2016 Volume 56 Issue 12 Pages 1192-1196
A vignette has been used to describe psychoeducation in instances where acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) was used. This vignette involves psychotherapy for an individual in a medical setting. The individual in question is being treated for a psychosomatic problem in the form of irritable bowel syndrome. Like conventional cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), ACT emphasizes an understanding of contingency-shaped behavior and the vicious cycles of negative thoughts and feelings, but ACT differs from CBT since ACT seldom uses models of illness or models of specific symptoms. ACT focuses on having the client experience reality, and ACT uses the concepts of experiential avoidance, cognitive fusion, acceptance, and commitment to help the client to understand those experiences. Thus, ACT can probably be viewed as a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes psychoeducational components more than other forms of therapy.
