#1894 CBT vs. ACT

Not too long ago, we took a quick tour through Marsha Linehan’s great memoir Building a Life Worth Living in which we discussed her thoughts on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT).

DBT was her extension of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that she originally developed for people suffering from suicidal ideation and behavior.

As it turns out, DBT was one of several therapies developed in the 80s and 90s that were part of what’s known as the “third wave” of Cognitive Behavior Therapy.

A few of the others include Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) created by Jon Kabat-Zinn (check out our Notes on Wherever You Go, There You Are for more on that) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) by Mark Williams and his colleagues (check out our Notes on his book called Mindfulness).

Now…

Another therapy created in that “third wave” is called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or ACT for short. (Pronounced like the word, not the initials.)

ACT was created by Steven Hayes.

About a decade ago, we featured Notes on two books by the world’s leading trainer in ACT, a guy named Russ Harris. His books The Happiness Trap and The Confidence Gap are fantastic. (Check out those Notes! Seriously. Check them out. The wisdom in them is powerful.)

After reading Marsha’s book, I was fired up to get back into ACT.

So…

I got a bunch of books on the subject.

I started with Steven Hayes’s Get Out of Your Mind & Into Your Life—which is fantastic. Then I read his latest book called A Liberated Mind—which is even better.

Today I want to talk about a single distinction from A Liberated Mind.

Here it is…

Steven tells us: “Changing our relationship to our thoughts and emotions, rather than trying to change their content, is the key to healing and realizing our true potential.”

Note: That’s a REALLY Big Idea.

I repeat: “Changing our relationship to our thoughts and emotions, rather than trying to change their content, is the key to healing and realizing our true potential.”

I repeat…

That’s a REALLY Big Idea.

And…

That’s also one of the key differentiators between ACT and CBT.

Whereas Cognitive Behavior Therapy tries to get you to see the problems with your thinking and then get you to CHANGE the faulty thinking patterns (which, of course, can be helpful), with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Steven focuses more on changing your RELATIONSHIP TO your thoughts while worrying less about changing the CONTENT of your thoughts.

I repeat yet again…

THAT’S A REALLY BIG DISTINCTION.

And, that’s Today’s +1.

We’ll get into all the practical ways we can go about changing our relationship to our thoughts in some future +1s but for now…

I want you to take a moment and simply SEE your thoughts for what they are…

THOUGHTS.

We don’t need to necessarily change them to quit being driven by them.

Simply observe the thoughts you have.

Thank them for showing up.

THEN GO DO WHAT YOU KNOW NEEDS TO GET DONE TO LIVE IN INTEGRITY WITH YOUR BEST SELF.

All day.

Every day.

Especially…

TODAY.