Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in Oxford

What is ACT (typically pronounced as the word “act”)?

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a practical, mindfulness based therapeutic approach to help people to live life less focused on any painful thoughts, feelings and experiences they may have and more focused on their values, and acting in a mindful and committed way to achieving their goals.

How does it work?

ACT uses mindfulness and acceptance techniques to help people to engage with painful thoughts and feelings. The idea is to free you from their grip and from the patterns that prevent you from living a meaningful, and enjoyable life. This freedom provides the base for developing a psychological flexibility and for building life-enhancing patterns of behaviour.

What does it help with?

ACT has developed within a scientific tradition, and there continues to be a thriving research community that examines the basic science underlying ACT and the effectiveness of applying ACT techniques to numerous life problems such as anxiety, depression, trauma, substance abuse, chronic pain, psychosis, weight management, tinnitus and many others.

What to expect in therapy

ACT is collaborative in that you and your therapist work together on whatever you are looking to get help with. It is not a treatment that can be done to you, rather something you do, with the help of your therapist.

It involves working between sessions on activities like practising particular skills or trying out new ways of tackling problems. For example, initial sessions may focus on alternative ways of engaging with difficult, painful thoughts and feelings. Later, we would look to explore what you value in life and work out actions you might take to achieve your goals, consistent with these values.

I usually suggest six to eight sessions to allow time to see how this approach is working for you, but you are free to stop therapy at any point. Depending on your needs and goals, you may have more sessions.