ACT Based Coaching

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and was developed by Steven Hayes. ACT can be used in coaching where it is called ACT Based Coaching. The aim is behaviour change, just as it is in CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). CBT aims to stop or undo certain thoughts, feelings and behaviours. A person can feel despair, struggle more and become worse than they were before when previous attempts at improvements have failed.

What to do?

To stop the struggle of getting away from certain unpleasant thoughts and feelings, ACT Based Coaching invites you to accept them, while moving towards, or committing to, the values and meaning you hold dear in life. Ultimately you change how you relate to your struggles.

By accepting what is happening for you at this present time, while committing to action in the direction of what you value, you release the grip on your fears, focus your mind on something of value and allow yourself to move forward.

There are 6 different areas to look at within ACT Based Coaching. They are focused around creating psychological flexibility in order to dance with your struggles and switch perspectives in order to move forward. Here is a link to Russ Harris’ great little video titled The Struggle Switch  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCp1l16GCXI

6 Psychological Flexibility Skills in ACT Based Coaching

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy uses psychological flexibility skills in order to handle the negative or unwanted thoughts and feelings that can pop up from time to time, or more frequently. The way you handle these thoughts will affect the way you behave. Behaviour can mean anything from reacting to others, making certain choices or how you spend time alone.

The 6 elements of psychological flexibility can be separated into 3 areas. They are not in any order and can be used independently, or together.

Do What Matters

Living in Harmony With Your Values

With coaching, and personal development in general, the topic of values comes up A LOT. Values can appear vague and hard to grasp, so we end up forgetting to align with them. However, values are vital because they are what give your life meaning. Our values are what create that satisfied and contented feeling within us. Goals are different to values because you can reach, achieve or complete a goal. A value is something you can have and hold, any and all of the time.

Take time to identify your values. When you do this, you are equipped with your ‘north star’ to turn to when you need guidance. Any action taken towards your values is a positive step. See my previous journal entry to read more about Values.

Committed Action

Action towards a values-based outcome means doing small, or big things, that create meaning for you. This is opposite to something called ‘experiential avoidance’. Simply put, avoiding a certain experience. Often this takes the shape of drinking, taking drugs, excessive purchases, binge watching TV, withdrawal, anger and attacking behaviour etc. 

Over time this creates unhappy and unhealthy habits in your life. Committed action, towards positive, meaningful things top up your bank of Good.

• Identify the most prominent value you hold, that makes you feel good, proud and confident in yourself.
• What action have you taken toward this value in the last 3 weeks?
• Where have you used avoidant action in the last 3 weeks in order to avoid an unpleasant experience?
• What is the long-term consequence of this avoidance?

Open Up

Acceptance

Acceptance is about being willing to experience unpleasant thoughts and feelings while remaining committed to following personal values. It is asks you to leave reactive or avoidant behaviour, in place of acceptance. Allow the mixture of thoughts and feelings that arise, to be present. Think of the times when you have been walking and it starts to rain. When you hunch up and try to avoid the rain you feel uncomfortable, frustrated. Instead, if you relax and accept you are going to get wet, you walk more normally and do not experience the same levels of distress. Once you get to a place where you can dry off or change, you will do. But in the meantime, you are going to get wet. Accepting is not the same as giving in. 

It is simply acknowledging without fighting. Fighting suggests struggle. Struggle creates fear. When fearful, your brain will not function at its fullest, meaning you are less able to self-manage and focus on things that will do you good.

Defusion

Defusion is the opposite to fusion. Fusion, meaning that a person can be fused to thoughts and see them as real facts or absolute. Defusion allows a person to detach from this ‘reality’ and put some distance between them, as a person, and their thoughts. Learn to recognise thoughts as things, separate from yourself, that come and go. Now you can start to untangle yourself from the reactions and responses you experience. You are less at the mercy of whatever comes into your mind. This is the part where you change the relationship you have with your internal world.

Thoughts are merely words or images in your mind. They are not real, they are just a certain take on things, a perspective.

• Which element of your thoughts or feelings would benefit from being more accepted by you right now? – What could you struggle less with?
• What distressing thoughts are you fused to – the ones that you ‘know’ are true?
• Take that thought, and think the opposite. Though you may not believe it, create that thought in your mind with words or images. You will see it is made up of exactly the same stuff as the bad thought. It is just another perspective. Regardless of which one you believe more right now; it proves that thoughts are simply ideas in our mind and not defining facts.

Be Present

Present Moment Awareness

As it sounds – being aware of the present moment. It uses the same principles of Mindfulness – what you see, hear, feel, smell etc.  When a person is swept up in their thoughts, coming back to present moment awareness breaks the link that is pulling you into your head and causing distress. Buying in too heavily to the narrative, or story, you tell yourself is unhelpful. 

Another form of present moment awareness is allowing yourself time to be present with what is present. You are no longer running away. The effects of running away are fear and anxiety. If you do not escape, then further alarm is created. Presence is a way of standing in the face of what is bothering you. The longer you face it, the less intense it will be. It will become familiar. The more familiar it is, the more able you will be to accept it while it is there. Remember, accepting it, is not the same as wanting it or giving in. Acceptance of the now, and commitment to the future, is what it’s about.

Observing Self

Gain different perspectives by observing yourself. As mentioned already, the self which engages in fusion to thoughts, seeing them as real, could also be the self that looks in on all of this happening, from afar. See yourself from an outside perspective. Maybe ask, what is the effect of this inward ruminating? While you are locked into your thoughts, you are not able to see what they are doing to you. Try and take the perspective of seeing yourself as a container for all of your thoughts and experiences, or as a person who has had a multitude of experiences and feeling flow through them.

The idea of this self-observation is to gain a greater, more flexible perspective of your experiences of thought and feeling. Remember the idea is to change the relationship you have with your negative experiences. When you add more than one perspective it creates opportunity to relate to yourself in different and more flexible ways.

• How often do you find yourself staring into space creating a world in your mind of scenarios, problems or worries? Notice how you are responding to those thoughts: as if they are real.
• When you become aware you are doing this, refocus your attention by observing your surroundings, hum a tune, stretch, breathe in deeply. Reconnect to the now.

If you find the issue is still with you, let it sit next to you, as though it were a guest in the room. Observe yourself sitting with it.

When all the elements described above are combined, you have a way of noticing, allowing, observing and untangling yourself from what is bothering you. You are able to move towards what you want without being stuck and tied down by your challenges. This will take time to get the hang of, of course. ACT Based Coaching requires you to have someone to work through the ideas presented here with.  If you would like to explore these ideas more, please get in touch to see how we can work together.