I've trained in Acceptance & Commitment Therapy
This year, to build on my health coaching skills, I have completed my training in ACT - Acceptance & Commitment Therapy, and am now starting to integrate this dynamic approach into my work.
ACT is a well-respected and effective mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, widely used in a variety of settings to help people embrace their emotions and respond more flexibly to the challenges in their lives.
The broad goal with ACT is to increase psychological flexibility. Like physical flexibility, when we are psychologically flexible, we are able to deal with life more easily. We consciously choose what matters to us and start to take action towards this rather than staying lost or stuck in self-defeating old habits.
I use ACT to help my coaching clients improve their lives and health by helping them respond more flexibly to their challenges, get unstuck from ruts in their eating behaviour such as emotional eating patterns, and achieve their values-based goals.
What makes ACT different to other approaches is that anxieties, fears or pain are seen as a natural part of life rather than an abnormal experience. They’re what makes you human.
There is a lot of media and cultural emphasis on keeping positive and upbeat. But instead of trying to push away the uncomfortable thoughts, feelings and sensations that lead to suffering, which research shows doesn’t work anyway, ACT provides tools to relate to them differently while taking action towards the life you want to be living.
So powerful is ACT, that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has just released a picture-based ACT self-help book called “Doing What Matters in Times of Stress”, to help people cope with the Coronavirus crisis. Please share this fantastic resource with anyone else you know who needs a helping hand with handling the challenges they’re facing in their lives now too.
