4 Common Misconceptions About ACT

There are unfortunately a lot of common misperceptions about ACT. Here are four of the most
common ones I encounter.

© Russ Harris 2018 | www.ImLearningACT.com Page 1

#1: ACT Doesn’t Change Your Thinking
One of the biggest misconceptions about ACT is that it “doesn’t change your thinking.” I hope
and trust you can see that isn’t the case. When clients (and therapists) encounter ACT, it
usually dramatically changes the way they think about a vast range of topics and issues,
including the nature and purpose of their own thoughts and emotions, the way they want to
behave, the way they want to treat themselves and others, what they want their lives to be
about, effective ways to live and act and deal with their problems, what motivates them, why
they do the things they do, and so on.
However, ACT doesn’t achieve this by challenging, disputing, disproving, or invalidating
thoughts; nor does it help people to avoid, suppress, distract from, dismiss, or “rewrite” their
thoughts or try to convert their “negative” thoughts into “positive” ones.

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ACT helps people to change their thinking through:
(a) defusing from unhelpful cognitions and cognitive processes;
(b) developing new, more flexible and effective ways of thinking, in addition to their other
cognitive patterns.
Why did I italicize the words in addition? Because we don’t get to eliminate unhelpful
cognitive repertoires. As the ACT saying goes, “There’s no delete button in the brain.”
We can develop new ways of thinking, but that doesn’t eliminate the old ones.
As I say to clients, “If you learn to speak Hungarian, that won’t eliminate English from your
vocabulary.”
So again and again, we emphasize this important point to our clients in many different ways.
For example: “Logically and rationally you know these thoughts aren’t true—and that won’t
stop them from reappearing. Or: “Yes, you can see clearly that this pattern of thinking isn’t
helpful—and that won’t stop your mind from doing it.” Or: “So you know when this story

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hooks you, it pulls you into away moves—and knowing that won’t get rid of the story; it will
keep coming back.”

Here are just some of the many ways ACT actively fosters flexible thinking:
• Reframing
• Flexible perspective taking
• Compassion and self-compassion
• Flexible goal setting, problem solving, action planning, and strategizing
• Considering your beliefs, ideas, attitudes and assumptions in terms of workability

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#2: ACT Isn’t Interested In Symptom Reduction
The story goes that that the “ACT therapists are not interested in symptom reduction; they are
only interested in values-based living.” I can see where this story comes from, but it’s a
caricature. I think it's much fairer to say it something like this: "The common ACT stance is that
the therapist aims to increase the client's quality of life and reduce their suffering through
helping them to live by their values and utilise new skills to reduce the impact and influence of
their painful thoughts and feelings."
I personally encourage ACT therapists and coaches as part of informed consent to tell clients
"We'll be learning new skills to handle painful thoughts and feelings more effectively; to
reduce their impact and influence over you, so they don't hold you back, run your life, jerk you
around." Most clients respond very well to this.

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For sure, the primary aim of ACT is values-based living, not symptom-reduction; however
significant symptom reduction almost always happens as a by-product of ACT – and often,
rapidly. And for sure we are interested in that symptom reduction; this is why it gets
measured in almost all of the 1000+ published studies on ACT. And what almost all of those
studies show is that ACT gives effective and sustainable symptom reduction as a by-product of
mindful, values-based living. Indeed, in many control trials, ACT gives better symptom
reduction than other models where this is the primary aim.
So it’s very important how we present all this to clients. Present it somewhat as I've suggested
above, and it very much meets their expectations and needs. Present it as "We aren't
interested in symptom reduction here!" and you'll have many problems.
Before signing off on this point, one more thing to consider …

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What Do We Actually Mean By Symptom Reduction?
The common understanding of ‘symptom reduction’ is a decrease in the frequency and
intensity of unwanted thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, memories, etc. However,
there’s another way to think about this. Suppose we conceive common client symptoms as
excessive or problematic degrees of:
• Distractibility, disengagement, dissociation
• Operating on autopilot, mindlessness
• Allowing cognitions to dominate actions or awareness in problematic ways
• Lack of meaning and purpose and fulfilment in life
• Ineffective or self-defeating patterns of action that tend to make life worse
• Amplifying the frequency and impact of painful emotions through struggling with them
If we think of these as ‘symptoms’, then for sure, ACT actively tries to reduce them!

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#3: Experiential Avoidance (EA) is the Overarching Problem in ACT
EA is a common problem which we often target in ACT. But it isn’t always a problem, and it is
rarely if ever the only one. First, let’s be clear that EA is not the opposite of values-based
living. EA is often harmless, and sometimes extremely helpful. I do a lot of stuff that's
experiential avoidance but doesn't pull me away from my values.
A few examples:
I take aspirin when I have a headache, to make the pain go away.
At certain times, in certain contexts, I find it very useful and life-enhancing to distract myself.
Sometimes, in specific contexts, I will use relaxation techniques to actively reduce my stress
and anxiety.
Those are all examples of EA, but they are values-congruent behaviours that work well for me
and enhance my life and wellbeing in those specific contexts.

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What Motivates Values-Incongruent Ineffective Behaviour?
Values-incongruent ineffective behaviours are often motivated by EA. However, they are also often
motivated by other factors. For example, they are often under appetitive control motivated by cognitive
fusion: fusion with rigid rules, fusion with desires, fusion with wanting to be right, and so on. Here are
some of the most common reinforcing consequences for values-incongruent ineffective behaviour:
• Escape/avoid people, places, situations, events, etc. (overt avoidance)
• Escape/avoid unwanted thoughts & feelings (experiential avoidance)
• Feel good
• Get your needs met
• Gain attention
• Look good (to yourself or others)
• Feel like you are right and others are wrong
• Make sense (of life, the world, yourself, others etc.)

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The Overarching Problem in ACT is Cognitive Fusion
The overarching problem in ACT is cognitive fusion - not experiential avoidance. Experiential avoidance is
normal, and only becomes problematic when excessive, rigid, inappropriate.
And what underpins excessive, rigid inappropriate EA is cognitive fusion: most commonly, a) fusion with
judgments that these feelings/thoughts/emotions/sensations/memories are “bad”, and b) fusion with
the rule “I need to get rid of them.” So problematic levels of EA are one of the many problems that
cognitive fusion can give rise to.
(Footnote: keep this in mind when comparing the choice point, the bull’s eye, and the matrix. In the
matrix, the term “away moves” usually means “experiential avoidance” or “moving away from pain”; it
refers to behaviours under aversive control, motivated by experiential avoidance, which may or may not
be values-incongruent. In the bull’s eye and the choice point, the term “away moves” means “moving
away from values”; it refers to values-incongruent ineffective behaviours under appetitive or aversive
control, motivated by cognitive fusion or EA or any of the other reinforcers mentioned above)

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#4: ACT Is Too Directive, Not Person-Centred
Person-centred (or client-centred) therapy or counselling is largely based on/shaped by the
work of the enormously influential psychotherapist, Carl Rogers. ACT has much in common
with person-centred therapy. For example, in ACT:
• client and therapist are equals
• therapist has a Rogerian stance of unconditional positive regard for the client (ACT even
borrows Rogers’ famous metaphor about “looking at our clients as sunsets”)
• therapist focuses on the client's subjective view of the world
• client is responsible for improving his own life (as opposed to being diagnosed and
treated by the therapist)
• therapist works with what the client brings to session and wants to focus on,

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 • therapist raises client's awareness & helps them live by their own values (similar to
Rogers’ concept of ‘congruence’)
• therapist helps client to function like the person they want to be (similar to Rogers
concept of 'self-actualization')
• therapist is genuine and willing to self-disclose
• therapist focuses mostly on the present and the future, rather than the past
For sure there are many differences between ACT and person-centred or client-centred
therapy; at the same time, there are many commonalities. (No surprise that ACT has been
described as an existential, humanistic, person-centred, mindfulness-based, cognitive
behavioural therapy � �)
This discussion of course begs the question …

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How Directive Are We In ACT?
To have a Rogerian or person-centred stance as a therapist does not mean you have to be
totally non-directive in your sessions. When doing ACT, we are Rogerian or person-centred in
all the ways outlined above; and we can also be as directive or nondirective as we wish.
How directive we are depends on a) the capabilities of the client and b) the demands of the
situation.
For low-functioning clients, with many problems and significant deficits in coping skills, we will
usually need to be fairly directive. For example, we’ll usually need to set a clear agenda at the
start of each session, and steer the client back to it as often as needed in order to ensure she
actively learns new skills, clarifies values, sets goals, and creates action plans during the
session.

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But with higher-functioning, self-motivated clients, we can be much less directive. So we can
titrate how directive we are in any given session to suit the needs of the unique client in front
of us.
It’s impossible, however, to be completely nondirective when teaching people mindfulness
skills; we do need to give instructions, suggestions, and feedback to people to ensure they
learn and apply their new skills. However, this doesn’t mean we are telling people how to live
their lives; rather we are helping people build and apply the skills that will enable them to live
their lives the way they really want to.

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