The ACT or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a therapy that would be within the contextual therapies, emerged in the late 80’s and early 90’s, which are based on radical behaviorism, and that take into account the analysis of human behavior for treatment. This type of therapy tries to depathologize suffering.
What is its objective and what does it seek to “change” in the patient?
The way we relate to language has a lot to do with suffering, and this is where ACT can help us with a series of techniques and principles to move forward. Sometimes we follow learned rules of language, which, without realizing it, are limiting and harming us in our day to day life.
Why is it useful in anxiety and how to apply it in these cases?
The person who asks for help to a specialist in Psychology comes to us to eliminate anxiety, an attitude that the consultant has been trying for years, going to other therapists, reading self-help books, doing endless things, without this has had the expected effects. Through metaphors and experiential exercises, the person is helped to relate in a different way with his anxiety, in a more compassionate way. All this is focused on having a meaningful, satisfying life.
In what ways does anxiety act to prevent us from “moving forward”, and how do we “disengage” from it?
When anxiety becomes the enemy to beat, life becomes a struggle, causing more suffering.
It is a value and action oriented model, promoting psychological flexibility, which allows us to leave rigid mental frameworks, to really have a space for change in the important areas of our lives. Through techniques of acceptance, defusion, mindfulness indicated for emotions and thoughts, they allow us a different perspective, from which to have room for maneuver, to get out of a situation constrained by emotional pain.
Once the patient learns to use this type of therapy, will he/she be able to apply it in future anxiety crises?
In the process, the patient learns to analyze his or her own traps, when, how and where it happens, in order to become more aware and, by means of tools that have been acquired, to get out of it, or if he or she feels that he or she is going backwards, to be more and more capable of turning it around and moving forward.
Kelly G. Wilson and M. Carmen Luciano Soriano use the garden metaphor to try to get people in touch with what really matters in their lives.
Garden Metaphor
Suppose you are a gardener who loves your garden, who likes to take care of your plants, and that no one but you has responsibility for the care of your plants.
Suppose plants are like the things you love in your life, and think: what are the plants in your garden? how do you see the plants as a gardener? do they have flowers, do they smell nice, are they lush? are you taking care of the plants you love the most as you would want to take care of them?
Of course, they don’t always bloom where you want them to, when you want them to; sometimes they wilt in spite of care; the question is how you see that you are taking care of them, what is getting in your way with the plants, what is getting in your way of caring for them? Perhaps you are spending your life on a plant in the garden. Weeds grow in gardens. Imagine a gardener who cuts them down as soon as he sees them, but the weeds reappear and again the gardener is busy cutting them down and so abandons tending the garden to deal with the problem. However, weeds sometimes encourage the growth of other plants, either because they provide space for others to grow or because they make furrows. That plant may have some value in allowing others to grow. Sometimes plants have parts that are not liked but are useful, as is the case with the rose bush, which must have thorns in order to give roses.
Any gardener knows that the growth of his plants does not depend on his mood, but that each plant requires a systematic and appropriate care and in spite of it, nobody can guarantee the complete result with each plant…. Perhaps the gardener would like the care of a plant to give birth to a plant with a number of white flowers of a precise size, at a specific time. But the gardener knows very well that the plant may offer different flowers, in smaller numbers and giving off a less pleasant odor than desired, or perhaps more. This is not something the gardener can control. The question is whether he nevertheless values the care of those plants. Sometimes he may become impatient if the plant is slow to grow or what grows initially is not to his liking. If the gardener rips up what is planted and puts in another seed, he will never see the plant grow, and his life will revolve only around putting in seeds without getting to live every moment of the growth. Another option is to continue to care for the plants, with whatever they offer at any given moment.