Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people become more psychologically adaptable. ACT encourages you to be more fully in the present. Accepting your deep emotions, traumas, or negative coping mechanisms is key in this therapeutic approach.
ACT maintains that to adapt and grow, a person must fully accept themselves as they are. Therapists practicing ACT believe that suppressing or ignoring painful emotions or experiences is counter-productive to growth and change.
You must investigate your current patterns of thinking to change. After examining these patterns, you can better understand the way your thinking impacts you. This acceptance of your patterns and habits helps you change your behaviors.
Trying to stop ways of thinking can be detrimental to ACT. Your therapist will help you understand how and why you think a certain way. Your ACT therapist will encourage you to accept yourself within a given moment. This acceptance is ultimately the catalyst for change.
After fostering the acceptance of the present moment, with all its thoughts, beliefs, and experiences, your ACT therapist will encourage you to develop a new, more compassionate relationship with your experience.
Individuals experiencing a wide range of psychological issues can benefit from ACT because it emphasizes their unique relationship with their problems.
Dr. Schwartz is a psychologist with many specialties including anxiety (OCD, GAD, Specific Phobias, Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety), depression, eating disorders, trauma and PTSD, insomnia, and substance use disorders. He typically works with late adolescents and adults from a variety of backgrounds. Dr. Schwartz primarily uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) though he frequently incorporate...
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Do you worry your teen or young adult may be struggling? Maybe you've seen a change in their mood, grades or social situation? You can't understand their behavior, and attempts to reach them either land on deaf ears or backfire completely. These years can feel like a rollercoaster ride. Young people experience increased emotionality, heightened stress sensitivity and greater impulsivity that is...
Poet Maya Angelou wrote: "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you". Opening oneself is a courageous and vulnerable act and I want you to know that I will provide you a space to explore at your own pace, and a place to feel known, heard and accepted as you journey in your healing. As part of the process I help you identify and foster your own personal strengths while...
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