COMPETENCY 1
Sample 2.1a
Therapist: Another way to say what you just said is, “I’ve got to try trying harder.” Have you tried to try
harder before?
Client: Sure. And harder, and harder.
Therapist: So, I want you to consider that the problem here maybe isn’t that you haven’t tried hard
enough. Maybe the problem is something about the tools you’ve been given by society, by your parents, and your history—the things you’ve been taught to do to deal with this. Maybe they just don’t work here. It’s as if you’ve been trying to use a hammer to paint a masterpiece. Now, I’m also not saying I have a different, better tool—because you’ve done that, too— looked for a better tool. This trap is trickier than that.
Explanation: It is important for the therapist to openly recognize that control of internal experience is a
socially trained phenomenon. It is not the client’s fault that he would try such a maneuver. He has been taught that this maneuver should work.
Sample 2.1b
Therapist: So, trying harder seems like the thing to do? But haven’t you tried hard in the past? You
have gone to treatment programs, therapists, and a psychiatrist. You’ve listed numerous things you’ve tried. You’ve tried hard, yes? Look at your experience. What do you know from there [points to client’s heart] and not there [points to client’s head]? What does your experience say about the results of “trying hard”?
Client: It hasn’t worked so far.
Therapist: Right. And what if that is because it can’t? What if you really did give it a good attempt, but
this is how trying hard actually works in this area?
Explanation: Here the therapist validates the client’s effort, while pointing to the fruitlessness of this
effort. We are not asking the client to believe it is fruitless because the therapist says so, but rather to examine his or her own experience to see whether this effort has paid off.
COMPETENCY 2
Sample 2.2a
Therapist: So, you would have people around you, and you could work. Things would just be better in
general. But something seems funny here. You’ve been working at making things different for quite some time, and as far as I can tell, things haven’t become what you had hoped. In fact, here you are, sitting in front of me seeking yet another way to make your anxiety—to make you different.
Explanation: The therapist states that something is “funny,” as if to say this is not the client’s fault, but
that the client again seems to be doing the same thing he has done in the past. This statement points to the paradox.
Sample 2.2b
Therapist: Do you see what is happening here? Here you are working to make your anxiety go away, but
it stays. In fact, it seems that if you don’t want it, you’ve got it. If you don’t want your anxiety, you must have anxiety. In fact, [somewhat playfully] not being able to get rid of your anxiety is something to be anxious about. In your experience, as you’ve worked on this, has your problem seemed to be getting larger or smaller?
Explanation: The therapist shares an idea with the client that reflects the paradox of control that “if you
don’t want it, you’ve got it,” and asks the client whether this fits with his experience. She also directly points to the issue of what the client’s experience says about how this has worked for him in reducing his anxiety over time.
COMPETENCY 3
Sample 2.3a
Therapist: In your experience, has there ever been a significant amount of time when you did not
experience anxiety?
Client: [shakes head no]
Therapist: And how workable has it been to try to make it go away? Is this struggle opening up your life
or closing it down?
Explanation: One of the goals of ACT is to help the client move toward a workable agenda that is guided
by values. It is from this point forward that the client, while engaging in willingness, takes steps intended to build a better life, not a better feeling. Again, workability is about living well as defined by the client, not necessarily feeling well.
Sample 2.3b
Therapist: You’ve hired me, I’m here to work for you, right? Client: Yeah, I guess.
Therapist: So, part of my job is to tell you what I see, right? Client: Yeah. What do you see?
Therapist: From what you’ve told me, you’ve done many if not most of the reasonable, sensible, logical
things you could do to get your anxiety under control. But something seems strange here. It seems like nothing has worked. Bottom line, this—what you’ve been doing—isn’t working. Not in terms of reducing your anxiety: it’s still there. And not in terms of your life working: you still aren’t around people, still not working.
Explanation: The therapist directly addresses the issue of workability, both in the domain of gaining
COMPETENCY 4
Sample 2.4a
Therapist: Feeling silly is tied to this, too … another thing to get over. It really feels as though you’ve
been in a battle for a long time. First, feeling anger, and then feeling you shouldn’t have the anger, and then feeling embarrassed and stupid about the anger. This has been a difficult struggle, and also it just seems to be growing. It seems as if you are in a tug-of-war with your emotions. If they win, you lose. And you keep trying to win, but it seems that no matter how hard you pull, your emotions don’t seem to lose. I wonder if there is a different way to play this game? Maybe this isn’t about winning this tug-of-war, but learning how to drop the rope.
Explanation: Here the therapist is working with the client to help her see that the problem is the struggle
with emotional content, not the content itself. Feelings of anger and embarrassment, and thoughts of being stupid, are just that: feelings and thoughts. If the client is willing to feel these things as they are, then she can step out of the struggle and get refocused on life direction. This isn’t a simple thing, by the way; it is difficult to “drop the rope” because battling to make the feelings go away feels like the thing to do. As the therapist, you will want to be careful to communicate this recognition of the difficulty of the struggle and how easy it is to engage the struggle.
Sample 2.4b
Therapist: Well, let’s take a look at the anger for a moment. If I could reach over and peel the anger out
of you and see what is left behind, what do you think I’d discover?
Client: [hesitates] More anger.
Therapist: And if I could peel that away, too? I wonder if I might discover a very powerful feeling of
hurt and betrayal … Is it possible the anger is a way to escape the pain?
Client: [nods]
Therapist: What if all of this struggle you have been experiencing is about avoiding pain, but the only
way to move forward is to turn toward the pain, rather than away from it?
Explanation: The therapist is addressing avoidance as part of the struggle. In this example, the therapist is
leading the client in the direction of willingness to experience pain as an alternative to the long-standing struggle to escape pain. The goal is to help the client recognize and welcome the hurt, rather than staying focused on escaping the same. If she is willing to experience pain, she has functionally dropped the rope.
COMPETENCY 5
Sample 2.5a
Therapist: Do you know what would happen if you went inside the anger and tried to see what is there?
Maybe it doesn’t need to “go away” for you to do something different with it.
Sample 2.5b
Therapist: I can see why it doesn’t make sense to you… but it seems that it depends on your goal. If
your goal is to feel better, to not be angry anymore, then it seems trying harder to fix anger would be a reasonable thing to do. It’s logical, right? However, if your goal is to find another relationship, then getting rid of anger may deflect you from doing what is here to be done. There are other things people do to find relationships: go to parties, make phone calls, have friends introduce them to someone—like that. It seems you are trading away finding a relationship for getting rid of anger.
Explanation: This response points to how control of internal events is often engaged in at the expense
of vitality. The deal is, when the client doesn’t feel angry anymore, she will start to find someone. In the meantime, years of her life are drifting by. If she is willing to feel the anger and the hurt, while also making choices about vitality, she might not feel so stuck. It is important to note here that the therapist is not asking the client to be angry. Rather, the therapist is supporting moving forward and creating the oppor- tunity to be in relationship, instead of insisting a different feeling be there first.
COMPETENCY 6
Sample 2.6a
Therapist: What do you think would happen if you stopped putting so much effort into this? It seems
like a lot of suffering accompanies this effort. Is there a potential for less suffering?
Explanation: By using this kind of questioning, the therapist is pointing out the difference between will-
ingness and suffering. The effort alone has become burdensome and weighs on the client. Simply suggest- ing “no effort” is both a willingness move and can potentially lead to a decrease in suffering.
Sample 2.6b
Therapist: Does the difficulty of trying to make your anger go away make you angry? Client: [nods and laughs]
Therapist: I thought it might. A strange thing happens when we are working to control certain
emotions. If you really don’t want to be anxious, for example, then you feel anxious about getting anxious. Or if you really don’t want to feel stupid and silly, then you feel stupid and silly about feeling stupid and silly. Do you see what I’m talking about?
Client: [acknowledges the paradox]
Therapist: And now you have anger about your anger. We could call it “clean anger” and “dirty anger.”
The clean anger is the anger that shows up when you feel betrayed … and hurt is in there, too. The dirty anger is anger about the anger. So, suffering has been added to your anger. Look to your experience and tell me, are you suffering about your anger?
Explanation: Again, the therapist is helping the client investigate the difference between willingness and
suffering. Willingness to experience the initial anger and hurt, while also noticing she has thoughts of being duped, is much different from feeling these things and then insisting she does not feel them. The insistence creates more pain.
COMPETENCY 7
Sample 2.7a
Therapist: Before we talk about trust, I want to take a look at what has happened to your life. You are
suspicious, lonely, and angry, and you’ve stopped dating. I’m guessing there are other ways in which you have changed your interactions with men—and I bet with women, too, when they are talking about men.
Client: Yes, I get mad at my friends when they talk about how great guys are.
Therapist: So, now you’re lonely, angry, and suspicious, and you have stopped dating and have changed
the way you relate to your friends when talking about men. This is getting costly.
Explanation: Working to help the client see the cost of unwillingness is often done by focusing on what
the client has given up or lost as a result of trying to control emotions. In a sense, the client’s life has become smaller. The goal is to help the client see the cost as it relates to the client’s own value, and choose willingness as the alternative.
Sample 2.7b
Therapist: It sounds as though you will have to trust men again before you can have the relationship
and life you would like.
Client: [agrees]
Therapist: The problem is trust doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t just show up. Trust is a process. In the
meantime, while you’re waiting to be trusting, you find yourself alone. And I’m wondering if, when you’re sitting there feeling lonely, your trust of men is growing or getting smaller?
Explanation: Here the therapist is pointing to the difficulty of trying to make a particular feeling show up
as a way out of another experience. This, too, can be costly. If the client is waiting to feel trust, she could be waiting a long time. And, as with this example, sitting alone being angry doesn’t build trust in men; it builds mistrust. The cost of being unwilling to feel what is there when she goes out with men doesn’t allow the process of building trust to happen.
Sample 2.7c
Therapist: If you were able to trust men, what would you hope would happen?
Client: [in a sarcastic tone] Well, I’d then be able to at least have a shot at being in a decent relationship, if I could actually find a decent guy.
Therapist: So, what you want is to get over this guy so you can have a decent relationship, right? Client: Yeah.
Therapist: So, can I ask you a question about that? And I’d have you check your experience as you
answer it. Don’t just check your head: notice what your experience has to say. As you work hard to get over this past breakup, are you finding it working out the way you hope it will? You know, as you worked to get over it, are you getting closer to having the kind of relationship with a man that you want, or have you found yourself paradoxically moving further away from it?
Explanation: The therapist helps the client to examine the paradox of control in terms of some values the
client has in life.
COMPETENCY 8
Sample 2.8a
Therapist: Well, just notice how your mind pulls you into the future, as if to be, feel, and think what is
present you have to change something. What if instead we try to go into this moment? What if it were okay to feel what you feel and think what you think? Not “okay” meaning you like it, but “okay” meaning you are present—like “check” or “roger that.” Experiencing fear of loss or betrayal will show up when it shows up. We can’t predict the future. If this makes sense to you, the question really is this: what is present for you now, and are you willing to experience that more fully? What is going on for you as you say this? What is your body doing, for example?
Explanation: Willingness is not about the future, but about the present. There are always feelings and
thoughts to be experienced. Orienting the client to this notion, and taking the client into the present, helps her see one of the qualities of willingness experientially, not just by instruction.
Sample 2.8b
Therapist: So … here it is. It feels like something significant would have to occur—like never being
duped again. “Duped” would have to go.
Client: Yeah, I don’t want to feel stupid like that.
Therapist: Well, there is another significant thing here that we should look at. It’s called “not having
relationships.” That feels significant.
Client: [quietly] Yeah. [pause]
Therapist: Can you contact duped? What are the qualities of duped? It sounds like “stupid” is in there.
What else is in there? What else is in duped?
Client: [thinking] Well, I guess I feel a little shame and embarrassment, like I should have known better.
Therapist: So there is betrayal—which is painful stuff—and what comes along with it is embarrassment
and a little shame, and your mind is giving you “stupid” and “should have known better.”
Client: Yeah. I even feel it a bit as we talk about it.
Therapist: Ah, as you feel that and think that, is it possible to carry that stuff with you willingly, and to
head into a relationship or into the stuff that you do to get a relationship?
Client: I suppose I could, but I don’t want to.
Therapist: Understandable.
Client: I mean, I don’t want to have to feel that again.
Therapist: I hear you. And yet here you are feeling it a little even as we talk about it. You have a good
sense of what these experiences feel like.
Therapist: Will those be the things that keep you out of relationships? Or, given that you know these,
could you feel them and think them, and still do the stuff that gets you into relationships?
Client: You mean, like feel embarrassed and still go out with someone?
Therapist: Yeah, would you be willing? I’m not asking you to like it, but if it got you headed toward
connection and relationship, would you be willing to hold this stuff as you know it and take some kind of action?
Explanation: The client’s statement that something would have to change suggests experiential avoid-
ance. The therapist makes a guess at what the client is avoiding by saying, “Duped would have to go.” The therapist then proceeds to bring the avoided emotional experience into the room and leads the client to explore it, make room for it, and experience it willingly. At the end, the therapist is careful to differentiate willingness from wanting or liking and also ties willingness to valuing.
COMPETENCY 9
Sample 2.9a
Therapist: So, one thing we could do is focus on the money, but that doesn’t seem as though it would
be useful right now. If you’re interested in keeping this relationship, it seems we need to work on the things that would make that happen. You are saying you can’t bring yourself to talk to her or look at her, as if the disappointment were holding you back.
Client: [agrees]
Therapist: Is it possible to feel disappointed and actively choose to talk to and look at your wife? Client: No, I don’t think that’s possible.
Therapist: If it were possible, would you choose it? Client: Yes.
Therapist: So here is the deal … Would you be willing to feel disappointed and talk to your wife if it
meant you got to keep the marriage? [pause] Have you ever said something with your mind, but done something different with your action? For example, have you ever said, “I don’t feel