Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change

Rigidity is the root problem1

Psychological rigidity is a root cause of a wide range of clinical problems; therapy aims to build psychological flexibility instead.

Language is where suffering starts2

ACT holds that human suffering is created by language and cognition: how we get entangled in thoughts and avoid unpleasant feelings.

Context, not content2

Thoughts alone do not cause distress or ineffective behavior; their impact depends on the context they occur in.

Six core processes1

Defusion, acceptance, attention to the present moment, self-awareness, values and committed action, each with its own chapter.

Functional contextualism1

The book lays out the philosophy and the relational frame theory of language behind ACT before the clinical chapters.

Case formulation with "ACT ears"1

Chapter 4 teaches listening for the processes, not the diagnosis: "Listening with ACT Ears, Seeing with ACT Eyes".

The therapeutic relationship1

A chapter treats the relationship itself as a place where flexibility is modelled and built.

Creative hopelessness2

ACT helps clients see that their efforts to control or avoid pain have not worked, opening the way to acceptance.

Exercises and dialogues1

Sample therapeutic exercises and patient-therapist dialogues are integrated throughout, per the publisher.

Borrowed techniques, openly2

The first edition says many or even most ACT techniques were borrowed "from the human potential movement, Eastern traditions, behavior therapy, mystical traditions, and the like".

Not a panacea2

In the 2012 preface the authors say ACT was not created to undercut its source traditions, "nor does it claim to be a panacea", answering critics of over-promotion.

Not Skinner's behavior analysis2

Michael Dougher's 2002 review of the first edition found it full of terms from existentialism, humanism, Zen Buddhism and Gestalt rather than behavior analysis.

Are the unique parts the active ones?2

A 2013 comparison with cognitive therapy said ACT cannot yet claim its unique, theory-driven components are the active ingredients.

Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life

The same model as a self-help workbook: do the exercises on yourself first.

ACT Made Simple

Russ Harris's plain-language practitioner guide, an easier first pass at the six processes.

Relational Frame Theory

The basic science of language that ACT rests on, for readers who want the foundation.

Learning Process-Based Therapy

Where Hayes took the process focus next: beyond ACT to processes across all of CBT.