ABSTRACT
One of the issues that invariably arise at some point within the delivery of Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) practice, training, or supervision is the question about where our clients’ rules and values come from. Related to this is the reality that working against certain rules or acting on certain values can bring a person into conflict with others in their broader environment. Whilst there are older traditions, notably Buddhism, that broadly concur with ACT’s message of destructive normality and the importance of developing willingness in the face of discomfort, it is somewhat at odds with the wider cultural messages that dominate many modern industrialised societies. There are high levels of mental health difficulties in many so-called developed nations, alongside seemingly unending options for ameliorating the distress associated with them. Anything other than ‘positive’ thoughts and feelings often gain the status of symptoms, and as such are things to be controlled, suppressed, or gotten rid of.
