[Loco4]

I was seeing my old T for 4 years, up until March this year when she went on maternity leave. In a few weeks I’ll be starting with a new T.

She has a different theoretical approach to my previous T, who practiced Schema Therapy. She integrates Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

I’m a curious person so have done some reading about ACT, I’m familiar with CBT. Does anyone have any experience or insight into either or both?

[nottrustin]

I personally do not have experience qith ACT bit one of the Clinicians I work with (at my job) utilizes it. Based upon what she told me, it is about accepting what has happened in the past and moving forward. There is no changing qhat jappened so dwelling on it is not beneffiting you.

[skeksi]

I think my T uses some ACT with me. I have a lot of trauma stuff going on, and for example, if I complain about having a big fear reaction to something I encounter in my life, T has me work from the assumption that the reaction is very unpleasant, and also not likely to change. So we focus on making me aware that it’s a reaction, and that I can handle the reaction by being compassionate with myself (not my first inclination).

It feels to me like working from a position of “okay, I don’t like X but it seems like I am stuck with it, so instead of trying to STOP X from happening, I will find ways to think about and respond to X that are less distressing.”

[Xynesthesia2]

Not from actual therapy but I used a program called SMART Recovery for a while to help maintain my sobriety from substance abuse. It draws both from CBT and ATC. I found it quite helpful and practical, nothing too deep but focused more on specific goals and ways to achieve them. I also tried traditional talk therapy for addiction/recovery but it did absolutely nothing - I think because addiction is not something you can think and talk yourself out of and it does not happen during therapy sessions. SMART is free and one can go as often as they want. It is done in a group setting, run by a facilitator (volunteers trained in the theory and techniques). I found it quite realistic, focused on accepting facts of our situation, action and change, not so much on diving into emotions endlessly - these things are certainly more compatible with me as I already do the thinking and introspection by default, all the time, and it can be the cause of getting stuck, distract myself and self-sabotage.

My issues tend to involve way too much analysis and minimizing/avoiding practical action and follow up, so something practical and challenging (to act) is what I need, not really emotional support and pure insight. I definitely would not have liked it as much one-on-one though, the best part was hearing everyone's challenges in the group and how they all tried to resolve them and handle better in practice. It also had an element of never stopping - there are always things one can improve in life. So, it was very improvement-focused, which I like. It also helped my anxiety a bit - I have a moderate case of GAD and have always had it but when it gets bad, it is pretty much always due to some self-sabotaging behavior in the present. So making efforts not to engage in that can be very helpful for me, I don't tend to have remarkable emotional problems otherwise. Not sure how a CBT/ACT combo works in professional individual therapy but I believe it is more directly practically focused than, say, psychodynamic therapy. Perhaps it also works best for people who already have a decent baseline emotional regulation abilities, otherwise I imagine instability and impulses will inevitably get in the way. It was good for me for impulse control, but I am not very impulsive to start with, only when I was drinking.