Acceptance and commitment therapy and its unacknowledged influences: Some old wine in a new bottle?

Abstract

Recently, Goldfried suggested that one main reason for the underdevelopment of psychotherapy as a scientific enterprise was the lack of acknowledgment of past contributions. In this article, this issue is illustrated by analysing the particular case of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). ACT has clear overlaps with therapies from the systemic tradition, such as strategic therapy in the line of the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto and with the more recent models of solution-focused therapy and narrative therapy. This article analyses theoretical overlaps with these models (e.g. the paradoxical nature of human problems and the nature of language) as well as examples of similarities in therapeutic strategies (externalization and the miracle question). It concludes by suggesting that this practice of inadvertently obliterating the past does not favour the development of the field or the creation of consensus but rather contributes to the ongoing proliferation of 'new' psychotherapy models. Trends that may contribute to circumventing this problem are discussed.