The Essence of ACT: 2 major goals
• Acceptance of unwanted private experiences which are out of personal control
• Commited action towards living a valued life
In other words … “Embrace your demons, and follow your heart!”
Put simply:
–The aim of ACT is to create a rich, full and meaningful life, while accepting the pain that inevitably goes with it.
Put more technically:
–The goal of ACT is to increase psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility has two components: 1) the ability to be psychologically present – i.e. aware, attentive, open to, and engaged in your experience; 2) the ability to control your behaviour to serve valued ends
Official ACT definition: The goal of ACT is to increase psychological flexibility: the ability to contact the present moment and the psychological reactions it produces, as a fully conscious human being, and based on the situation, to persist with or change behaviour for valued ends