Author Archives: Mummy ACT

As a first time mum I think I’d underestimated how much was involved in post natal recovery – physically and emotionally. Given ACT has an evidence base as a good approach to coping with chronic pain, it’s a good fit with the post natal period. For me, I had a significant perineum repair to rehabilitateContinue reading “ACT and post natal recovery”

Breastfeeding is definitely a time in my life that knowing about ACT has come in useful. There are lots of practical resources out there on the physical side and plenty support groups where I live – and I imagine in other urban areas of the UK too – but perhaps less on breastfeeding and mentalContinue reading “ACT and Breastfeeding”

I’m aware writing this of how different this post might have gone had I written it before, during or soon after my daughter’s birth happened. Time has altered my lens. That in itself is a defusion strategy I often find helpful when considering something I find both very important and very emotive – questions likeContinue reading “My first experience of giving birth”

I got pregnant for the third time two months before that trip to Australia. I was more than happy to forego those wine tours. I was even happy to embrace morning sickness as a sign that this pregnancy was going to be a sticky one. I held off this time on making my booking appointmentContinue reading “My third pregnancy (aka baby tenacity)”

Another important ACT concept is doing what works rather than either repeating unhelpful patterns that have short term payoffs but long term downsides in terms of what you value, or pushing yourself so hard to do what you want to achieve that you end up adding excessive stress and exhaustion to your suffering. So afterContinue reading “Workability”

Another key skill from ACT I had to use to get as far as my second pregnancy was psychological flexibility – the idea that you need to flexibly use the right skill at the right time and bring your knowledge in when you need it. So I needed mindfulness, defusion, clarity on my values, aContinue reading “My second pregnancy (aka baby rainbow)”

Possibly the most important part of ACT. Once you know what you care about and you have the tools to cope with climbing your own mountain to reach it, you set some goals to get you there – following the mountain analogy, like a series of camping posts on the way to reach. After myContinue reading “Commited action”

Values are one of my favourite aspects of the ACT model and one that distinguishes it from other forms of CBT. When we say values it’s too easy to think in terms of what we should want for ourselves and other people’s exoectations of us. It’s also too easy to stop at the basics. theContinue reading “Values”

Another key idea from ACT is that part of what distinguishes humans from other animals is language. Language allows us to have an internal dialogue about our experiences. When children learn to talk, they develop associations between words and objects. For example, they learn the word for cow. They instinctively then want to categorise theirContinue reading “Drop the struggle”

One of the important ideas from ACT is that you are the context for your experiences rather than just your thoughts and feelings – you last your whole lifetime while your thoughts and feelings just pass by. What’s happening in your life now is one chapter of it. Not all chapters will be enjoyable, butContinue reading “Self as context”