1. It works with virtually any effective intervention form.

Once you understand the change processes, you’ll understand when other therapies work and when they don’t, so you can use them more flexibly and continue to use many of the intervention forms with which you are experienced. You can also be more creative and have more fun in your work. This means that you don’t have to abandon what you already know works well; instead, you can refine and use it even more effectively and with a better understanding of why it works.

2. It allows you to see how your clients are improving.

Seeing in real-time how clients are improving places you in a position where your clients become your teachers, because you can try different things and watch those evidence-based processes move — and if they move substantially, we know the long-term outcomes are likely to be good.

3. It applies to you personally.

ACT is based on the psychology of the normal, and last time I checked, therapists and practitioners are people, too. It is an empirical fact that those who learn how to employ ACT and apply it to themselves experience lower professional burnout and a higher sense of personal accomplishment. They feel personally uplifted as well as professionally empowered to bring all of the things that they already know into an evidence-based model.

4. It resonates with clients.

Therapists routinely report that incorporating ACT into their existing practices changes the way they interact, and their clients take notice. Not only are clients experiencing transformative results from the approach, they are even teaching others in their circles about what they have learned. For these reasons, it isn’t unusual for therapists who use ACT to become highly sought-after.

5. It helps with almost every major psychological issue.

Unlike so many protocols that are tied to specific symptom presentations, ACT is applicable to virtually all people regardless of circumstances, culture, or complaint. The processes that we’re targeting are relevant to human prosperity and are based on a decades-long program to unravel the human mind. Anywhere that humans go, their minds go with them, so if you know how the mind gets in the way and how to unlock that problem, you will likely be able to help the individual regardless of their defining external symptoms.

6. It frees your clients from getting “stuck.”

Because you are addressing underlying processes rather than following a prescribed protocol, you will know what to do if it seems like your client is hitting a wall in therapy… just switch to working on one of the other underlying processes, and keep trying new things until you see the processes move. There is no reason ever to feel “stuck” again.