Full Description
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an evidence-based contemporary psychological approach to behaviour change that promotes the idea of people living more in line with their values whilst providing them with practical strategies for managing adversity. In this book, Dawn Johnson and Richard Bennett have collated fifty of the questions that have most frequently been put to them whilst delivering ACT training and supervision to a wide range of therapists and other helping professionals.
This book is the first of its kind to provide concise answers to a range of philosophical, theoretical, conceptual, and practical questions raised by practitioners who are learning ACT. It will be of interest to psychotherapists, clinical psychologists, counsellors, psychiatrists, and a broad range of other mental health practitioners and trainees. It serves as a useful resource for those new to the practice of ACT, and for more experienced practitioners who might want to consider these questions themselves.
Contents
Introduction. Part I: Defining the philosophy and theory of ACT. 1. What is the best way to describe ACT to a client? 2. Which kinds of issues can ACT help with? 3. What are the basic assumptions that ACT makes? 4. How does evolutionary theory apply to ACT? 5. What is functional contextualism? 6. Why do ACT practitioners answer every question with 'it depends'? 7. What is the most important behavioural principle to remember? 8. What on Earth is Relational Frame Theory? 9. Why does ACT use so many metaphors? 10. What is the relationship between ACT and other cognitive behavioural therapies? Part II: Conceptual questions about the ACT model. 11. What is psychological flexibility? 12. What does 'creative hopelessness' mean? 13. Is 'contact with the present moment' the same thing as mindfulness? 14. What is self-as-context and how does it differ from defusion? 15. Doesn't acceptance just equate to giving up and letting life steamroller you? 16. What is meant by 'transformation of stimulus functions'? 17. How do I tell values apart from goals or rules? 18. How can I tell the difference between toward and away moves when clients are taking action? 19. How does the concept of compassion fit with ACT? Part III: Putting ACT into practice. 20. Do I need to know RFT in order to practice ACT? 21. How do I know whether ACT is the right intervention for someone? 22. Can ACT be adapted for diverse populations? 23. Where do I start with introducing ACT to a client? 24. Should I show the Hexaflex to my clients? 25. How do I explain each component of the Hexaflex? 26. In which order should I work through the components of the psychological flexibility model? 27. How can I encourage people to tune in to the present moment? 28. How do I actually do self-as-context work with a client? 29. How do I promote acceptance in sessions? 30. How do I know which defusion procedure to use? 31. How do I deal with values conflict? 32. So, I just get people to work out their values and encourage them to do value-driven behaviour all the time, right? 33. Do I have to address all the processes in every session? 34. How do I apply ACT with (insert diagnosis here)? 35. How many sessions should a course of ACT intervention include? Part IV: Developing skills as an ACT practitioner. 36. What do I need in place in order to practice ACT safely and effectively? 37. Should ACT practitioners practice ACT for themselves? 38. Why is experiential learning better than didactic learning? 39. Why is there no formal qualification in ACT? 40. How can ACT practitioners shape their learning? 41. Do I need ongoing ACT supervision? Part V: Critical questions about ACT. 42. How strong is the evidence for ACT? 43. Traditional CBT has a well-established evidence base. Why does the world need ACT? 44. Isn't ACT just another case of 'the emperor's new clothes'? 45. ACT uses a lot of eye-catching tools and techniques. Isn't this all just a bag of tricks? 46. How does ACT fit within a culture where the medical model dominates? 47. Is it not harmful to encourage people to tune into and accept their pain and discomfort? 48. What if people have harmful or antisocial values? 49. The client says, "I've done everything you suggested but it hasn't taken away my discomfort". What do I do next? 50. What do I do if a technique does not work out like it is supposed to?
