ACT aims to increase one’s ‘psychological flexibility’ by learning ways to be less impacted by difficult thoughts and feelings when they show up - which they have a habit of doing! ACT also aims to encourage people to connect more with the people and things that matter to them.

ACT is the approach that I drew most on throughout my NHS career working with people experiencing physical health related conditions. I’ve found it’s a really useful approach to draw on when someone is facing a challenging situation, such as a health condition, or life change such as relationship breakdown or redundancy. When the situation itself is not something someone can change, ACT teaches techniques so that they can change the way they respond to such challenges.

CBT is a widely used therapy and is generally based on identifying negative thoughts and behaviour cycles, which create and maintain negative emotions and body sensations. CBT includes a range of techniques to help develop alternative, more helpful thoughts and behaviours, which in turn help to reduce emotional distress.

This approach is often used for therapies relating (but not limited) to depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias.

CFT is an integrative therapy, informed by human evolution. It highlights that we are born into ‘tricky brains and tricky bodies’. - we will all experience distress and suffering at some point.

Compassion in CFT is defined as a ‘sensitivity to the suffering of self and others, with a commitment to try to relieve it and prevent it’

CFT includes learning a range of skills to help both tolerate distress and reduce or alleviate it.

MI is “a collaborative, goal-oriented style of communication with particular attention to the language of change. It is designed to strengthen personal motivation for and commitment to a specific goal by eliciting and exploring the person’s own reasons for change within an atmosphere of acceptance and compassion.”  (Miller & Rollnick, 2013, p. 29)

MI can be helpful to draw on to help explore one’s ambivalence and/or lack of confidence or perceived importance of change.

Mindfulness in psychological therapies is the practice of having a non-judgemental present moment awareness. Noticing whatever thoughts, feelings and/or body sensations are present. Mindfulness is stepping out of ‘autopilot’ and into conscious awareness. There are lots of different mindfulness practices, drawing on awareness of breath, body and thought. Mindfulness techniques also feature in other psychological therapies, such as ACT and CFT.