Brandon Gimbel (00:00)

It'd be really great to learn about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy from an expert. Can you give us a very brief overview?

Tory Krone (00:06)

Sure, sure. So ACT is the short version of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and it's an evidence-based approach to therapy. It's the newest form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. But one of the big differences is that if you go to a therapist who uses CBT, they're going to often have you challenge your thoughts, focus a lot on your thoughts, whereas ACT is almost doing the opposite. ACT is saying, I just don't care that much about that thought. What is the thought doing for me? Is it helpful? If it's not, it doesn't really mean much to me.

Brandon Gimbel (00:34)

So you mentioned that Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, ACT, is the newest form of CBT. And then you said ACT has a very different outlook on thoughts than CBT. And my understanding is that Cognitive Behavior Therapy is focused on the interplay between thoughts, behaviors, and emotions and how they all affect each other. And by interrupting the thoughts, we can start changing emotions and behaviors.

Tory Krone (00:52)

Right.

Brandon Gimbel (00:57)

So could you expound on how ACT is similar and also different?

Tory Krone (01:01)

So definitely still a big interplay between thoughts, feelings, memories, sensations, and behavior. The way that we respond to thoughts and feelings might be different. Within CBT, it's really the behavioral change that has had the most positive outcomes. It wasn't necessarily challenging thoughts that made the difference. It was actually the behavioral interruption. In CBT, you start to challenge thoughts. In ACT, you would say, is this a helpful thought? And if it's not, then we're going to just distance from it, just keep going with my day and just notice it in the background. It's kind of like noise from a radio that I'm not really attending to.

Brandon Gimbel (01:41)

Which is the mindfulness piece, which is where you notice, but then you can choose to pay attention to what you're doing knowing the thought might be there and continue to come back, but choosing not to pay too much attention to it.

Tory Krone (01:54)

Absolutely. And that's where the values come in because the values orient you to what you do want to pay attention to.

Brandon Gimbel (02:00)

The values are how you guide how you wish to live and the meaning you make of the thoughts, whether there's something you wish to pay attention to or not.

Tory Krone (02:02)

Yes. Absolutely. And almost everything in our life can come down to whether it is moving us closer to our values or further away.

Brandon Gimbel (02:18)

All of it puts the patient as expert, the patient with agency, because they are the ones who decide what their values are and ultimately if this thought helps them reach those values or not.