meant by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

Anyhow, the main ideas about accepting what is, and just observing each thought and emotion without attaching meaning to them, it's all taken from eastern and Buddhist philosophy.

A lot of that ancient wisdom is currently being recycled and branded for us westerners. (Well, it has been for decades actually, but there is more and more exposure and acceptance nowadays to it I guess.) And different schools and courses are cropping up taking from these ideas.
And I don't mean that in a bad way, I think it's great, if that's what it takes for people starting to wake up and see that there are alternative more fulfilling ways to experience life.

A good sign that more people are looking into things like this.

I'm glad it's helping you, the MBCT sure did help me,

That seems to be a common theme in many thought systems.

The other day I watched a video of an american woman in Paris talking about what kinds of positive things she learned in France, that were new to her and that she wanted to integrate.

One of those was what she coined, "Tu as le droit..." (you have the right...)
She picked up the term from hearing mothers say this to their children if they got upset, mad, sad, in face of events or rules that they felt contrary about. LIke "You have the right to be mad that you can't have that candy right now. But it is against the rules right before dinner and you will not have it." Without insisting they stop being upset, or asserting that they didn't have the right to, considering they already knew the rule, or other reasons they should change what they are feeling. (or that feeling that way is "bad" ).

I had just gotten used to that attitude after all these years, and it reminded me of the ever-present pressure we get in our country to be positive, think happy thoughts, kill the negative, or feel that there is something wrong with us because we feel unhappy at any given time. That something must be done to change the state of being.


It is a different way of experiencing the emotional self, and allows for a certain amount of separation between act and feeling- so that one can feel less conflict between the two. I mean, I don't like doing this homework, and I feel mad and frustrated, and that's okay, and I can say so. It doesn't in any way change that I am continuing to do it, and the feeling will pass - especially since I know I will get the opposite type of feeling when I have finished it.

It helped me understand why they complain so much and seem negative to me, but it also has a way of helping the emotions to pass quicker and without mounting in intensity.

There is maybe contexts where that wouldn't be effective or appropriate, but it sure seems like a valuable skill to develop!