William’s Reviews > Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change > Status Update

Starting into Values based work. All techniques ultimately serve the purpose of helping a client live their values in the now.

Mostly exercises for helping someone to experience the observing self in this evening’s reading

The last few pages have focused on how to help a client break free from their stories about themselves, not by reframing or upgrading their self concept, but by shifting their awareness to experience self as awareness and self as observer. The approach is to notice when thought about self has taken Center stage and shift from thinking to noticing.

Today’s section mainly talked about how to help a client shift their relationship with mind chatter and to help a client evaluate reasons as causes. The book goes in and out of exceptionally dense academic writing and plain English. Great thinking throughout. The book seriously needs a copy editor who understands sentence craft.

Moving from phase 1 to phase 2. Phase 1 challenges the client’s agenda to control (unsuccessfully) their inner experiences usually by avoiding triggers or suppressing thoughts and emotions. Phase 2 moves to teaching a client to be willing to experience difficult thoughts and feelings and then to break apart the hold that language (and thought) has had on the client. The writing has become densely academic again.