Objective-Effective treatments for adult OCD exist, but refusal and drop-out rates are high and treatments are not effective for all individuals who complete them. Thus, additional treatment options are needed. This study investigated the effectiveness of eight sessions of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for adult obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) compared to Progressive Relaxation Training (PRT).Method-79 adults (66% Female) diagnosed with OCD (M age=37, 89% Caucasian) participated in a randomized clinical trial of 8 sessions of ACT or PRT with no in-session exposure. The following assessments were completed at pretreatment, posttreatment, and three month follow-up by an assessor who was unaware of treatment conditions: Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), Beck Depression Inventory-II, Quality of Life Scale, Acceptance and Action Questionnaire, Thought Action Fusion Scale, and Thought Control Questionnaire. The Treatment Evaluation Inventory-Short Form was completed at posttreatment.Results-ACT produced greater changes at posttreatment and follow-up over PRT on OCD severity post=12.76, PRT pre=25.4, post=18.67,

Empathic responding, most notably perspective-taking and empathic concern, has important implications for interpersonal functioning. While empathy training approaches have received some support for a variety of populations, few extant interventions have targeted empathic responding in couples. Mindfulness- and acceptance-based behavioral approaches, for couples as a unit and/or for individual family members/partners, are proposed as an adjunct to empathy training interventions. Preliminary findings suggest that the viability of these interventions for increasing empathic responding should be further investigated, and specific suggestions for this line of research are offered.

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Although posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is defined by the experience of intense negative emotions and emotional numbing (American Psychiatric Association, 1994), empirical study of emotional responding in PTSD has been limited. This study examined emotional responding among women with and without PTSD to positive and negative film stimuli across self-reported experience, facial expression, and written expression. Consistent with previous findings, no evidence for generalized numbing was found. In general, women with PTSD exhibited higher levels of negative activation and expressed more negative emotion words to both positive and negative film stimuli, whereas no group differences emerged in facial expressivity. Results are interpreted within the context of the current literature on emotional deficits associated with PTSD.

Skinner described behavior analysis as the field of values and purpose. However, he defined these concepts in terms of a history of reinforcement and failed to specify whether and how human and nonhuman values might differ. Human values have been seen as theoretically central within a number of nonbehavioral traditions in psychology, including humanism and positive psychology. However, these approaches have failed to provide explanations of the behaviorenvironment relations involved in valuing that might allow prediction and influence with respect to this phenomenon. Modern clinical behavior analysis in the form of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), however, succeeds in providing a functional definition of human values that meets this latter criterion. ACT is rooted in behavior analysis and relational frame theory (RFT) and defines values in terms of verbally established motivation. ACT empirical research into values has begun to blossom in recent years, and ACT-RFT researchers are currently investigating the concept at the most basic empirical level as well as in the applied clinical arena, heralding new interest in and insight into values within clinical behavioral psychology.