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Abstract
Promoting health behavior change presents an important challenge to theory and research in the field of health psychology. In this paper, we introduce a context-driven approach, the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) model which is built on Relational Frame Theory. The ACT-based intervention aims to promote individuals’ new health behavior patterns through the improvement of the key construct of psychological flexibility, which is defined as the ability to contact the present moment more fully with acceptance and mindfulness as a conscious human being. Building on the psychological flexibility model, implemented through the six core ACT processes, individuals improve maintenance of long term health behavior change through committed acts in service of chosen values while acknowledging and accepting the existence of contrary thoughts, rules, and emotions as part of themselves but not determinant of their behaviors. Taking advantage of this context-driven approach of health behavior change, we recommend researchers and practitioners to design their health behavior change intervention programs based on ACT.
Highlights
The pragmatic utility of psychological interventions on health behavior changes are judged by their effectiveness in promoting sustained and desired behavior change over an extended period of time
Psychological flexibility can facilitate lasting change in three ways: (a) by increasing commitment to, and improved maintenance of, value-driven behaviors, (b) by strengthening a willing, open, and accepting method of experiencing psychological events reducing psychological barriers to behavior change, and (c) by improved awareness of one’s internal and external environment through mindfulness processes that allow behavioral choices to be better fitted to the contextual situation (Butryn et al, 2011)
In ACT, the goals of the health behavior change interventions are not explicit replacement of previous unhealthy psychological events with new and healthy events, but the concurrent cultivation of acceptance toward of the occurrence of unhealthy psychological events, defusion from strict adherence to those events, and the committed action of behaviors that support living in ways that serve predetermined healthy values
Summary
The pragmatic utility of psychological interventions on health behavior changes are judged by their effectiveness in promoting sustained and desired behavior change over an extended period of time. Psychological flexibility can facilitate lasting change in three ways: (a) by increasing commitment to, and improved maintenance of, value-driven behaviors, (b) by strengthening a willing, open, and accepting method of experiencing psychological events reducing psychological barriers to behavior change, and (c) by improved awareness of one’s internal and external environment through mindfulness processes that allow behavioral choices to be better fitted to the contextual situation (Butryn et al, 2011). In ACT, the goals of the health behavior change interventions are not explicit replacement of previous unhealthy psychological events with new and healthy events, but the concurrent cultivation of acceptance toward of the occurrence of unhealthy psychological events, defusion from strict adherence to those events (i.e., observe the events for what they are as just thoughts of our mind, rather than becoming entangled and fused with them), and the committed action of behaviors that support living in ways that serve predetermined healthy values In this way, habits for the new healthy behaviors may be established with greater resiliency to psychological barriers. A 1-day mindfulness and acceptance-based workshop targeting obesity-related stigma and psychological distress is effective on weight loss and weight-specific acceptance coping; the intervention effects on weight loss was found mediated by psychological flexibility (Lillis et al, 2009)
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