evidence-based Therapy

for Anxiety, OCD, ADHD, and Relationships

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an evidence-based approach that helps you create meaningful change, not by eliminating difficult thoughts or emotions, but by changing how you relate to them. Instead of getting stuck in self-criticism, avoidance, or overthinking, ACT helps you show up fully in your life and take action aligned with what matters most to you.

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With ACT, you’ll learn to:

  • Practice mindfulness and increase present-moment awareness

  • Accept internal experiences without getting consumed by them

  • Defuse from unhelpful thought patterns and self-judgment

  • Clarify your core values to guide decisions and priorities

  • Take meaningful action toward a life that feels authentic and fulfilling

More About ACT:

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a contextual behavioral intervention aimed at increasing psychological flexibility: the ability to contact the present moment fully and to persist or change behavior in the service of chosen values. Grounded in relational frame theory, ACT views experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion as core processes that maintain suffering. The therapeutic process involves six interrelated core‑processes:

  1. Acceptance: Willingness to experience unwanted thoughts, feelings, and sensations without trying to control or avoid them.

  2. Defusion: Learning to observe and relate to thoughts and emotions as transient events in the mind rather than literal truths that dictate behavior.

  3. Present‑Moment Awareness: Cultivating nonjudgmental, mindful engagement with current experience to reduce automatic reactivity.

  4. Self‑as‑Context: Developing a transcendent sense of self—an observing perspective that is distinct from the content of experience.

  5. Values Clarification: Identifying personally meaningful life directions that guide behavior.

  6. Committed Action: Setting and pursuing flexible, value‑driven goals, even in the presence of discomfort.

Interventions include metaphors, experiential exercises (e.g., mindfulness practices, values card sorts), and behavioral commitments (e.g., graded goal‑setting) designed to weaken the grip of unhelpful private experiences and strengthen value‑consistent action. Randomized trials and meta‑analyses demonstrate that ACT produces moderate to large effect sizes across anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and a wide range of other disorders, with psychological flexibility mediating long‑term outcomes. ACT offers a robust, scalable framework for promoting adaptive functioning across diverse clinical and nonclinical populations.

ACT is an evidence-based therapy that helps clients at Rise Psychology build psychological flexibility by learning to accept difficult thoughts and emotions while taking action aligned with their values. Dr. Lauren Helm uses ACT to support clients navigating anxiety, burnout, life transitions, and perfectionism.