Doha: A type of psychotherapy known as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), shows promise as an effective tool for people with lupus struggling with anxiety or depression, according to an expert.
ACT teaches mindfulness skills to help people change the way they respond to negative thoughts and feelings, says Tareq Masoud, Psychologist - Behaviour modification for special needs at QRC Centre for Special Needs. ACT encourages people to embrace their thoughts and feelings rather than fighting or feeling guilty for them.
“ACT can help treat many mental and physical conditions such as severe substance abuse, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, generalised anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, trichotillomania, social phobia, smoking, chronic pain, psychosis, workplace stress, and many more,” he said.
“It aims at increasing psychological flexibility, which means contacting the present moment fully, as a conscious, historical human being, and based on what the situation affords, changing or persisting in behaviour, in the service of chosen values,” Masoud added.
Traditional forms of psychotherapy have focused on a personal therapist and client in-person sessions, or talking therapies. These can be in the form of second-wave behavioural therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or third-wave therapies such as ACT or many other types.
ACT is a functional contextual therapy approach based on Relational Frame Theory which views human psychological problems dominantly as problems of psychological inflexibility fostered by cognitive fusion and experiential avoidance. In the context of a therapeutic relationship, ACT brings direct contingencies and indirect verbal processes to bear on the experiential establishment of greater psychological flexibility primarily through acceptance, defusion, establishment of a transcendent sense of self, contact with the present moment, values, and building larger and larger patterns of committed action linked to those values, said Masoud.
