ACT

The "other" ERE. Societal aspects of the ERE philosophy. Emergent change-making, scale-effects,...
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oldbeyond
Posts: 338
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 10:43 pm

ACT

Post by oldbeyond »

I’ve been reading up on (and then incorporating practices into my routine) ACT recently. ACT is an acronym for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, but its creator Steven C Hayes prefers it to be pronounced like the verb it spells. A form of therapy that grew out of CBT, it aims to integrate insights from humanistic psychology and various forms of psychoanalysis as well. There’s a desire to aid human flourishing, and not merely treat dysfunction.

The basic idea is to increase psychological flexibility, a process that rests on six legs: defusion from thoughts, a wider sense of self, presence, acceptance, values and committed action. Its originators and proponents claim it to be the holy grail of clinical psychotherapy. I have no horse in that race and little interest in it. But it seems to be a promising and practical framework for developing said psychological flexibility, with a lot of very concrete exercises for improving in each of the six pillars. It integrates a lot of value from eastern wisdom traditions while remaining clear and concise even to the die hard scientific materialist.

The development in Spiral dynamics, Kegan, EDT, ERE is in many ways a climb to ever greater heights of flexibility. One opens the heart and mind to more and more of reality, to a greater and greater degree. ACT would be a tactical toolkit to aid in the climb.

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