What is FACT and ACT, and how can it help you with your mental health

In Focused Acceptance Commitment Therapy (FACT) and Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT), we take a transdiagnostic approach to solve mental health problems. 

What does transdiagnostic mean?

We are not so much focused on the diagnosis, but more about the underlying process. We framed most mental health issues as being “stuck” or “excessive zoomed in” to a particular group of thoughts, feelings, or narratives. Our job then is to equip our patients with the emotional literacy and skills to:

1 Be aware and acknowledge this experience. 

2 Be aware that “being stuck” may have cost them a life of meaning and purpose through the “fight or flight” responses and experiential avoidance. Look at all important domains in their lives including work, family, friends, community, and rate those out of 10.  

3 Being aware that the “fight or flight” response is “hopeless” for moving forward, so let’s commit to an alternative path. 

4. Being mindful enough to unhook, defuse, or “zoom out” from our thoughts, feelings, or narratives, and perceive our mental space with more clarity. 

5. Being aware of a life that we want to create through identifying our values. 

6. Take committed actions with those values. 

7. Pursue and live a value driven life.

How can we frame eating disorders to guide better treatments

Eating disorders can be a bit confusing, so for simplicity, I often see it as a form of Compulsive Obsessive Disorder (OCD) where the patient is too “fused” or “super zoomed into” a particular theme or set of rules around eating, weight, or how they feel about food and body image.

Some folks with OCD are “super zoomed into” safety, cleanliness, germs, etc. For eating disorders, it is something relating to food, eating, their weight, or how they feel in their body.

Seeing it this way will help us guide treatment. 

Our goal is to help them “zoom out” and get unstuck from those unhelpful thoughts and feelings. Arguing and debating over facts may interestingly cause more “zooming in” problems, so one has to be careful here.

We can achieve “zooming out” through counseling, mindfulness, pharmacological methods, or often a combination as it’s usually a severe “zooming in” problem.

Once unhooked, we can help them to pursue a more value driven life.

If one can frame it in this way, then it may become “less mysterious” perhaps.

Stress is often a sign of unmet NEEDS

When we are showing excessive “fight or flight” responses with our friends, colleagues, and loved ones, it’s often a sign of stress. 

When we dig deeper, it’s usually a sign of NEEDs not met.

Like a plant without enough water, nutrients, and sunlight, it will show signs of stress and failure to thrive.

What needs are often not met?

1. Is it the “bio” physiological needs eg food, water, nutrition, sleep etc. Rate out of 10.

2. Is it the need for safety, security, and control? Rate out of 10.

3. Is it the need for connection? Rate out of 10.

4. Is it the need for newness, growth, and novelty? Rate out of 10.

The answers may guide us.

If the plant needs water. Give it water. If the plant need nutrients, give it nutrients. If the plant needs sunlight, give it sunlight. In that respect, we are not that much different.

Find what we need and try to fulfill that. Don’t be confused by our “fight or fight” responses, and blame the very thing in front of us or ourselves. It may not be the main problem at all.

It’s often a sign that our NEEDs are fundamentally not met.

If it’s “bio”, address that.
If it’s a lack of security and control, address that.
If it’s the lack of connection, address that.
If it’s a lack of newness, growth, and novelty, address that.

Being more “extreme in our personality styles” may create some challenges that we need to overcome

In counseling, we often see the “extreme” of personalities. Being outside the bell curve, these groups tend to face more challenges, as society is geared for the majority in the middle of the curve. 

They may run the risk of adjustment disorders, often manifesting as the “fight or flight” responses, if they and their families don’t know how to navigate it better. 

We see the extreme emotional personalities who follow their hearts, but don’t have enough “headiness” to ground them. They may struggle with excessive drama in their lives. 

We see the extreme “heady” people, who don’t have enough emotional sensitivity to soften them and empathize with others. They may struggle with social interactions and relationships. 

We see the extreme “outer compass” folks who care for the opinions of others too much that they forget who they are and to be who they are. 

We see the extreme “inner compass” folks who know who they are, what they want, but find it hard to follow and conform to social norms and expectations. 

We see the extreme extroverted folks who live outside their heads frequently, but need more quiet moments to deeply reflect. 

We see the extreme introverted folks who prefer to live inside their heads, but need to get outside more to seek and explore the outside world experiences. 

There are many more....

“Togetherness” and drama are on the opposites of the same coin

“Togetherness” is great because life is truly a team sport. The trouble is, togetherness brings with it lots of dramas. 

When drama escalates to a certain point, many of us may want to run away from it. This is experiential avoidance. This leads to another set of problems. There is now less togetherness and connectedness. 

Togetherness, connection, relationships, friendships, work relationships, and families are on the same coin as drama. They are on the opposite sides of the same coin. We can’t have one without the other. 

Choose togetherness, but make sure we don’t run away from dramas too easily. There are ones that we do have to run away from of course due to safety reasons. 

For many cases, we have to learn how to deal with the dramas in more healthy ways.  Hard work for sure but a worthwhile pursuit. 

What’s the “recipe” for more happiness or inner harmony

I often think the “recipe” for happiness or inner harmony is actually relatively simple. 

Be clear on our values, and create a life that is congruent with those.

It’s simple, but it’s definitely not easy. Nothing worthwhile is ever really easy is it?

When we are able to live a life that is congruent with our values, we will find more happiness, inner peace and harmony.

When our life is moving away from our values, we will find unhappiness and a lot of inner conflict.

The problem is, many of us don’t really know what our values are.

So what are our values?

Make a list of all the things we really love, and together with all the things that we really hate. Underlying those, are our values, if we look close enough.