ABSTRACT
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is considered a contextual cognitive behavioural approach to psychotherapy that has developed out of both traditional behaviour analysis and contemporary interest in mindfulness and acceptance processes. This chapter introduces ACT as a therapeutic approach. ACT is guided by a pragmatic philosophy of science called functional contextualism. The role of mindfulness in ACT is rooted in Relational Frame Theory, a behavioural account of human language and cognition. The basic research underlying ACT highlights a primary source of psychological suffering, the tendency for behaviour to be overly guided by internal experiences, or attempts to avoid these experiences, at the expense of more effective or meaningful action. This process is referred to as psychological inflexibility, and it is the core pathological process targeted in ACT. ACT is fundamentally a behaviour therapy, and the goal of a course of ACT is to develop expanding patterns of behaviour that are consistent with values.
