ACCEPTANCE AND COMMITMENT THERAPY ACT WORKSHEETS

What Is ACT?

Acceptance and commitment therapy is a form of psychotherapy and a branch of clinical behavior analysis. It is an empirically based psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies mixed in different ways with commitment and behavior-change strategies, to increase psychological flexibility.

According to the ACT perspective, responding with acceptance and mindfulness is more fruitful than avoiding human life uncertainties. This approach further suggests that our suppression and controlling attempts are what cause troubles.

ACT is a theoretical derivation of RFT (Relational Frame Theory), which believes that change is not always desirable or possible to achieve.

ACT Worksheets

Please proceed to the link below to download a free ACT Worksheet PDF file.

Here is the link if you want to buy Russ Harris book on Amazon:

In recent decades, ACT has become a well-developed part of applied positive psychology. If you are also searching for ACT approaches to add to your practical life. In that case, you may need to look at a comprehensive collection of ACT worksheets, including various assessments, questionnaires, and activities.

Six Central Processes of ACT & Worksheets

ACT approach involves the following six processes (Louma, Hayes, and Walser, 2007).

Acceptance

This process is about embracing our impulses, emotions, and feelings that we usually avoid or suppress, causing psychological harm to ourselves. Hence, it makes us able to move on quickly without wasting our energy.

Expansion Worksheet

Make room for difficult feelings once every day and observe it to note down the following things in the form of a table. 

• Day/Date/Time/Feelings/Sensations -Mark these things in the first column. 
• Struggling Time -Note how many minutes you practiced it, rate it from 0-10.
• Benefits & Difficulties -write down whatever you felt after doing so.

Cognitive Diffusion

This strategy presents the idea of taking our psychological experiences neutrally rather than considering them as potential threats. For this purpose, guided meditations and scripts prove to be helpful.

The ACT Diffusion Worksheet

• Start with making a self-criticism.
• Engage with the thought you have made about it.
• Replay the thought, making a sentence.
• Now, take a mental step back, perceive a painful thought and add to it.

Being Present

It stresses knowing our current feelings including both, physical as well as mental, without judging ourselves. It focuses more on the ‘right now’ situation rather than analyzing our past and worrying about the future.

ACT mindfulness exercises are a good source of help in this regard.

Five Senses Worksheet

This exercise offers easy-to-follow steps to make you cautious of what’s going on here. Hence, try this mini-exercise whenever you find yourself over-indulging into specific thoughts.

1. Notice five visible things in your surroundings. 
2. Shift your mind to the next four things that you can feel around you
3. Now, try to notice three things that are hearable to you.
4. Two things you can smell here.
5. Last, concentrate on the one thing you can taste at precisely this moment.

Self as Contest

This phenomenon is about taking our psychological and physical experiences as being transient and ever-changing. According to this view, we should perceive that our thoughts, emotions, and other things are dynamic.

The Observer Worksheet

Use this exercise to know your observing self.

• Reflect the roles that you play regularly, such as being a mother, player, care-taker. 
• Be the observer of yourself. However, your observer self does not change with the roles. It is constant whatever the roles you perform. 
• Now, observe yourself. Watch, listen and note how your actions are continuously changing. But, recognize that ‘you’ remain the same.

Value Clarifications  

It involves the clarification of our values that are actually what we heartily believe. ACT Value Clarification worksheets allow you to have extensive insight into your thoughts, beliefs, and the whole self. It further indicates accessible directions for you to move ahead.

Values and Problems 

This exercise contains four categories; contrasting and comparing these categories will help you identify your problems, ideal values, and the possible steps to solve the issues to achieve them in your life. 

• Problematic Thoughts and Emotions – 
• Problematic Behaviors
• Values 
• Goals and Actionable Steps

Committed Actions

It interprets the idea of setting goals on a long-term basis. However, these goals must be value-based. In this way, ACT experts help you to be persistent in achieving your specified life goals.

Goal Setting Worksheet

1. Write down your values underlying these goals.
2. Write a series of goals in a graduated manner, from tiny everyday plans to big yearly ones.
3. Make a list of some immediate goals that are simple and easy to achieve within 24 hours or few days.
4. Note down your short-term goals, considering the things you can do over the next few weeks.
5. Make medium-term goals that you want to do in the upcoming months.
6. Pen down the long-term goals on what you plan to achieve within few years.

How the Overland IOP Can Help

Although some individuals can recognize their problems and seek self-treatment accordingly, this is not the same for everyone. Hence, you may need our IOP services to apply ACT to overcome challenging situations.

• Individual Therapy

Overland IOP provides detailed and practical one-to-one therapy sessions. We offer the opportunity to identify and talk about yourself in private.

Our primary aim is to empower individuals by listening to their traumas while promoting safety and confidentiality. Thus, we help individuals in coping up and make positive transformations.

• Group Therapy

We have licensed and registered mental health professionals and addiction consultants to conduct various group therapy sessions. During the session, they facilitate the dialogues through skill-building, psycho-educational, and process group models.

Our trained clinicians know how to use multiple therapeutic modalities to facilitate clients in seeking their desired goals. Hence, we build a supportive network to help people cope with their mental and well-being disorders.

• Medication Management

Managing proper medication is crucial to the patient’s well-being. That is why we provide Medication Management Therapy (MMT), which includes medication plans on a long-term basis and evaluating the patient’s prescriptions to ensure safety.

We understand that managing multiple things becomes difficult while suffering. Thus, we make you focus on what is essential for you.

• Telehealth

Our innovative Telehealth service connects the patient and clinician online through modern ways including videoconferencing, and smartphone applications.

Patient health is our priority at Overland IOP in Los Angeles, California. Hence, we efficiently serve our patients with the necessary treatment safely and healthily.