Effects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Impulsive Decision-Making

Abstract

This study examined the transdiagnostic effect of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on impulsive decision-making in a community sample. A total of 40 adults were randomized to eight individual sessions of ACT or an inactive control. Participants completed pre-, mid-, and post-assessments for psychological symptoms; overall behavior change; valued living; delay discounting; psychological flexibility; and distress tolerance. Data were analyzed with multilevel modeling of growth curves. Significant interaction effects of time and condition were observed for psychological flexibility, distress tolerance, psychological symptoms, and the obstruction subscale of valued living. No significant interaction effect was found for two delay discounting tasks nor the progress subscale of valued living. The ACT condition had a significantly larger reduction of problem behavior at post-assessment. The results support use of ACT as a transdiagnostic treatment for impulsive behaviors. The lack of change in delay discounting contrasts previous research.

Effect of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Impulsivity of Patients With Methamphetamine Use Disorder

“…In this study, ACT in 8 sessions of 60 minutes reduced impulsivity and its three dimensions in rehabilitated MUD patients. Despite the low number of studies on the effect of ACT on impulsivity of MUD patients, it can be said that the results of the present study are consistent with the results of Morrison et al [22], Gomez et al [23], Nadimi [24], Borjali et al [25] and Aazam et al [26]. They reported that the third-wave behavioral therapies, including ACT, could effectively reduce impulsivity and impulsive behaviors.…”

Beyond Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: Process-Based Therapy

“…One way to do this might be to work backwards from idiographic analyses, inductively identifying characteristics and generalizable processes that guide clinical decision making. A number of promising examples exist in the literature that orient to pathological processes that span across presentations and guide responses to particular procedures targeting particular processes (e.g., clinical perfectionism, impulsive decision BEYOND ACT: PBT 17 making; Egan et al, 2014;Fairburn et al, 2015;Gros, Szafranski, & Shead, 2017;Morrison et al, 2019;Newby, McKinnon, Kuyken, Gilbody, & Dalgleish, 2015).…”

Higher Behavioral Profile of Mindfulness and Psychological Flexibility is Related to Reduced Impulsivity in Smokers, and Reduced Risk Aversion Regardless of Smoking Status

“…Brief ACT training (60 to 90 minute sessions), that focused on promoting healthy decision making by training participants to observe emotions and to learn to act on values, rather than feelings, led to decreased delay discounting (Morrison, Madden, Odum, Friedel, & Twohig, 2014). On the other hand, ACT-based intervention applied to individuals with severe psychological problems, and targeting specific problem behaviors related to impulsive decision making and failed to decrease delayed discounting, when compared to a control group; however, it did help with reducing given problem behaviors (Morrison, 2016). To summarize, conclusions regarding the effectiveness of interventions based on mindfulness and psychological flexibility are promising, yet require further investigation.…”