ACT and Parenting
Moving from Values to Committed Action.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an approach that centers around psychological flexibility, incorporating values to drive behavior change. It truly is a whole person approach, that can enhance the Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) process, especially for parents. Beyond ABA, it leads to a better understanding of oneself, and its tools and strategies can help support you through any behavior changes that you desire to make.
Let’s break ACT down into chewable pieces:
There are six core components of ACT: acceptance, contact with the present moment, values, committed action, self as context, and defusion (Hayes S, Luoma J, Bond F, et al. Acceptance and commitment therapy: model processes and outcomes. Beh Res Ther 2006; 44: 1–25). While all components are interconnected and important, I would like to focus briefly on the following: values, acceptance, defusion and committed action.
Let’s talk through each of these:
Values: Our values encompass what is most important to us. Examples might include: “being a loving and patient parent”, “being the best partner I can be for my spouse”, or “helping my child become more independent”. Values are not goals. We do not reach a finish line and say, “I’ve accomplished being a loving and patient parent; all done here.” Values drive our purpose, and we continue to work towards them.
Acceptance: Accepting your experience is about acknowledging and engaging in difficult thoughts, feelings and practices, even when we would prefer to escape these private events. When we try to avoid or escape difficult thoughts or experiences, we often move away from our most dearly held values. For example, if you value your child being as independent as possible, you will likely need to challenge your child to practice some difficult skills. This could lead to an unpleasant experience, such as your child whining, and you feeling guilty or thinking “I’m a bad parent”. Can you accept the difficult experience, knowing that you are acting in service of what you most value?
Defusion: Defusion is the opposite of fusion. When we “fuse” with our thoughts and feelings, they become powerful. We become stuck. For example, imagine that you need to have a difficult conversation with your partner. If you are having the thought “I am terrible at communicating. This isn’t going to go well.”, becoming fused or “stuck” to this thought could make it very difficult to listen to your partner and be present during this conversation. Defusing from our thoughts means recognizing our private events (thoughts and feelings) as they are and nothing more. We can separate or “unstick” ourselves from the thought and realize that it does not control us.
Committed Action: Here is where Behavior Analysts like myself get particularly excited. Committed action is all about behavior change. It’s about trying new things, and persisting in what you are doing, if it is in service of what you value most. Ultimately, committed action is about living in a way that chases your values, even when doing so is difficult.
The life Map:
In the visual shown above (Figure 1), adapted from Gordon & Borushok (2017), we can see many of these ACT components illustrated.
As we move towards the right, we are chasing our values. Using a specific value example, if you value (bottom right quadrant) “self-care”, your valued actions (upper right quadrant) might include “exercising three times per week”, “taking 10 minutes to listen to music after work”, or “practicing self-compassion”. Self-care is important, especially for parents and caregivers. We have all heard it said that we must take care of ourselves first in order to take care of others. You have to re-fill your cup.
However, as we move towards the left, we are escaping pain or challenge. Continuing with the “self-care” example, what obstructive thoughts (bottom left quadrant) might be in conflict with this value? You might think, “I can’t exercise. I haven’t been able to stick to an exercise routine in the past, so I won’t be able to now.” You might fuse with this thought, and instead of putting on exercise shoes and going for a walk after work, you might act (upper left quadrant) in a number of ways that take you in the opposite direction, such as checking a few more work emails, having a drink or two to relax, or maybe you might just sit with your thoughts and feel bad about not exercising. Checking emails and enjoying a glass of wine are not bad things in themselves, but in this example they are in conflict with your valued action of exercising after work.
We come in contact with these pivot points every day (Figure 2), where we choose to chase our values or escape pain or challenge.
Escaping the challenge gives us a small, short-term reward, and experiencing the challenge gives us a larger, long-term reward. Parents are faced with these pivot points every day. We might not want to ask our child to do their homework, because it has led to tantrum behaviors in the past. However, following through with the demand, and facing the discomfort of our child being temporarily upset, means that our child will be more successful at school in the long run. Defining your values as a parent, and committing to act in service of these values, even when it is difficult, brings long-term rewards for you and your family.
This blog post first appeared on April 26, 2020 in Medium.