ABSTRACT
The Westernized ideal of feeling good – all the time – is deeply embedded within our cultural history and this is also true for clients receiving behavioral services. Behavior can become excessively allocated to avoiding pain such that there is limited time and energy to engage in behavior that contacts more valued outcomes. Acceptance and willingness are the opposite process of experiential avoidance and occur when people engage in behavior that is in the service of chosen values, even when aversive (or even appetitive) experiences are part of moving forward. In this chapter, we discuss acceptance and willingness as behavioral processes that alter the function of conditioned motivating operations that have historically evoked avoidance and abolished approach behaviors. We also discuss acceptance through the lens of non-attachment to assumed outcomes that are rooted in rule-governed behavior that can diminish sensitivity to present-moment contingencies of reinforcement. Measuring affective flexibility can be accomplished using a variety of self-report and behavioral measures, and acceptance and willingness training can strengthen these processes. We conclude the chapter by describing antecedent and consequence strategies that can support acceptance and willingness and the importance of combining these processes with the previously reviewed process of present-moment awareness.
