The ACT hexaflex

Описание: In this video I’d like to go over a a bit of a snapshot of the acceptance and commitment therapy hexaflex.

The ACT hexaflex:

Going around the perimeter of the hexaflex we find the present moment, values, action, self as context, defusion and acceptance. In the middle you will find psychological flexibility.

These are the 6 core processes we can go to when working with individuals, couples, adolescents, and almost anyone, who may be experiencing difficulties.
acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) hexaflex

The Present Moment - The present moment looks at assisting clients to make contact with ‘the here and now’. We can do this in a couple of different ways including formal mindfulness practice such as meditation or informal mindfulness practice. Informal mindfulness may be the we deliberately do something: drinking water from a glass, closing a door gently, or stopping and noticing a beautiful flower.

Mindfulness is about how we focus and hold our attention on something without judgment.

Values - Values are not only important to us in domains such as family, friends or health, but also about how you want to be as a person and how you’d like to be remembered. Examples of values could be to practice patience, kindness and thoughtfulness. It’s important to understand that values are not goals.

Action - Action, or committed action, is to do with taking action in the service of your values.

A simple example would be for a client to commit to eating one apple this afternoon in the service of energy and vibrancy (their values). We would also like to help them establish why this is important. Your client may decide it’s important because being healthy gives me more time with the family.

Self as Context - Self as context can be described as being fused with a conceptualised self. Sometimes we get so caught up in a story about who we are that we take on that label without seeing the story as just what it is: a story.

Defusion - Defusion is the process of being able to observe thoughts and recognise them for what they are; just thoughts. Problems and suffering begin when we fuse with our thoughts in away which prevents us from moving toward the values which are important to us. It is not necessarily the content that causes suffering but how absorbed in our thoughts we become.

What often happens when thoughts come up is we try to get rid of them, push them away or run away from them. Psychology, however, has been able to demonstrate that thoughts can’t be avoided.

Acceptance - Acceptance is about allowing and making some space for the things in life which may be uncomfortable. What ACT recognises is that being human means that there will be times when life is difficult.
It’s not possible to totally rid ourselves of all future unhelpful thoughts so we use acceptance to allow for those thoughts to be there.

Psychological flexibility - In the heart of the ACT Hexaflex sits psychological flexibility which serves to encourage the individual and clinician to use each of 6 core processes in a flexible way. For example, if I am doing my best to be in the present moment all the time then it’s going to be difficult for me to do many of my other roles in life. The hexaflex is for allowing flexibility rather than rigidly.

What I encourage you to do is to draw the ACT hexaflex a few times and begin using it’s principles in your practice – I’ve drawn the hexaflex hundreds of times! Each time it just helps to engrain and re-enforce the power of the model which I can then use when working with clients.


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