While CBT evolved through the first and second waves of behaviour therapy, ACT belongs to the third (Twohig, 2012). It is most often used in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, general mental health problems, psychosis, and mixed anxiety disorders (Smout, Hayes, Atkins, Klausen, & Duguid, 2012). Contrary to the traditional therapy methods, ACT assumes that normal cognitive processes increase the experience of undesirable emotions, that lead patients to engage in problematic behaviour (Blackledge & Hayes, 2001). Therefore, it aims to increase the patients’ psychological flexibility, the ability to understand and alter present moments and inner experiences rather than focusing on changing behaviour (Twohig, 2012). ACT …show more content…
Functional contextualism accepts psychological events as a set of ongoing interactions between the whole situation and contexts that are defined by the present self and past experiences (Hayes, 2016). By this, ACT gives the patient directions on how to interact with actual contingencies, rather than being influenced by their cognitions (Twohig, 2012). Moreover, it facilitates the process of values. Related to contextualism, relational frame theory forms an important component of ACT, as it focuses on the nature of human language and cognition (Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, & Roche, 2003; Novak, 2015). RFT suggests that behaviour is learned through multiple contexts and shapes how rational responses to certain stimuli are (Twohig, 2012). Relations can be bi- and multidirectional, and thus transform the functions of specific events based on their mutual or combinational entailment to others (for more detail, see Hayes, 2016). Finally, RFT suggests that it is necessary to analyse cognition in order to understand human …show more content…
(2016) randomly allocated 126 participants with health anxiety (a disorder in which patients misinterpret normal bodily reactions as dangerous) to either ACT treatment, or a ten-month waitlist. Patients that received ACT treatment attended 10 sessions in groups of nine that were led by the same two therapists. The session constructions were replicated from the pilot-study and outcomes were measured via self-reported questionnaires. Accordingly, this study’s intervention plan deviates from the initial ACT process by using group sessions instead of individual ones and focusing on the component