ABSTRACT
While there is an increasing awareness of the importance of emotional and social intelligence in the workplace and beyond, there remain some commonly held cultural beliefs that can lead some clients to hold tightly to emotional control strategies. Where this is the case a return to the “workability game” can be helpful. The essence of acceptance work is to encourage clients to notice their emotions, register them as sensations in the body and, rather than struggle with or try to change them, willingly come into contact with them. This chapter describes specific exercises that can be done in-session to facilitate acceptance, as well as ideas about how to work with emotion when it shows up in the moment. Also discussed is the link between values and emotional pain, illustrated by the concepts of “clean pain” and “dirty pain”.
