Quotes for Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT)

[Daniel E.]

Flexibility (personality) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The main goal of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is to increase psychological flexibility. ACT is a form of therapy that aims to help people accept unavoidable events, identify actions that will lead to goals, and acknowledge thoughts rather than accepting or disregarding them.[21] When psychological flexibility was targeted in one study of ACT, there was a stronger reduction in psychological distress.[22] There are six core processes in ACT interventions: acceptance, cognitive defusion, self as context, being present, values, and committed action.

 

[Daniel E.]

“You can say it this way: if you learn to be less reactive to stress through the cultivation of flexibility pivots, the body starts turning off those reaction systems, including genetic expression switches that may have been originally thrown not by you but by your parents and grandparents. How cool is that?”

― Steven C. Hayes, A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters

 

[Daniel E.]

"If you notice yourself going through a particularly challenging time, you might imagine holding your difficult thoughts and feelings gently, like a prickly cactus."

~ Jenna LeJeune, Ph.D

 

[Daniel E.]

We have lots of socially established rules about self-worth. People want to be acceptable to themselves and others. Unfortunately, because of verbal evaluation, at the level of content no one is truly acceptable. I sometimes ask my clients to name one thing in the physical universe that they can’t find fault with. Usually they can’t. Then I ask, “So why should you be an exception?”

If the “you” one takes oneself to be is this observer “you,” these rules of self-worth are handled fairly easily. . . . Only things can be evaluated, and at the deepest level one cannot experience onself in the sense of “you as perspective” to be a thing.

~ Steve Harris (quoted in ACT Observer Exercise)

 

[desiderata]

"We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it."

~ Rick Warren

 

[Daniel E.]

“The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinion for or against. The struggle of what one likes and what one dislikes is the disease of the mind.”

― Hsin Hsin Ming

 

[Daniel E.]

“We are storytelling animals, and cannot bear to acknowledge the ordinariness of our daily lives.”

― Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life

 

[Daniel E.]

Amazon.com: Personal Control in Action: Cognitive and Motivational Mechanisms (The Springer Series in Social Clinical Psychology) eBook : Kofta, Miroslaw, Weary, Gifford, Sedek, Grzegorz: Kindle Store

Amazon.com: Personal Control in Action: Cognitive and Motivational Mechanisms (The Springer Series in Social Clinical Psychology) eBook : Kofta, Miroslaw, Weary, Gifford, Sedek, Grzegorz: Kindle Store

www.amazon.com

 

[Daniel E.]

“Perhaps the most liberating moment in my life was when I realized that my self-loathing was not a product of my inadequacy but, rather, a product of my thoughts.”

“To be courageous, we must be willing to surrender our perfectionism, if only for a moment. If my self-worth is attached to being flawless, why would I ever try to learn anything new? After all, learning requires mistakes.”

― Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset: An Unconventional Guide to Healing and Happiness

 

[Daniel E.]

Regarding social anxiety:

“Paradoxically, accepting that you’re just not a confident person and you’re always going to feel a little off around other people will begin to make you feel more comfortable and less anxious around others. You won’t judge yourself, and then you’ll feel less judged by them as well.”

~ Mark Manson

 

[Daniel E.]

The Secret to Resiliency: Self-Compassion | bpHope.com

Hope & Harmony HeadlinesApril 21, 2022 • Volume 15, Issue 16 When in the grips of bipolar depression, or feeling overwhelmed by mania-induced regret,

www.bphope.com

Some people find that when they first practice self-compassion, their pain actually increases some.

“We call this phenomena backdraft, a firefighting term that describes what happens when a door in a burning house is opened—oxygen goes in and flames rush out,” explains Kristin Neff, PhD, co-founder of the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion. “A similar process can occur when we open the door of our hearts—love goes in and old pain comes out.”

Validate emotions but don’t add fuel to the fire. Be gentle. Show yourself patience. One powerful exercise suggested by Neff is to write out exactly how you would respond to a friend in the same situation you are condemning yourself for.

 

[Daniel E.]

“Embrace the glorious mess that you are.”

– Elizabeth Gilbert

 

[Daniel E.]

“What we need to learn to do is to look at thought, rather than from thought.”

― Steven C. Hayes

 

[Daniel E.]

"Acceptance is such an important part of happiness, contentment, health, and growth that some people have called it the 'first law of personal growth."

~Peter McWilliams, "You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought" {page 417}

 

[Daniel E.]

“It’s toughest to forgive ourselves. So, it’s probably best to start with other people. It’s almost like peeling an onion. Layer by layer, forgiving others, you really do get to the point where you can forgive yourself.”

—Patty Duke, actress and mental health advocate with bipolar

 

[Daniel E.]

Self-as-context - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Self-as-context, one of the core principles in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), is the concept that people are not the content of their thoughts or feelings, but rather the consciousness experiencing said thoughts and feelings.

Self-as-context is distinguished from self-as-content, defined in ACT as the social scripts people maintain about who they are and how they operate in the world.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

An overview of ACT:

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): An Overview

Russell Harris describes the essential components of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) along with case studies its illustrate its use in therapy.

www.psychotherapy.net

More information:

Amazon product Amazon product

Amazon product Amazon product

Amazon product

 

[Daniel E.]

Embracing This Human Condition

How to live beyond labels.

www.psychologytoday.com

"The creative wound is the place one is attempting to move out of, but the inevitable hope is that it will be repaired and something transformative will emerge. This doesn't happen without a fight."

 

[Daniel E.]

ACT improves functioning with chronic pain management

ACT may help with chronic pain management By Ana Sandoiu, Medical News Today July 14, 2017 A new study finds that acceptance and commitment therapy significantly improves functioning for people with chronic pain. New research zooms in on a specific form of cognitive behavioral therapy and...

forum.psychlinks.ca

"Self-as-context" (SAC) - sometimes also called "self-as-observer" - refers to a theory of self that is not grounded in self-evaluations. In this understanding of the self, we are able to "experience a perspective where we are neither defined by nor harmed by our own thoughts and feelings."

 

[Daniel E.]

"It may be difficult to accept something you do not like but you can definitely accept a tiny bit of it — an atom."

“An uncommitted mind is miserable. A committed mind may at times experience rough weather but it will reap the fruits of its toil.”

― Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Celebrating Silence