It’s extremely common that those struggling with substance abuse disorders also struggle with co-occurring mental health disorders. When clients struggle with negative thoughts, feelings, and emotions, it is only exacerbating the addiction and vice versa. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy doesn’t teach clients how to avoid these worrisome thoughts but instead teaches them how to move through them.
ACT encourages clients to manage their thoughts by understanding them. Clients learn healthy coping strategies that allow clients to stop avoiding emotions, accept them as what they are, and move forward. By learning acceptance-based strategies and mindfulness to their thoughts, people are able to respond to them rather than ignore, obsess, and check out over them. ACT contributes to the positive behavioral changes essential to long-term recovery.
