ACT Flashcards
6 pathologies of ACT
Fusion -Defusion Avoidance - Experiential Acceptance Lost Values - Present moment awareness Attachment to self -Self As Context Uncertain Values Unworkable Action
Pathology:Fusion
When fusion is operating, you’re bonded to your thoughts and emotions. You believe that everything in your mind is the absolute truth.
Pathology:Fusion
When fusion is operating, you’re bonded to your thoughts and emotions. You believe that everything in your mind is the absolute truth. In a fused state, your thoughts OWN you.
Pathology:Avoidance
to avoid situations, people, thoughts, feelings, and experiences that are painful or otherwise unpleasant. But avoidance consumes a lot of time and energy, and it greatly interferes with the ability to live a purposeful, valued life.
Pathology: Lost Values
Being on a beautiful tropical island on a sunny day, but your instead of being in the present, you are lost in the storm of thoughts that rage in your mind.
when turbulent thoughts and emotions erase the value of your experience, to the point where you feel that you no longer even have access to the things you value most in life, you can enhance your mental health and restore your well-being simply by connecting with the moment in which you find yourself—right now, right here—in the present.
Pathology: Lost Values
Being on a beautiful tropical island on a sunny day, but your instead of being in the present, you are lost in the storm of thoughts that rage in your mind. Maybe it is a storm of guilt, or a storm of fear. Either way, it distracts you from the present moment.
when turbulent thoughts and emotions erase the value of your experience, to the point where you feel that you no longer even have access to the things you value most in life, you can enhance your mental health and restore your well-being simply by connecting with the moment in which you find yourself—right now, right here—in the present.
Pathology: Attached to self
Being attached to self, the made-up self that is nothing more than a by-product of our thoughts and feelings, means buying into every idea or belief about ourselves that happens to cross our minds.
We believe that we are what we think.
Pathology: Uncertain Values
Suppose you’re kayaking when—whoosh!—you’re suddenly sucked into a whirlpool. You spin around and around in your tiny craft, and even though you notice several ways out, you can’t say why you should or should not take any particular one. In other words, you can’t decide just how you want to escape from the whirlpool because you’re uncertain about the value of any one approach. So you just keep spinning.
Pathology:Unworkable Action
an unworkable action is anything you do to block yourself from creating a life you think is worth living.
Defusion: Labeling
The act of using words to label and categize thoughts creates distance.
Labeling is best when the theme that runs through a group of thoughts are identified and labeled. Then thoughts can be categorized like songs that belongs to the same album, or chapters that belong to the same book, or episodes of the same series.
technique: Label the series of thoughts by giving it an album, book or series title.
Defusion: Reason giver
The mind is a thought factory. A reason giver.
When the mind is faced with a situation it will give reasons for why that situation exists.
“the dog made the girl cry”
- the dog bit her
- the dog died
- the scared her
Defusion: busy street metaphor
Walking down a busy street there are a many people walking in different directions, some of them are trying to get your attention. Some are asking for donations for a charity, others are sales people trying to sell their products.
your mind is like the busy street. Thoughts are like the people walking past you. Sometimes a sales person will come up to you and try to sell you on something. When you stop and engage with that person (thought) then you become fused. To become unfused, we need to keep walking
Defusion: Fact vs Thought
Evaluating wether a thought is of value or of service, instead of taking it as a fact.
Do not struggle with or try to negate a thought, or try to ascertain if it is true or not (truth finding), but simple notice the thought and ask “is it beneficial, is it workable, is it useful?”
Techniques:
I am having the thought that ….. Is it useful? Is it workable? Is it beneficial?”
Thanx minister …
There’s the commentary box again.
Mind tweet
I’ve heard that thought before
Defusion: Survival
When fused with Survival response
Recognize, Accept, Identify and lable, Non Attachment
What is ACT?
ACT is a skillset that helps us cope with negative, painful, or difficult thoughts and feelins, by reducing their impact through mindfulness, and by clarifying what is truly important and meaningful to us and to take
action that enriches our life.
How is ACT different from conventional approaches?
ACT assumes that:
(a) quality of life is primarily dependent upon mindful, values-guided action, and
(b) this is possible regardless of how many symptoms you have—provided that you respond to your symptoms
with mindfulness.
Defusion: Radio metaphor
The mind is like a radio in that it is constantly talking
Their are a number of radio stations
- 9 “you’re a failure” Show
- 3 “Fraud”
- 1 “Guilt”
and so forth
Noticing what station you are tuned into, and when you tune into those stations.
What are thoughts?
Thoughts are coginitions that show up as:
Comments Ideas Questions Answers Opinions Images Memories Judgements Assumptions Sounds
Each of which has submodialities that can be manipulated or changed
seeing thoughts as just thoughts helps as to defuse
Defusion: Snowflakes falling
Imagery exercise: Standing on top of a mountain peak with snow flakes falling all around, some snow flakes land on you or in your hands, look at them, observe, hold them gently, put them down and let them go, watch them collect around you, some melt and run down the mountain where they form rivers, eventually they all melt
Defusion: Tug of War metaphor
We tend to fight with our thoughts, we tend to hold on so tightly that we tend to get dragged around by them, and before long we are in a war with them tuggin and pulling.
While we are focusing on fighting with our thoughts we lose sight of what is really important, we become disconnected from our values
although we cannot let go of the thoughts we can only let go of the struggle
when we stop struggling and let go, the thoughts will follow us around constantly try and tempt us into picking up the rope, inviting us into a game of tug of war, but it is up to us whether we want to accept that invite or not,
Experiential Acceptance
Experiential Acceptance is the process of practising non-judgmental awareness to internal and external events. Through this practice, one recognises that there are some things that are out of our control and that if we let go of the struggle with this, we can make decisions about the part we have control over – our actions.
Experiental Acceptance: 3 kinds of discomfort
Ordinary discomfort: Things that can’t be changed. Things that occur as a matter of life. Aging, life, death, birth, ordinary pain.
Poduced by Change: Clinging and attachment: Trying to hold on to what is desirable, or not getting what we want.
Conditioned state: Thoughts and sensations, responses to conditions or life that causes discomfort
Experiential acceptance: Pain and Pleasure
We tend to avoid pain and move towards pleasure, but Pain is unescapable
We experience pain by comparison:
when given two pieces of delicious food the one more delicious than the other by comparison, then we might develop a preference or desire for the more delicious one, and less of a preference for the other one. When we don’t get our prefered choice, we might eperience a kind of pain
We experience pain by avoidance
we avoid going to the gym because it is painful, So we choose to stay on the coach because in comparison it is much more immediatly enjoyable, however the pleasure is short lived as it is usually followed by the pain of guilt or low-self esteem and even the pain of chronic illness from not exercising. In contrast, by not avoiding the initial pain of exercise, we experience pleasure afterwards in the form of health, higher self esteem and confindence that is long lasting.
Experiential acceptance: Expansion
7 steps
- Elicit the discomfort
- Notice the most intense sensation
- Describe sensation (sub-modalities)
- Breathe
- Allow/make room/accept
- Notice again how you are hold that discomfort
- Debrief
The aim is not to change the discomfort but to hold it differently
