What is Acceptance Commitment Therapy or ACT?
ACT is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy that addresses two common causes of distress in our life: experiential avoidance and intolerance of uncertainty. Experiential avoidance is the “struggle to stay connected to unpleasant, distressing inner experiences,” (Knabb, 2016).
This is especially difficult to do in a culture that’s continually telling us that emotional pain is bad and we need to get rid of it in order to live our best life. The problem in avoiding distress is that it detracts from addressing the real issue and creates a false sense that the only way to be “okay” is to be pain free. We can try to avoid pain but to do so will only cause more pain. You may be familiar with this chasing-pain-relief cycle.
The other condition we struggle with is intolerance to uncertainty. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we never had to worry about the “what ifs” again? We could know for certain what was going to happen and could plan accordingly. Think of how much nicer it would be to have that kind of control. Unfortunately life doesn’t work that way. There are times when things are very uncertain and remain that way for a while. Fear of the unknown is a tremendous source of anxiety for people. Our intolerance to uncertainty causes us either to seek certainty or avoid uncertainty. Again, the problem with this strategy is that it completely bypasses the real issue and causes us to pursue answers where there are none. Fighting uncertainty only promotes more uncertainty. Are you seeing a pattern?
Both strategies, experiential avoidance and intolerance to uncertainty, will eventually lead to more of the same. The only way to get over the distressing emotion is to go through it. ACT teaches clients how to do this using six core principles: cognitive diffusion; acceptance; present-moment awareness; the observing self; values; and committed action.
ACT dovetails with the Christian faith. Each of these six principles can be interpreted from a biblical perspective and applied according to scripture. Experiential avoidance and intolerance to uncertainty have strong correlations to the internal battle Christians have trying to live according to their faith. We wrestle with the flesh, do those things we don’t want to do, try to avoid painful consequences, while trying to trust God with our problems. There is a lot of pain associated with falling short of God’s standard. Fortunately God did not leave us dead in our sin. He provided a way for us to honor and glorify Him through the work of Christ on the cross.
Works Cited
Knabb, Joshua (2016). Faith-Based ACT for Christian Clients. New York : Routledge.