You push the ball (a symbol of thoughts and/or feelings) under the water but it keeps popping back up, forcing you to remain engaged in an exhausting and futile fight to keep pushing the ball under. This metaphor likens the struggle to avoid pain to the process of fighting to keep a floating ball under water. What are some examples of experiential techniques that can be used in ACT (i.e., mindfulness, defusion, self-as-context exercises)?Įach of the six core concepts can be demonstrated and experienced through metaphor or exercise.įor example, the Ball in the Pool metaphor might help one make contact with the counterproductive nature of struggling to eliminate painful thoughts and feelings. In these cases, we mention this in the introduction to the exercise or metaphor. Some exercises might be especially salient for specific types of clients (e.g., groups, trauma survivors, athletes), and many of the exercises can be tailored to be more relevant to a particular client. In addition, it provides general guidelines for situating metaphors and exercises in the course of therapy, along with common pitfalls to be aware of.Įach of the core concept chapters (3 – 8) begins with a summary of the core concept, followed by exercises and metaphors demonstrating that concept, usually with scripts for presenting the exercise or metaphor to the client. Chapter 9 provides a review and summary of the role of metaphors and experiential exercises in ACT. Chapters 3 through 8 each cover one of the six core concepts of ACT: acceptance and willingness, cognitive defusion, present-moment awareness, self-as-context, values, and committed action. Chapter 2 uses RFT principles to provide a detailed discussion of how metaphors and exercises can enhance experiential learning and psychological flexibility it also provides instruction in the development of novel, ACT-consistent metaphors that can be tailored to specific client needs. The book designed to supplement existing (and future) ACT protocols by providing practitioners with a one-stop resource for finding (or creating) the perfect metaphor or exercise to demonstrate any of the six core concepts of ACT.Ĭhapter 1 provides an overview of ACT and relational frame theory (RFT). Whether one is new to ACT or more experienced, this book offers a substantial number of new and classic exercises. The Big Book of ACT Metaphors is for any professional who practices, researches, teaches, or supervises ACT. Who is this book for, and what can readers expect to get from it? Metaphors and exercises, while comprised of language, are not critical, rigid, or literal they are subtle stories that listeners can connect to their personal experiences to achieve a better understanding of the self (e.g., the ways in which fusion with thoughts may lead to experiential avoidance), to promote identification and practice of alternative, more flexible modes of being (e.g., present-focused attention and observation of internal states), and to facilitate movement toward a more vital existence (e.g., via identification of values and taking committed actions). In other words, responding to critical thoughts by criticizing them is counterproductive. Changing that relationship cannot be accomplished by using the very cognitive processes that resulted in psychological inflexibility in the first place. In contrast to some other therapies, ACT focuses not on changing the content of internal experiences (i.e., thoughts and feelings) but rather on one’s relationship to them. How do metaphors function to move people away from language traps and a more experiential comprehension of their thoughts and feelings, rather than a strictly intellectual one? Īccording to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, inflexibility arises through entanglement with verbal rules and the traps of language. Editor’s Note: This is a Q&A with Jill Stoddard, PhD, and Niloofar Afari, PhD, the authors of The Big Book of ACT Metaphors: A Practitioner’s Guide to Experiential Exercises and Metaphors in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
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