Posted by badhaircut on May 14, 2005, at 1:26:35
In reply to Re: Dryden, Ellis, ACT, posted by pedrito on May 13, 2005, at 7:36:37
(I didn't realize there were new posts on this thread. Then while I was composing this, Alexandra & Pete posted much more. I apologize if this doesn't account for later posts.)
Alexandra-
Great capsulizing of cognitive therapy.
When I said ACT "doesn't care very much if a patient has irrational thoughts," I was in fact thinking of the classic "Everyone-always-hates-me" variety, but the ACT principle covers your counterexample, too. (For other readers I should add that an ACT therapist would "care" -be concerned- about the troubling thoughts, even if she didn't try to change them.)
As you say, if a client accepts being upset and stops judging himself harshly for it, that is itself a change in thought. But ACT doesn't care very much if a patient has self-judging thoughts, either. It allows him to go on judging himself harshly and hating himself for judging himself and so ad infinitem. ACT holds that to try "removing" any cognitions, even hostile self-judgments, is like trying to turn your own body inside out.
Attempts to push a thought aside, hide it, stuff it back in, vilify it, or even forcibly disbelieve it, will both (a) hijack a lot of mental resources and (b) ironically intensify the unwelcome thought.
ACT realizes that people will have much better lives if they're NOT stewing in a corner with their thoughts of self-hatred or their irrational beliefs or whatever, but it insists that no one can control her own thoughts & feelings very much without enormous, life-destroying costs. Give up on that, it says.
So then, why would anyone write a book about ACT!
This is my summary, not the authors': The less effort is made to control thoughts (bad OR good), the more freedom there is for thoughts of all kinds, including helpful, happy, creative, loving, productive ones, to occur. As you say, they come unchosen. I think in a sense the "better" thoughts are always there, it's just hard to see them when one is struggling for control over the others. If one allows them all to be there, to come & go, freely plaguing & vexing, then the brighter ones can also occur more freely & frequently than they do when one is busy pushing & pulling the darker ones all out of shape.
With more thoughts of all kinds "at the ready," one can act more effectively to improve the life that's *outside* of the head.
poster:badhaircut
thread:492810
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/books/20050501/msgs/497618.html