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A Flexible Sequence For Teaching Acceptance Skills - Russ Harris

This document outlines a flexible sequence for fostering acceptance skills in clients. It notes that there is no single best sequence, and the order should be adapted to individual needs. The sequence then provides 11 steps to cultivate acceptance, including noticing and normalizing difficult emotions, understanding their purpose, exploring failed avoidance strategies, linking acceptance to values, practicing self-compassion, and using defusion skills. The goal is to help clients openly experience unwanted private events without struggling against them.

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314 views2 pages

A Flexible Sequence For Teaching Acceptance Skills - Russ Harris

This document outlines a flexible sequence for fostering acceptance skills in clients. It notes that there is no single best sequence, and the order should be adapted to individual needs. The sequence then provides 11 steps to cultivate acceptance, including noticing and normalizing difficult emotions, understanding their purpose, exploring failed avoidance strategies, linking acceptance to values, practicing self-compassion, and using defusion skills. The goal is to help clients openly experience unwanted private events without struggling against them.

Uploaded by

psiho2024
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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A Flexible Sequence For

Fostering Acceptance Skills

When we help people learn how to accept difficult inner experiences, there's no ‘best sequence’; it varies from person to person. However,
you can use the sequence below as an extremely general guideline, likely to work well with most of your clients. Please, please, please: don’t
regard it as ‘the best way’ or something you ‘have to follow’. Vary this as desired, based on each individual’s needs. We aim to be flexible in
how we work, and adapt what we do to suit each unique client. The text below focuses on unwanted emotions, but the same principles apply
to all unwanted private experiences: cognitions, emotions, sensations, feelings, urges, memories, images, etc.

1. Noticing, Naming, Normalising


ACT therapists repeatedly notice, name and normalise clients' difficult emotions as they arise: acknowledging them and validating them as
normal, natural, understandable human responses. This usually fosters a more open and accepting stance towards them.

2. Purpose It's often useful to look at the 'purpose' of painful or difficult emotions - how our brain, mind and body work together to generate
these experiences, and why this happens. We help clients to see their emotions as 'allies', as 'messengers' carrying important information.
This often includes psycho-education on the evolutionary basis of emotions, and how they help us survive and thrive. It also includes
important exploratory questions: What's this emotion telling you to address, deal with, face up to? What's it reminding you about caring for
yourself or others? What's it telling you is important? What's it be suggesting you need to do differently? What values is it linked to?

3. Workability & 'Creative Hopelessness' we can then look at workable and unworkable ways of responding to these unwanted emotions. If
we allow them to 'hook' us (to dominate our awareness and actions), they typically pull us into 'away moves', taking us away from the life we
want to build, the person we want to be. However, when we try overly hard to avoid or get rid of them, that often interferes with building the
life we want, keeps us stuck, creates new problems, and paradoxically leads to an increase in painful feelings. After 'creative
hopelessness' (What have you tried doing to avoid/get rid of this ? How has that worked, short term and long term? What has it cost you?),
we can invite clients to consider an alternative option. We can ask if they are open to trying a whole new way of responding to their emotions;
something that is 'radically different to everything else you've tried.'

© Russ Harris 2023 psychwire.com/harris


4. Dropping The Struggle
Following 'creative hopelessness', we typically present a metaphor that conveys the basic concept of acceptance/
willingness, for example: pushing away paper, the struggle switch, Chinese finger traps, tug of war with a monster,
the unwelcome party guest (AKA 'Joe the bum'), or passengers on the bus/demons on the boat. One metaphor is
usually enough. Don't fall into the trap of giving metaphor after metaphor. Move on to active skills-building, as below.
5. Dropping Anchor: the ACE formula.
The A of ACE - acknowledging (non-judgmental noticing and naming) thoughts & feelings – fosters acceptance. As you
run through the 'ACE' cycle several times, acceptance usually increases. This is a simple, easy-to-teach 'acceptance
skill for anyone overwhelmed by emotions, or trying hard to avoid them

6. Link To Values & Values-Based Goals


Explore and clarify how opening up and making room for these emotions can help the client to live by and act on their
values, make 'towards moves', pursue values-based goals, and so on.
7. Notice, Name, Normalise, Purpose
The client can now build on steps 1 & 2. They can notice (with openness and curiosity) and name (non-judgmentally) their emotions. E.g.: 'I'm noticing
sadness', 'Here's anxiety', 'I'm having feelings of anger'. And normalise them: 'This feeling is normal', 'Of course this feeling is showing up; it's natural given
what I'm going through.' And acknowledge their purpose: 'Anxiety is reminding me to take care of my health, go do some exercise'

8. Observing, Allowing, Making Room


More challenging acceptance skills involve observing, with openness and curiosity, the somatic aspects of emotions (what you feel in the body, and where
you feel it, and what it's like). These exercises often include instructions about 'allowing' feelings to be there, 'opening up' and 'making room' for them.
Some include 'breathing into' a feeling, or 'physicalising' it (i.e., imagining it as a physical object: shape, size, colour, weight, temperature, surface, etc.).
Technically, this constitutes 'interoceptive exposure'. Mindful body scans and PMM (progressive muscle mindfulness) are often useful here, too.

9. Self-compassion: Kind Hands & Kind Words


Often combined with the exercises in step 8, self-compassion involves accepting our pain and treating ourselves kindly. 'Kind self-talk' and 'Kind Hand'
exercises are especially helpful.

10. Accepting Self-talk


Self-talk can help with acceptance: 'I don’t like this feeling, but I can make room for it’, 'Emotions are like the weather, and I am like the sky', 'No matter
how big this feeling gets, it can't get bigger than me.' For more ideas, see here.

11. Defusion Skills


Bring in defusion skills for the cognitive elements of an emotion. After defusing from unwanted cognitions, it's much easier to accept them.

12. ‘The Noticing Self’ (or ‘Observer Self’)


From the perspective of the ‘noticing self’ one can ‘step back’ and observe all unwanted private experiences with openness and curiosity.
.
© Russ Harris 2023 psychwire.com/harris

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