Pain and situations that cause discomfort are part of life, people naturally tend to escape, trying to undo negative emotions and feelings, it is important to understand that avoiding suffering is not a valid solution, this is where the importance of values for entering well-being.
People need to integrate these negative emotions and feelings so that learning the experience can influence them as positively as possible in the future, otherwise, by avoiding or canceling them, they would not treat information and suffering would be dormant, albeit hidden. . Paralyzed, undefeated.
- In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
- The therapist works with a form of experienced cognitive behavioral psychotherapy based on the theory of relational language frameworks.
- It is a perspective that emphasizes several concepts.
- Such as experience avoidance.
- Cognitive fusion.
- Absence and weakening.
- Of values.
- And rigidity of behavior in their appearance and course.
In current psychotherapy, values are of great importance because they are part of the historical context of the person in their context; in turn, the emphasis is on acceptance, contrary to the attitude of judgment installed in the continuous act of complaining to obtain an illusion of well-being.
The goal of acceptance and commitment therapy is to eliminate psychological rigidity through basic procedures such as acceptance, the act of being present, commitment to one’s own values, the discovery of the context of “I” and the spread of negative or uncomfortable thoughts.
Simply put, the goal is to create a meaningful life for the person, teaching him to accept the pain that can inevitably occur, not to drag him through time.
It is important that patients take into account that some things are not under their control, this allows them to abandon their behavioral rigidity and their feeling, thus feeling greater tranquility.
To help the patient, the therapist should determine what their values are and whether their behavior is in line with them.
It is very likely that, in his daily life, the person will concentrate his behaviors on solving his problems, giving up the most important thing: his values, which leads to the development of an experience avoidance disorder, which consists in the desire to nullify thoughts. and feelings related to negative experiences.
The therapeutic goal is to help the person engage their behaviors towards what they value or desire, from this point of view they can face their problems and not just the suffering that led them to seek therapy.
Using personal values as a support base, it is possible to promote behavioural change, in order to achieve well-being, in this way better psychological health is achieved from a broad and flexible repertoire of behaviors oriented to personal values.
On the other hand, unwanted cognitive (thought) and emotional states, such as sadness, anxiety, anxiety and fear, are considered part of the human and therefore natural condition, so it is understood that people should integrate them into life, not avoid them. or fight them day in and day out.
The values chosen by a person represent the guide who orients his behavior towards what is important to him, so they allow a coherence between what he values and what he does, which generates well-being.
Since acceptance and commitment therapy, value acceptance has been based on four components:
The psychologist helps each person with their values by looking for feared and avoided thoughts and emotions, so that they learn to distance themselves from them and value them for what they are: only thoughts or feelings, also helps to understand that everything they think or feel is useless to simply think or feel. There are many unwanted thoughts and emotions.
Treatment that focuses on a person’s values helps guide changes based on what they think is valuable.
Values guide us. They are beliefs that lead to actions, transcend specific situations and guide the succession of events in order of priority for the person, so the importance of values in psychotherapy is such that they represent a combination of verbal rules and consequences of the personal history itself.
They facilitate decision-making, which in turn overcomes the tendency to be controlled by internal and external demands and pressures to avoid discomfort, which contributes to psychological well-being.