Mindfulness therapy/Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

[kathique]

Hi everyone

I've seen many posts since I joined the forum about ineffective anxiety treatments including therapy, CBT and medication. I just wanted to share the therapy that I've used to deal with my anxiety. It's called "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)", and it pretty much based on mindfulness.

In ACT, the Acceptance part of the therapy involves accepting your anxiety. It doesn't mean that you resign yourself to being anxious forever, it means understanding that this is where you are right now. You don't try and 'escape' or 'get rid of' anxious thoughts and feelings. As you know, the more energy you put into 'fighting' anxiety, the more the anxiety seems to consume you. If you're anything like me, you turn your focus inwards and lose touch with what is really happening around you. The commitment part of the therapy involves defining your broad values
and making the commitment to act in accordance with your values. Even though you feel anxious, you live according to your values anyway.

For example, one of my values was to be an emotionally present parent. When I was anxious I used to retreat to my bedroom to stress in private, and my daughters were supervised by their dad. This used to upset me because I missed them, and they missed me. So instead, even though I felt anxious, I would go and sit in their bedroom with them and play dolls. I wouldn't just go through the motions, I would make a huge effort to get involved in the play scene they had created. My goal was not to lose my anxiety, it was to play with my daughters to the best of my ability. Sometimes my anxiety would disappear, sometimes it wouldn't. Regardless, I would live life according to my values.

I suppose the crux of the therapy is to diffuse anxious thoughts and remain in the present moment. As you know, you can't breathe in the past, nor the future. You can only breathe and live each present moment. Anxiety robs us of so much - but it doesn't have to. My motto is 'Yes I feel anxious - but I'm going to do it anyway'. 'It' can refer to anything - going shopping, visiting friends whatever. As long as it fits with my values, I do it.

I've probably rabbited on too much - so I've included a link to an Australian website that explains ACT much much better. The website belongs to Russ Harris, the leading ACT therapist in Australia. He has a fantastic intro to ACT therapy book called "The Happiness Trap". If you can get your hands on a copy you won't regret it!

http://www.actmindfully.com.au/

[Itzomi]

Hmmm... Interesting. Thanks!! :)

[Robbed]

Speaking of ACT and Australia, you might also look into the Claire Weekes books. Although they were written LONG before the term 'ACT' was coined (they were written about 50 years ago), the treatments outlined by her are are precisely the same (ie facing, accepting, 'floating', and letting time pass).

The way I see it, the BIG advantage of ACT over traditional CBT (and I emphasize 'traditional CBT' to mean 'TEA form CBT', since ACT is often considered a form of CBT) is that you don't fall into that 'analysis trap' that traditional CBT can often leave you in. With traditional CBT, you are taught that ANY TIME you feel anxiety, it was caused by specific negative thoughts which preceded it. And that these thoughts must be corrected with a more realistic positive thought. This, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing - at least when the negative thought is obvious. The problem is, when there is no obvious negative thought which caused a burst of anxiety, traditional CBT says that 'subconscious thoughts' of some sort are to blame. And that dealing with anxiety hinges on your ability to figure this one out. The problem is that you can't. And this leads to LOTS of mental 'wheel spinning' and overanalysis, which leads to increased stress and anxiety. However, in situations of 'free-floating' anxiety, ACT simply tells you to go on with what you are doing and NOT try to figure out why you feel anxious for no reason. In effect, it teaches you to worry less. And THIS is what you REALLY need to do in order to overcome anxiety. NOT try to figure out where every little bit of anxiety came from.

[deutsche elektronik]

I did Mindfulness therapy and ACT. It does help a little. I've found that the best thing to help alleviate anxiety is to recognize it and accept that's what's happening to your body. When you understand the feelings and sensations that come with anxiety, only then can you stop continuing to become more stressed out and worried about being sick, then you start being able to handle your symptoms. I learned this the hard way. I developed new anxiety symptoms that frightened me and I couldn't accept my doctors advice that I was suffering from anxiety and panic disorder, something which I thought I understood fully. I was wrong. It's also good to continue therapy throughout your life if your anxiety is severe and chronic. Also, never forget that you do have control. That's where mindfulness can help. It allows you to pay attention to what going on in the present, so you can focus on your feelings and your stresses and be able to tackle them.

[lawandorder]

I've never heard of ACT but I completely agree with what you are saying, as it's what I did myself and thanks to (meds) and this i'm pretty much anxiety free 95% of my day.
I think it depends on the person - some people CAN take the 'fight' anxiety approach and 'beat' anxiety. This was not my case, the more I fought, the more my anxiety consumed me. So i had to just ACCEPT, and, over time, VERY gradually, my symptoms subsided one by one. There are TOO MANY feeling and symtpoms associated with anxiety - too frequent, and too severe to actually find a cause for these occurrences (what CBT tries to do, which I also did - I had a psychologist). Sometimes, the cause isn't actually worth diving into, and investing too much time in WHY the anxiety symptom occurred adds fuel to the fire.
However, in CBT's defence, I have NO doubt that in certain circumstances it is very very helpful. I think people underestimate how our past can affect our present emotions, - for example a lack of closure over a death of a family member, or breakdown of marriage, or anything for that matter. In this case CBT is very effective, because just by talking about the things that we built walls to protect ourself, we slowly knock the walls down, giving us RELIEF, which is very important.
So I think both CBT and ACT in conjunction would be ideal. I don't even know if this type of treatment exists, but a lot of people still live in denial about the root of their anxiety, and think that 'I'm over that (past event), when they are clearly not'. I can say this from experience, having a semi-traumatic childhood, and still feeling the responsibilities of looking after my siblings, when in fact, it is not my job to do so, rather my parents. And, talking to my parents about how their behaviour fucked with me, actually made ME feel better, and relieved some of my anxiety.
So there is validity in BOTH, and I think some may need to dive into their past to see if theres anything there that needs addressing. However in other cases, it is just the brain over-stressed, and needs to be re-wired into removing bad habits formed over the years.
So before concluding that one is better than the other, I think that first one should review their lives and see where they have neglected emotions in cases where they SHOULD have felt a certain way, but didn't do so to protect themsleves, or others. And hence, it's like trying to fit too much into a bottle, until it bursts. And some people with live with a higher level of anxiety for extended period of time, because these issues are not resolved.
Just my thoughts, good luck all

[deutsche elektronik]

It is very important to understand what is causing your anxiety if you want to be able to be in control of your symptoms. The same goes for depression and other mood disorders. We tend to ignore that stressful events, whether we think about them a lot or not, can truly effect our emotions and behaviors throughout life. It's best to understand what's bugging us, because if we don't, they will continue to fester in the back of our minds. My psychiatrist is helping me discover the causes and history of my anxiety, particularly my stress in relation to my relationships with others and ability to work and succeed in life, instead of just medicating me. This has been helping me tremendously. These are the things that really affect anxiety the most.