A Brief Tutorial on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as Seen Through the Lens of Derived Stimulus Relations

Abstract

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT; Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999) has been identified as a modern behavior therapy and has a substantive body of supporting evidence that includes over 200 randomized controlled trials. ACT has been linked directly to relational frame theory (RFT; Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, & Roche, 2001)-a behavior-analytic account of human language and cognition that relies on the concept of derived stimulus relations. RFT also has a growing body of empirical evidence (Barnes-Holmes, Finn, McEnteggart, & Barnes-Holmes, in press; O'Connor, Farrell, Munnelly, & McHugh, 2017). The basic idea behind both RFT and ACT is that the evolution of human language, conceptualized as derived relational responding, creates a type of psychological suffering that is largely unique to humans. RFT constitutes the basic theory behind this assertion, and ACT, as a clinical intervention, is designed to deal with the psychological problems that human language creates for our species (Törneke, 2010; Villatte, Villatte, & Hayes, 2015). This article provides a tutorial on the links between ACT and derived stimulus relations, particularly through the lens of RFT. Although RFT is sometimes seen as providing the basic behavioral science underpinning ACT, it is perhaps more accurate to say that they have co-evolved. Thus, RFT did not give rise directly to ACT, and ACT did not backward engineer RFT, but the two are interrelated. This tutorial thus aims to articulate the clear links between the theory and the application (where they exist) and how RFT suggests functional-analytic ways in which clinically relevant behavior can be understood and manipulated. This article will first describe the conceptual

¿El Cuestionario de Aceptación y Acción II mide realmente la evitación experiencial?

“…Paramount among these, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on the acceptance of unpleasant private experiences in order to take action toward important goals (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999. This approach is in line with behavioural research on language and cognition, and is part of the applied heritage of radical behaviourism (McEnteggart, 2018). Indeed, ACT has proven to be at least as effective as established treatments (A-Tjak et al, 2015), even though more research is still needed (Hacker, Stone, & MacBeth, 2016).…”

A Telecommunication Model to Teach Facilitators to Deliver Acceptance and Commitment Training

“…Further, it has been demonstrated to be efficacious for a variety of different populations, affecting a wide range of targets (e.g., anxiety, depression, stress, psychological flexibility; Gloster et al, 2020 ). Rooted in relational frame theory (RFT; Hayes, 2004 ; McEnteggart, 2018 ), ACT proposes that humans suffer in a unique manner due to arbitrarily applicable relational responding and the rapid development of human language (Hayes et al, 2006 ; McEnteggart, 2018 ). RFT posits that individuals relate stimuli based not only on formal similarity but also arbitrary cues (Hayes et al, 2013 ), and through these derived relations, stimulus function can be transformed.…”

“…It is through these derived relations that complex networks of verbal rules and associations are formed, usually based on contextual cues rather than physical attributes of the stimuli involved (Gross & Fox, 2009 ). The interconnection between ACT and RFT has been empirically researched, with some considering them to have co-evolved (McEnteggart, 2018 ). The growing popularity and need to increase the accessibility of ACT led to the development of the hexaflex model (Foody et al, 2013 ).…”

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“…Barnes-Holmes et al, en prensa;Luciano, 2016;Törneke et al, 2015). Sea como fuere, el hexaflex cons tuye un modelo divulga vo/didác co del análisis realizado desde la RFT y, por lo tanto, es posible establecer la conexión entre uno y otro (McEnteggart, 2018). De hecho, el uso de términos de nivel medio junto con términos de mayor precisión cien fica es contemplado en la ciencia contextual-conductual como parte de su programa re culado (en red) de desarrollo (Hayes et al, 2012).…”