About Meditation into Life

Meditation into Life is a follow-on course for people who have completed a Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) or Mindfulness Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) course at Breathing Space. It draws on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which was developed in the USA and has been shown to be effective with a wide range of problems.

Basic techniques in ACT

ACT - a definition

The core conception of ACT

ACT - six core principles

ACT - a 'Third Wave' Behavioural Therapy

Recommended books on ACT

Basic techniques in ACT

ACT uses three main techniques to challenge negative thinking and feelings:

• Mindfulness: Being aware of what is happening in your experience, in your mind and your body.
• Acceptance: Trying to rid ourselves of pain only increases it. Instead you can 'turn towards' your difficult experiences and cultivate an attitude of acceptance. This doesn't mean being defeated or just 'putting up with' suffering. Rather, you can explore what thoughts lie beneath the difficult experiences, and learn ways to 'defuse' from them.
• Commitment: Learning to free yourself from the traps and barriers of life, and see what you really want your life to be.

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ACT - a definition

ACT has been defined by Steven C. Hayes, Foundation Professor at the Department of Psychology, University of Nevada as: "an approach to psychological intervention defined in terms of certain theoretical processes, not a specific technology. In theoretical and process terms we can define ACT as a psychological intervention based on modern behavioral psychology, including Relational Frame Theory, that applies mindfulness and acceptance processes, and commitment and behavior change processes, to the creation of psychological flexibility."

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The core conception of ACT

The core conception of ACT is that psychological suffering is usually caused by experiential avoidance, cognitive entanglement, and resulting psychological rigidity that leads to a failure to take needed behavioural steps in accord with core values. As a simple way to summarize the model, you can say that ACT views the core of many problems to be due to the acronym, FEAR:

• Fusion with your thoughts
• Evaluation of experience
• Avoidance of your experience
• Reason giving for your behaviour

And the healthy alternative is to ACT:

• Accept your reactions and be present
• Choose a valued direction
• Take action

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ACT - six core principles

ACT commonly employs six core principles to help clients develop psychological flexibility:

1. Cognitive Defusion: Learning to perceive thoughts, images, emotions, and memories as what they are, not what they appear to be.

2. Acceptance: Allowing these to come and go without struggling with them.

3. Contact with the present moment: Awareness of the here and now, experienced with openness, interest, and receptiveness.

4. Observing the self: Accessing a transcendent sense of self, a continuity of consciousness which is changing.

5. Values: Discovering what is most important to one's true self.

6. Committed Action: Setting goals according to one's values and carrying them out responsibly.

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ACT - a 'Third Wave' Behavioural Therapy

Together with MBCT, ACT is one of a number of 'third wave' behaviour therapies. These have been defined by Steven C. Hayes, (Foundation Professor at the Department of Psychology, University of Nevada) as follows: "Grounded in an empirical, principle-focused approach, the third wave of behavioral and cognitive therapy is particularly sensitive to the context and functions of psychological phenomena, not just their form, and thus tends to emphasize contextual and experiential change strategies in addition to more direct and didactic ones. These treatments tend to seek the construction of broad, flexible and effective repertoires over an eliminative approach to narrowly defined problems, and to emphasize the relevance of the issues they examine for clinicians as well as clients. The third wave reformulates and synthesizes previous generations of behavioral and cognitive therapy and carries them forward into questions, issues, and domains previously addressed primarily by other traditions, in hopes of improving both understanding and outcomes."

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Recommended books on ACT

'Get Out of Your Mind and into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy', by Spencer Smith and Steven C. Hayes.

Available at the London Buddhist Centre bookshop.

 

 

 

 

'The Worry Trap: How to Free Yourself from Worry and Anxiety Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy', by Chad Lejeune

 

 

 

 

'Act on Life Not on Anger: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Guide to Problem Anger', by Matthew McKay, John P. Forsyth and Georg H. Eifert

 

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