How to Learn Acceptance and Commitment Skills

Acceptance and commitment technique is a type of skill that emphasizes acceptance as a way to cope with negative thoughts, feelings, symptoms, or circumstances. Therapists in this school of thought work from a theory that suggests that increased acceptance can lead to increased psychological flexibility.

The "forgiveness" content that has become popular today has no connection with the healing process technique of acceptance and commitment therapy.

Acceptance does not necessarily include forgiveness. Intense and serious traumas that people experience may not always include an other to forgive, or even if they do, a situation that can be forgiven may not have occurred.

We include Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in a group we call third wave behavioral therapy. The main theme of these third wave approaches is awareness of internal experiences and the process of acceptance along with this awareness.

In third wave approaches, the emphasis is on accepting the cognitions brought about by internal experiences rather than changing them. These approaches focus on strengthening the individual and enriching the behavioral repertoire rather than immediately labeling the behavior as pathological when a psychological problem is experienced .

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a present-focused, mindfulness-based approach that comes from the radical behaviorist school, has been proven effective with scientific data, and bases its philosophy on the relationship between language and cognition (Relational Frame Theory-RFT) .

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy emphasizes the importance of language. Language has been seen as the most important factor that organizes our perception and frameworks.

Pleasant or unpleasant functions can be added to the internal experiences experienced through language, and some rules can be developed regarding these experiences: “Anxiety is bad.”, “Anxiety is an emotion that needs to be gotten rid of.” etc.

In this context, people pursue the emotions they like and try to get rid of the ones they don't like . 3. Unlike other behaviorist theories, CBT prefers to change the approach rather than changing behavior, thought or emotion.

Let's draw an example scenario to better understand how Acceptance and Commitment Therapy works:

Ali is someone who experiences a lot of stress at work and has problems in his social relationships. He constantly feels anxious and stressed, especially when dealing with the demands at work, and at the same time, he tends to avoid interacting with people because he feels sensitive to criticism.

A therapist who follows the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy school of thought would first focus on exploring Ali’s emotional avoidance tendencies and how this avoidance conflicts with her life values. She would explain how avoiding emotionally challenging situations, rather than confronting them, can lead to more stress and dissatisfaction in the long run.

As part of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, it is provided with opportunities to practice accepting her emotional experiences, coping with them more flexibly, and acting in accordance with her values. In this process, we learn to accept anxiety and stress without resisting them as she faces them, and focuses on acting in accordance with its values.

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