Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

[darrell]

I work in community mental health for New York State. We are undergoing a lot of changes and restructuring right now, and our clinic has been riding out the process pretty well. Part of that seems to be that we are willing to try new things to help folks fit back into the community.

I provide case management and primary therapy in addition to nursing support. Much of my focus is on behaviors, helping people achieve concrete changes that bring observable improvements to their lives. I use mindfulness approaches a lot for this, including Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Motivational Interviewing, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT, pronounced like the word.)

I would love to connect with other nurses who are using or interested in these or similar approaches. There is a slowly growing special interest group linked below, and also a Facebook Group. The Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS) is also supportive of any projects to capture this field in book form, a potential opportunity for professional growth.

Looking forward to meeting others of like mind!

http://contextualscience.org/act_related_nursing_sig

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ACTRN/

[TerpGal02, ASN]

The only ACT I know is assertive community treatment. I started my career there. I know motivational interviewing well. We mostly used that with our population. Our programming was pretty heavily based on the stages of change, which it sounds like yours is, too.

[darrell]

I know that ACT, too, TerpGal02. My own MI guru work with an ACT team. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is different, although it does play well with MI. Here is a link to the synopsis.

ACT | Association for Contextual Behavioral Science

It differs from the CBT thing by focusing on changing our relay ship to thoughts and suffering, rather than trying to change the thoughts themselves. I love this because it is such simple sense: thoughts of anxiety may arise, but I do not have to guide my behaviors by them. Defusing from the mental stories allows a more objective perspective on our own mental activity, leading to acceptance of thoughts in the same way I accept that some days are rainy and some sunny.

DBT and MI are usually better known, and MI is awesome, of course. I am glad you posted and hope we can exchange tips and knowledge!

D