Acceptance & Commitment Therapy for Depression

Acceptance and commitment therapy is a new type of talk therapy with roots in the more traditional cognitive behavioral therapies. While cognitive behavioral therapists focus on negative thoughts and unhealthy behaviors and how they lead to depression, therapists using acceptance and commitment therapy (pronounced "ACT") take these concepts a step further by asking individuals suffering from depression to use mindfulness meditation and acceptance in evaluating their current state of affairs. By embracing the present moment, individuals using ACT therapy find freedom from faulty notions developed by past experience. ACT also encourages a commitment to the exploration of personal values which further fosters a sense of control.

How Language Leads to Unproductive Ideas

• Like cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy uses the evaluation of the mental tape of ideas playing in a client's head, and an investigation of how judgments and stereotypes based on past events, especially negative events, can keep individuals stuck in unproductive behavioral patterns. These negative scripts can create a self-fulfilling prophecy, making people feel powerless, anxious and depressed.

Accepting What Is

• ACT therapists believe that depression, and most other psychological difficulties, stem from our avoidance of certain events that we feel will cause us pain. In ACT therapy, patients are taught that acceptance does not mean giving in to a problem, but rather acceptance prepares us to take positive action. Act therapists believe that only by accepting and thoroughly examining a problem can change be made.

Practicing Mindfulness

• Mindfulness, the practice of watching moment to moment experience in a nonjudgmental manner, is used in acceptance and commitment therapy to help patients suffering from depression to make space between emotions and events and encourage actions based on present moment states, not on past experiences. Mindfulness also builds tolerance of uncomfortable emotional states like anxiety, helping depressed clients feel more in control of their mood.

Exploring Your Values

• ACT therapists use a variety of exercises to help depressed individuals define their values. By having a solid values system, ACT clients can start planning action based on their core beliefs, as opposed to what internal dialogue might be telling them they "should" do. By acting in accordance with deeply held values, as opposed to values imposed by outside forces, depressed patients will continue to build a sense of control.

Committing to Change

• Once ACT patients have practiced challenging negative thought patterns and have mindfully examined and accepted their current situation, they are ready to take values-based action. Committed action from this place of empowerment will help patients defeat old patterns of behavior that may be the root of a depressed state. Taking committed action based on deeply held values will assist those suffering from depression to see life through a new lens.