Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: A Beginner’s Guide to ACT

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT, said as the word "act") is an evidence-based therapy that helps you stop struggling with difficult thoughts and feelings and put your energy into living according to your values. Rather than trying to eliminate anxiety, sadness or self-doubt, ACT teaches skills to hold them more lightly, so they have less control over what you do. It was developed by psychologist Steven Hayes and colleagues and has research support for anxiety, depression, chronic pain, stress and many other difficulties.

The core idea

Most of us try to get rid of painful thoughts and feelings. That makes sense, and sometimes it works. But with persistent difficulties, the struggle often becomes part of the problem:

• avoiding situations that trigger anxiety shrinks your life

• arguing with self-critical thoughts keeps you focused on them

• numbing feelings with alcohol, work or scrolling brings short-term relief and long-term cost

ACT suggests a different response: make room for difficult inner experiences, and keep moving toward what matters. The aim is psychological flexibility: being able to stay present with whatever you're feeling and choose actions based on your values rather than your fears.

The six core processes

ACT is built around six processes, often drawn as a hexagon ("the hexaflex"). They work together rather than as separate steps.

1. Acceptance

Acceptance means allowing thoughts, feelings and sensations to be there without fighting them. It doesn't mean liking them, giving up or resigning yourself to a situation. It means dropping the tug-of-war with what you can't directly control, so you can use your energy elsewhere.

A common ACT metaphor: struggling with anxiety is like struggling in quicksand. The more you thrash, the deeper you sink. Spreading out and increasing your contact with the surface, counterintuitive as it is, helps.

2. Cognitive defusion

Defusion means stepping back from thoughts and seeing them as words and pictures passing through your mind, rather than truths or orders. When we're "fused" with a thought like "I'm going to fail", we react as if it's a fact. Defusion creates a little space.

Simple defusion techniques:

• Add "I'm having the thought that..." before a thought.

• Name the story: "Ah, there's the 'I'm not good enough' story again."

• Say a sticky thought slowly, in a silly voice, or sing it to a familiar tune. The words stay the same, but their grip loosens.

3. Present-moment awareness

Paying attention to what's happening now, rather than being lost in worries about the future or rumination about the past. This is where mindfulness comes in. See Mindfulness in Therapy: More Than Just Meditation.

4. Self-as-context

This refers to the part of you that notices your thoughts and feelings but isn't defined by them, sometimes called the "observing self". Thoughts and feelings change constantly; the part of you that observes them stays steady. An ACT metaphor compares thoughts to weather and you to the sky: storms pass through, and the sky remains.

5. Values

Values are the qualities you want to bring to your life and relationships: being caring, curious, honest, adventurous, connected. They're different from goals. A goal can be completed (get a new job), whereas a value is ongoing (continuing to learn). Values give direction, especially when things are hard.

6. Committed action

Taking practical steps guided by your values, even when difficult thoughts and feelings show up. This often includes approaching things you've been avoiding.

Values work in practice

Values clarification is often a turning point in ACT. Questions that help:

• If anxiety weren't in the way, what would you be doing?

• What do you want to stand for in your relationships, work and health?

• At the end of your life, what would you want to have made time for?

• What makes you feel most like yourself?

From there, you identify small, concrete actions that move in those directions. For example, if connection matters and social anxiety has been in the way, a committed action might be replying to a friend's message and suggesting coffee, while allowing the anxiety to come along.

What ACT helps with

ACT has research support for:

• anxiety disorders

• depression

• chronic pain

• workplace stress and burnout

• OCD, often alongside exposure

• psychosis (as a complement to other treatment)

• adjusting to chronic illness

• substance use

It's also used outside clinical settings to improve wellbeing and performance.

How ACT differs from CBT

Traditional CBT often focuses on examining and changing the content of thoughts. ACT focuses on changing your relationship with thoughts, whether or not their content changes. The two are compatible, and many psychologists use both. See CBT vs ACT for Anxiety for a detailed comparison.

What an ACT session looks like

ACT sessions are often more experiential than traditional talk therapy. You might do a short mindfulness exercise, work through a metaphor, practise a defusion technique, explore values, and plan a committed action for the week. It's collaborative, practical and often surprisingly light, with humour welcome.

ACT at Satya Psychology

ACT is one of the core approaches across our team, used by our founder Mirinda Smith, our provisional psychologists and our counsellor, often combined with CBT, DBT skills and mindfulness. Walk and Talk sessions on the Gold Coast lend themselves particularly well to ACT's present-moment and values work.

Book a session by telehealth, in person in Nobby Beach, or outdoors on a Walk and Talk session. For an overview of other approaches, read Therapy Approaches Explained.

This article is general information and isn't a substitute for individual advice.