Acceptance & Commitment Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) offers a different path. Instead of fighting difficult thoughts and feelings, you make room for them and act on what matters.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
A short 15-minute call to discuss your goals, no commitment.
What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)?
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps you stop fighting difficult thoughts and feelings and start acting on what matters. It builds psychological flexibility: the ability to feel something hard and still choose how you respond. Introspectus Counselling offers ACT therapy with Sean Lewis, a Canadian Certified Counsellor, in Colwood, BC and online across BC.
What makes ACT different?
You have probably tried to think your way out of it. Talk yourself down from the worry. Argue with a thought until it loosens its grip. Some days that works. Most days the thought just digs in harder, and you end up more tangled than when you started.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy starts somewhere else. Instead of fighting your thoughts and feelings, it teaches you to change your relationship with them, so they stop running the show.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an evidence-based approach in the cognitive-behavioural family. Its aim is psychological flexibility; your ability to feel something difficult and still choose how you respond.
Most approaches ask whether a thought is true. ACT asks a different question: is holding onto this thought helping you move toward the life you want? That shift, from arguing with your mind to simply noticing it, is where the work begins.
ACT is the primary framework I use at Introspectus Counselling. It has strong research support across anxiety, depression, OCD, and chronic stress.
How does ACT work?
ACT is built on six connected skills. You do not work through them in order, like a checklist. They overlap, and a single session might touch several at once.
- Cognitive defusion. Seeing a thought as a thought, not a command. “I am a failure” becomes “I am having the thought that I am a failure.” The words lose some of their weight.
- Acceptance. Making room for a hard feeling instead of bracing against it; not because the feeling is pleasant, but because the struggle often costs more than the feeling itself.
- Present-moment contact. Coming back to what is actually here now, rather than the worry about later or the replay of before.
- Self-as-context. Noticing the steady part of you that has been watching your whole life, underneath the changing thoughts and moods.
- Values. Getting clear on what genuinely matters to you; the kind of partner, parent, or person you want to be.
- Committed action. Taking small, concrete steps in those directions, even while the difficult feelings are still present.
The thread through all six is simple. You stop spending your energy controlling what you feel, and start spending it on what you care about. Research suggests this is how ACT does its work: it reduces symptoms by building psychological flexibility, not by forcing hard thoughts away.
What can ACT help with?
ACT is not tied to one diagnosis. Because it changes how you relate to your inner experience, it helps across a wide range of struggles.
- Anxiety. ACT loosens the grip of worry without demanding you stop worrying first. Read about anxiety counselling.
- Intrusive thoughts and OCD. For thoughts that feel disturbing or relentless, defusion offers a way to let them pass without fighting or obeying them. More on intrusive thoughts and rumination.
- Depression and low mood. ACT reconnects you with what matters when everything has gone flat. More on depression and mood.
- Stress and burnout. It helps you act on your values instead of running on autopilot. More on stress and burnout.
- Trauma. ACT makes room for what happened without asking you to relive it on command. More on trauma and PTSD.
Ready to talk? A 15-minute conversation, no obligation.
How do ACT and CBT work together?
ACT grew directly out of cognitive behavioural therapy and shares its commitment to structured, evidence-based work. The two fit together well. Traditional CBT often examines and reshapes the content of a thought, asking “is this accurate?” ACT changes your relationship to the thought, asking “is holding this helping me?” Some situations call for one, some for the other, and many for both. Read more about how I use CBT.
What does an ACT session look like?
There is no script. A first session is mostly about understanding what brought you here and whether we are a good fit. From there the work is practical: noticing your patterns, trying small exercises, and building skills you can use between sessions. Sessions are 50 minutes. You set the pace.
Frequently asked questions about ACT
Is ACT evidence-based?
Yes. A meta-analysis of 39 randomised trials found ACT effective across a range of mental and physical health concerns, and later reviews continue to support it.
How is ACT different from CBT?
Both belong to the same family. CBT tends to focus on changing unhelpful thoughts. ACT focuses on changing how tightly you hold them, and on living by your values regardless. Many therapists, including me, use both.
What is cognitive defusion?
It is the skill of stepping back from a thought so you can see it rather than be swept up in it. A simple version: silently putting "I'm having the thought that..." in front of whatever your mind is insisting on.
Do I have to accept things I want to change?
Acceptance in ACT is about your inner experience, the feelings and thoughts you cannot simply delete; it is not about tolerating a harmful situation. Making room for the feeling frees up energy to change what can be changed.
Looking for an ACT therapist in Victoria, BC?
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is my primary modality, and for good reason; over 900 randomized controlled trials support its effectiveness across anxiety, depression, PTSD, chronic pain, and OCD-spectrum conditions. ACT builds psychological flexibility; your ability to be present with discomfort while still taking action toward what matters.
Developed by Steven Hayes and supported by the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS), ACT works through six core processes: cognitive defusion (changing your relationship with thoughts), acceptance (making room for difficult feelings), present-moment awareness, self-as-context (observing your experience without being consumed by it), values clarification (identifying what truly matters), and committed action (moving toward those values even when it is hard).
My military background gave me firsthand understanding of experiential avoidance; the instinct to push away whatever hurts that works in the moment but costs you over time. My years running a plumbing business taught me the difference between values and obligations. Both experiences shaped why ACT became my primary framework. I apply ACT across every service area; anxiety, trauma, burnout, depression, intrusive thoughts, grief, and existential questions.
I’m Sean Lewis, a Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC #11252849) with the CCPA. I offer ACT therapy from my Colwood office in the Westshore, serving Langford and Greater Victoria, with virtual sessions across British Columbia. Sessions are covered by most extended health plans. Book a free 15-minute consultation.
References
- A-Tjak, J. G. L., Davis, M. L., Morina, N., Powers, M. B., Smits, J. A. J., & Emmelkamp, P. M. G. (2015). A meta-analysis of the efficacy of acceptance and commitment therapy for clinically relevant mental and physical health problems. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 84(1), 30-36. https://doi.org/10.1159/000365764
- Levin, M. E., Krafft, J., & Twohig, M. P. (2024). An overview of research on acceptance and commitment therapy. Psychiatric Clinics of North America. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psc.2024.02.007
- Forman, E. M., Herbert, J. D., Moitra, E., Yeomans, P. D., & Geller, P. A. (2007). A randomized controlled effectiveness trial of acceptance and commitment therapy and cognitive therapy for anxiety and depression. Behavior Modification, 31(6), 772-799. https://doi.org/10.1177/0145445507302202
- Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.