Maximize Your Coaching Effectiveness With Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

More than 20 client exercises available online

BOOST YOUR LIFE-COACHING PRACTICE with

ACCEPTANCE & COMMITMENT THERAPY As a life coach, you help people live purposeful lives that are driven by their deepest values. And although your clients may not have diagnosable mental health disorders, it’s likely that many of them encounter mental roadblocks such as fear, stress, anxiety, and worry that keep them from reaching their goals and developing their full potential.

Maximize your coaching effectiveness by: •

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•

•

ADAPTING POWERFUL PSYCHOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES TO FIT YOUR LIFE-COACHING PRACTICE LEARNING SIMPLE EXERCISES YOU CAN DO WITH CLIENTS TO HELP THEM GET UNSTUCK GETTING TIPS FOR ASSESSING CLIENTS, ASSIGNING HOMEWORK, AND SPARKING MOTIVATION HELPING CLIENTS MASTER MINDFULNESS TO OVERCOME FEAR, WORRY, AND PROCRASTINATION newharbingerpublications, inc. www.newharbinger.com

Thousands of cognitive behavioral psychologists from around the world rely on a method called acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help their therapeutic clients get “unstuck” from these barriers and improve their level of functioning. In Maximize Your Coaching Effectiveness with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, you’ll learn to help your coaching clients harness these powerful psychological techniques to identify their passions, set values-based professional and personal goals, and realize their full potential. By guiding your clients through ACT-based exercises in mindfulness training and values clarification, you’ll help them accept aspects of their situations that can’t be changed, coexist with fear and other painful emotions, and commit to taking the actions that will lead them to success.

RICHARD BLONNA, EdD, is a university professor and

author in Hillsborough, NJ, who has integrated acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) principles and practices into his work as a teacher and nationally certified life coach, counselor, and health education specialist.

Maximize Your Coaching Effectiveness with Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Blonna

PSYCHOLOGY

Maximize Your

Coaching Effectiveness with

Skills to help your clients:

• •Improve psychological flexibility • •Get unstuck • •Achieve goals • •Live a purposeful, values-driven life

Acceptance & Commitment

Therapy Richard Blonna, EdD

Richard Blonna, EdD, is a university professor and author who has integrated acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) principles and practices into his work as a teacher and nationally certified life coach, counselor, and health education specialist. He has helped thousands of students and clients learn how to manage stress and other mental barriers and meet their life goals. He lives in Hillsborough, NJ.

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“For any coach who wants to be more effective and find more fulfillment in their work, this textbook is a must-have. Richard Blonna has done an excellent job of making the ACT model clear and accessible. Not just a highly practical book, but also an interesting and entertaining read.” —Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap and ACT Made Simple

“Blonna has done a superlative job of integrating the ACT principles and practices with coaching. I found the most valuable part was dealing with what Blonna calls the psychologically inflexible client. His tips for how to assist clients in getting ‘unstuck’ using values fusing are enlightening and powerful. I also greatly appreciate his mindfulness strategies and how they blend with his concrete and practical tools. His intake forms are essential for all practitioners. This book is a must-read for both coaches and counselors!” —Lyn Kelley, PhD, LMFT, CPC, president of GROW Training Institute, Inc., continuing education and coach training organization

“This beautifully written and intensely practical book marries two unlikely bedfellows— a therapeutic approach (ACT) with the practice of life coaching. Guided by the author’s gentle, expert hand, it became clear to me that this marriage is like that of two soulmates, who together dance effortlessly, elevating one another to achieve a common purpose: a life that matters. This book delivers on the promise in its title. Full of practical exercises and evidence-based know-how, it is a must-read for life coaches who want to enrich their work and make a difference in the lives of those who are stuck and trying to find a way forward.” —John P. Forsyth, PhD, professor of psychology and director of the anxiety disorders research program at the University of Albany - SUNY and author of Your Life on Purpose and The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety

“For many years, acceptance and commitment training has been applied to organizations, and it’s only natural to extend the benefits to coaching. In his book, Blonna combines a clear and concise description of ACT with his vast knowledge of coaching. Beyond those interested in coaching, anyone interested in using ACT for themselves or with others would benefit from reading this book.” —Kevin L. Polk, PhD, author of Psychological Flexibility Training

“ACT seems destined to transform the coaching profession. The scientifically-based principles of ACT are based on the psychology of normal people and fit the structure and purpose of coaching hand in glove. Readable, sensible, and comprehensive, this volume shows you exactly how to apply ACT to your coaching practice. If you work as a coach or are considering doing so, there is no better place to begin.” —Steven C. Hayes, PhD, Foundation Professor at the University of Nevada and author of Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life

MaxiMizE YouR

coaching EffEctivEnEss with

accEptancE & coMMitMEnt

thERapY RichaRd Blonna, Edd New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

Publisher’s Note This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books Copyright © 2010 by Richard Blonna New Harbinger Publications, Inc. 5674 Shattuck Avenue Oakland, CA 94609 www.newharbinger.com

“Strategy 39; Strength of Values” from VALUES CLARIFICATION by Dr. Sidney B. Simon, Dr. Leland W. Howe, and Dr. Howard Kirschenbaum. Copyright © 1995 by Dr. Sidney B. Simon, Dr. Leland W. Howe and Dr. Howard Kirschenbaum. By permission of Grand Central Publishing.

All Rights Reserved Acquired by Tesilya Hanauer; Cover design by Amy Shoup; Edited by Nelda Street

     Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Blonna, Richard. Maximize your coaching effectiveness with acceptance and commitment therapy / Richard Blonna. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-57224-931-8 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-57224-932-5 (pdf ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-60882-654-4 (epub ebook) 1. Personal coaching. 2. Motivation (Psychology) 3. Acceptance and commitment therapy. I. Title. BF637.P36.B58 2011 158’.3--dc22 2011005850

This book is dedicated to Lyn Kelley, Ph.D., my coaching mentor.

Contents

Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

vii

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

Chapter 1

ACT Coaching and Psychotherapy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

◆  ◆  ◆ 

Coaching: An Evolving Discipline  ◆  ACT Principles and Practices for Coaches An ACT Model of Coaching  ◆  The Psychologically Inflexible Client  Making Referrals

Chapter 2

What Is ACT?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

◆  ◆ 

The Acceptance Component of ACT  ◆  The Commitment Component of ACT  The Therapeutic Component of ACT  ◆  ACT Theory 101  ◆  Ten Common Thinking Traps  ◆  Defusing from Common Thinking Traps

21

Maximize Your Coaching Effectiveness with ACT

Chapter 3

Getting Stuck and How to Get Unstuck. . . . . . . . . . . .

◆ 

Getting Stuck 

◆ 

41

Getting Unstuck

Chapter 4

Helping Clients Define Their Valued Directions . . . . . .

◆ 

What Are Values?  ◆  Values Are the Mirrors of the Soul  ◆ Clarifying Values: A Four-Step Process  ◆  Values Clarification: An ACT-Based Framework  ◆  An ACT Perspective on Values  ◆  Fusing with Values

59

Chapter 5

Helping Clients Commit to Act by Setting Goals . . . . . .

◆ 

A Purposeful Life 

◆ 

Setting Realistic Goals ◆  Inflexibility and Goals

83

Chapter 6

Helping Clients Be Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

◆  What Is Mindfulness?  ◆  Basic Assumptions About Attention  ◆  Misdirected Attention: Not Paying Attention to the Present Moment  ◆ Multitasking ◆  Practicing Everyday Mindfulness  ◆  Becoming More Mindful  ◆  Mindfulness Meditation

101

Chapter 7

Increasing Acceptance and Willingness by Giving Up Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

◆ 

What Can Be Controlled  ◆  What Can’t Be Controlled  ◆  Managing vs. Avoiding, Eliminating, or Controlling  ◆  Building Acceptance and Willingness  ◆  Accepting and Embracing Change  ◆  Experiential Avoidance

vi

Chapter 8

Integrating ACT into Your Coaching Practice. . . . . . . . 141

◆ 

A Three-Part Model for Working with Clients  ◆  Becoming an ACT-Based Coach: A Six-Step Process  ◆  Some Final Words

Appendix A

Client Initial Interview Form. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Appendix B

Sample Informed Consent Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

◆ 

Informed Consent

References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

163

vii

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank everyone who has contributed to this book and to my evolution as an ACT coach. It’s certainly been a long, strange trip. First, thanks to Lyn Kelley for introducing me to the field of coaching and for training me as a certified professional coach (CPC). Lyn opened my eyes to a new profession that perfectly fits who I am and what I want to do in the next phase of my life and professional work. She is a master motivator, who helped me chart a new course for my life that included writing this book. Thanks also to Frank Healy for his coaching supervision and encouragement during this project. I am forever grateful to Trudy Boyle for introducing me to acceptance and commitment therapy and to the work of Steven Hayes. Without Trudy’s introduction to acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), I probably would have missed the third wave of cognitive behavioral therapy, instead of catching the tail end and enjoying part of the ride. Next, I’d like to thank the ACT series editors, Georg H. Eifert, John P. Forsyth, Steven C. Hayes, and Robyn Walser, for the opportunity to write this book. By giving me the opportunity to introduce ACT principles and practices to the field of coaching, they exhibited a generosity and openness that is rare in the cloistered worlds of academia and psychotherapy. I thank them for opening their hearts and minds to this application of ACT. I hope it leads to even further dissemination of their work. I am humbled to have my name in print next to theirs and hope this book meets the high standards they have set for the ACT series. I’d also like to thank the “wild man” of ACT, Kevin Polk, for his caring and support and for teaching me ACT. I definitely would not be here without him.

Maximize Your Coaching Effectiveness with ACT

Thanks to Linda Anderson Krech and Gregg Krech for their continued generosity and support. Their work at the ToDo Institute in Vermont continues to lead the way in bringing Japanese therapeutic principles and practices to helpers across the globe. Because their approach to working with clients complements ACT’s view of helping, I’ve integrated it into this book and into my work with students and clients. Next, I want to thank Matt McKay, cofounder and publisher of New Harbinger Publications, for his continued support. Under his guidance, the ACT series of books has expanded in breadth and depth to become the definitive clearinghouse for acceptance and commitment therapy. By publishing this project and others, Matt has demonstrated openness to new applications of ACT, which keeps New Harbinger at the cutting edge of publishing in psychotherapy and self-help. New Harbinger has assembled a team of support staff that can only be described as top shelf. I have never worked with a better publishing team than Tesilya Hanauer, Kayla Sussell, Jess Beebe, Heather Garnos, Jean Blomquist, Melissa Valentine, Jesse Burson, Nelda Street, Jeannette Mann, Michele Waters, and Will DeRooy. From acquisition to the final edit, they guided this project and refined it every step of the way. I could never have produced such a fine book without their nurturing and caring. They were always there with encouragement and support as needed. Special thanks go to Amy Shoup and Tracy Carlson for their excellent design work. Amy continues to amaze me; her brilliance in cover design makes people just want to reach out and pick up the book. Tracy’s design of the interior of books is unmatched, making them easy on the eyes and a joy to read. Thanks to my friend Ken Horvath for his insights and suggestions on the manuscript and on my writing struggles in general. I’d also like to thank him for being there when I needed a sounding board. Besides for being my best friend and reviewer, thanks also to my wife, Heidi, for her unwavering support over the past two years as I finished this and three other books. She continues to give me the space and support I need to write, teach, and work with students and clients. Hopefully I can make it up to her by being a better bridge player and tennis partner.

x

Introduction

I am very excited about this book, because it is the only book targeting professional coaches that integrates acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) principles and practices with coaching. I’m sure that after reading it, you’ll see why ACT is such a natural fit for coaches and why I’m just as excited about it today as I was a few years ago, when I first learned about it. A few years ago, I received an article from a friend of mine about a man named Steven Hayes, a professor at the University of Nevada–Reno. Hayes had undertaken a miraculous journey from the depths of despair and mental illness to founding a new form of psychotherapy—called acceptance and commitment therapy—that was sweeping the nation and the world. Fascinated with the story of Steven Hayes and the development of ACT, I began to read everything I could on the subject. As a result of my interest, I joined the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS), the parent professional organization representing ACT researchers and practitioners around the world. ACBS is the clearinghouse for information and resources related to ACT, and through this association, I connected with Kevin Polk, a noted ACT trainer and psychotherapist working in Maine. Polk’s primary client population is veterans suffering from PTSD, an area I was very interested in. After my initial meeting with Polk, I knew I wanted to work with him to learn as much as I could about ACT. He exuded a passion for ACT, a down-to-earth training approach, and a dry sense of humor that seemed to be a good fit for me. I worked with Polk for over a year and got the training and professional

Maximize Your Coaching Effectiveness with ACT

supervision I needed to apply basic ACT therapeutic principles in my work teaching and coaching clients and students. An outgrowth of my work with Polk was my first ACT book, Stress Less, Live More: How Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Can Help You Live a Busy yet Balanced Life (Blonna, 2010). ACT so neatly fit the way I helped people manage their stress that I felt driven to write this book and knew I couldn’t rest until I did. As I wrote Stress Less, Live More, I soon realized that much of the material I was putting into words and directing at the general public also applied to coaches and their clients. I could see that the same ACT-based applications I was developing for people suffering from stress could be tailored to coach clients who were stuck in a variety of issues and not making progress toward their personal and professional goals. I decided to put together a proposal for the current book and was lucky enough to get it approved. As a college professor, writer, nationally certified professional coach (CPC), national certified counselor (NCC), and certified health education specialist (CHES), my interdisciplinary background has afforded me the opportunity to develop a unique approach to working with clients. I’ve developed an eclectic method of coaching that integrates these various disciplines and blends traditional coaching methods with select Eastern and Western psychotherapeutic techniques, and hardy health habits, such as daily exercise and meditation. While I am a nationally certified counselor, I am not a licensed therapist. At age fiftyfive, I was in the process of making a career shift to become a licensed counselor when I discovered coaching, shifted gears, and started moving in that direction. While earning continuing-education credits for counseling, I attended a workshop on coaching by Lyn Kelley, a licensed therapist and coach. Halfway through the workshop, I realized I was more drawn to coaching than psychotherapy, because coaching seemed a much better fit for the kind of work I wanted to do and the client population I wanted to work with. I was so impressed with Kelley that I spent the next two years working with her to earn my certified professional coach (CPC) credential from the Grow Training Institute. Kelley is a dynamic coach and teacher who really helped me focus on how to integrate my knowledge, skills, and eclectic background into a unique approach to coaching. One thing I want to make clear at the start of this book is that I have no intention of teaching you to become an ACT therapist or teaching you how to practice therapy. I am not licensed or able to do either. The word “therapy” may have already sent up a red flag in your mind, but this is not a book about psychotherapy. It’s a book about how to use principles and practices drawn from acceptance and commitment therapy to help your coaching clients get unstuck and meet their goals. There’s a big difference between ­coaching and

2

Introduction

providing therapy. As long as you are clear about your intentions and understand the limitations of your training and credentials, you can use practices drawn from a wide range of modalities to help your clients. Specifically, without being a therapist, you can use practices derived from ACT as long as you stick to working as a coach with clients who do not need psychotherapy. Coaching theory and practice revolve around helping to motivate clients to achieve their goals and live purposeful lives driven by their values. Coaching theory assumes that clients are whole, functioning people who are looking to improve their lives. Coaches assume their clients know what’s best for themselves and are able to plan for the future and solve their own problems. If your clients are like mine, they often seek coaching help because they are stuck in a rut and are not making progress toward their goals. Though not dysfunctional, they are often suffering from anxiety, worry, stress, and a host of other problems in addition to being stuck. Every day, they struggle with unhelpful thoughts and painful emotions that contribute to their becoming psychologically inflexible, stuck in a rut, and unable to meet their goals. ACT theory and practice revolves around helping clients develop greater psychological flexibility, improve their underlying psychopathology, and become unstuck. According to ACT theory, clients become psychologically inflexible due to six key factors:

◆◆ Attachment to the conceptualized self ◆◆ Cognitive fusion ◆◆ Dominance of outmoded scripts and learning ◆◆ Experiential avoidance ◆◆ Lack of clarity concerning values ◆◆ Inaction, impulsivity, and rigidity Don’t let the ACT talk scare you. In chapters 1 and 3, I spend a lot of time explaining what these factors are and demonstrating how they apply to coaching. Later in the book, I describe how these same factors are the root of stress, worry, anxiety, and other pain and suffering that cause coaching clients to get stuck and stop progressing toward their goals. ACT uses six core therapeutic processes to help clients develop greater psychological flexibility, get unstuck, and begin functioning again:

◆◆ Being present 3

Maximize Your Coaching Effectiveness with ACT

◆◆ Defining valued directions ◆◆ Taking committed action ◆◆ Seeing the self as context ◆◆ Practicing acceptance ◆◆ Using cognitive defusion I go over these therapeutic processes in detail in chapter 3 to show how you can modify them for your work with coaching clients. While the presenting problems differ for clients seeking coaching compared to clients needing therapy, both share the common problem of being psychologically inflexible and stuck in a rut. The major difference is that coaching clients are still able to function (often at a very high level), despite their psychological inflexibility, while therapy clients are likely having difficulty functioning in at least one area. Just imagine the heights your clients could soar to if you could help them learn how to manage their troubling thoughts and painful emotions. Your clients would be able to not only reach their goals, but reach them in a much more effective and enjoyable manner. In essence, the process of working toward their goals would be as joyous as the outcome of reaching them. You can modify and use all of the six core therapeutic processes associated with ACT to help your coaching clients get unstuck and meet their goals. I’ll use defining valued directions as an example. One of the things that interested me about ACT from the very beginning was that it’s a form of therapy based on values. ACT revolves around helping clients live meaningful lives—in other words, lives that give them meaning because they revolve around their values. ACT begins with helping clients clarify their values. Defining valued directions involves helping clients clarify their values, set meaningful goals based on their values, and commit to working toward those goals while living with the unhelpful thoughts, outdated personal scripts, disturbing mental images, and negative emotions that often serve as barriers to taking action. Coaches may not call it the same thing, but all forms of coaching involve helping clients define their valued directions. Coaches could benefit from learning the ACT principles and practices related to values clarification, because they are linked to solid research and a strong theoretical framework, the latter of which links defining valued directions to the other core therapeutic processes of ACT and shows how the pieces work together. I am a big fan of strong theoretical frameworks; without a strong framework, just like a building without a

4

Introduction

solid foundation, any approach you use with clients will be shaky and in danger of falling apart. Many coaches use an eclectic mix of techniques that are not linked to any researchbased theoretical framework, which sometimes makes coaching more art than science and could result in making all of your efforts with some clients come tumbling down. Coaches and their clients would benefit tremendously from an approach that’s grounded in a solid theoretical framework, such as the six core therapeutic processes of ACT. Another core therapeutic process of ACT that should resonate with coaches is taking committed action. The commitment part of ACT is based on helping clients commit to taking action toward goals that mesh with their values, which is very difficult for them to do when they are held back by painful emotions and troubling thoughts. ACT teaches clients how to be willing to take action while living with these troubling thoughts and painful emotions. Learning to be willing is a major part of ACT therapy. A big part of coaching is helping motivate clients to take committed action. You’ve probably heard a thousand times from clients how difficult it is to take action because of their doubts, fears, worries, and anxiety. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to explain to them why they feel these things and how you can help them manage these troubling thoughts and painful emotions? Wouldn’t it be even nicer to know that your explanations are based on solid, evidence-based research? When you understand the theoretical framework of ACT that links acceptance and commitment to the core therapeutic processes, you can maximize your effectiveness in helping your clients move forward and meet their goals. Many of the forms and exercises in this book are available at this New Harbinger website: http://9318.nhpubs.com.

When you see this computer mouse next to a form or exercise, you will know that you can find a copy at the website.

You might find that you don’t need all of the forms or exercises, or that you don’t need to cover all of the practices described in this book with all of your clients. That’s up to you. You know your clients and your own interests and limitations better than anyone. I hope you enjoy reading this book and learning about ACT, whether or not you choose to make ACT a part of your work with your clients.

5

Chapter 1

ACT Coaching and Psychotherapy

What does it mean to be an ACT coach? What distinguishes an ACT coach from other life coaches and psychotherapists? An ACT coach is someone who understands, practices, and uses ACT principles to help clients move forward and engage in purposeful behavior that’s congruent with their values and helps them meet their goals. Clients often have troubling thoughts and painful emotions that make this process difficult. The more flexible clients are in managing their troubling thoughts and painful emotions, the more likely they are to continue moving forward and making progress at meeting their goals and living a life that’s consistent with their values. The more rigid and controlling clients are in managing these troubling thoughts and painful emotions, the more likely they are to become overwhelmed by them, get stuck, and find it very difficult to make progress toward their goals. ACT calls this scenario psychological inflexibility and has developed a model that identifies six factors that contribute to this inflexibility and to getting stuck. I will only briefly mention the six factors here but will go over them in more detail in the coming chapters:

◆◆ Attachment to the conceptualized self ◆◆ Cognitive fusion ◆◆ Dominance of outmoded scripts and learning

Maximize Your Coaching Effectiveness with ACT

◆◆ Experiential avoidance ◆◆ Lack of clarity concerning values ◆◆ Inaction, impulsivity, and rigidity Again, don’t let the psychotherapeutic feel of these words scare you. Later, I’ll go over them in detail and show you how to explain these factors to your clients. For now I’d just like you to accept the fact that these factors originate in the mind, and result when clients confuse what their minds create (thoughts, emotions, images, scripts) with actual things they can experience with their five senses. To demonstrate what I mean, I’d like you to do the following: Gather the ingredients needed to mix your favorite drink. Choose your favorite glass, add ice, and mix the drink. It can be alcoholic or not. Now hold the glass up to the light and observe the color and consistency of the mixture. Feel the weight of the glass in your hand. Now close your eyes and notice the aroma of the drink. Hear the ice cubes clink on the side of the glass. Take a sip of the drink and roll the liquid around your mouth while swallowing slowly. Put the drink down and close your eyes. Now I want you to just think about the drink. Don’t take a sip; just think about it. What are your thoughts about the drink? Are your thoughts about the drink the same thing as actually drinking it? In chapter 3 I’ll show you how to use this example with your clients as a formal in-session exercise. Clients often confuse their thoughts about something with the actual experience. Sometimes this leads to their getting stuck. In other words, instead of living their lives, clients get stuck in what’s going on in their minds. In this book I’ll teach you ACT techniques for helping clients understand when the activity of their minds is helpful or unhelpful in meeting their goals. You don’t have to be a psychotherapist to use ACT principles and practices to help your clients get unstuck. You can integrate the principles and practices into your coaching work with clients to help them get unstuck and to help them continue moving forward to achieve their goals and live the lives they dream about. In keeping with the ACT tradition, I strongly suggest that you complete all of the exercises in this book, which will help you in two ways: it will help you understand how all of the processes work, and you will be able to convey the impact of the exercises because you will have experienced them firsthand.

8

ACT Coaching and Psychotherapy

Before I talk about what it means to be an ACT coach, let’s take a quick look at the similarities and differences between coaches and therapists and between the clients they work with.

COACHING: AN EVOLVING DISCIPLINE Life coaching seems to be the next step in the evolution of traditional psychotherapy. Just as counselors and clinical social workers have struggled to define their practices and distinguish what they do from clinical psychology, life coaches have fought to create their niche among helping professionals. Coaching has not made traditional therapy extinct. Traditional psychotherapy still serves those clients with diagnosable mental illnesses who are in need of clinical services. Coaching fills a need for clients seeking professional help in living a more purposeful life and achieving their potential. Patrick Williams (2007) identifies four major areas that clearly delineate the differences between coaching and psychotherapy:

◆◆ Purpose ◆◆ Focus ◆◆ Nature of the client–helper relationship ◆◆ Solicitation of clients Let’s take a closer look at these four areas. Keep in mind, however, that there’s a lot of variation between the way these areas are reflected in ACT and other forms of psychotherapy. I’ll identify where ACT breaks from other forms of psychotherapy in the four areas.

Purpose The purpose of coaching is to help clients actualize their full potential and lead purposeful and meaningful lives. Coaching is based on the premise that clients have the innate ability to develop a plan to do so, but often need help and guidance in working out the details. Coaching does not assume that clients are broken and need fixing. Coaches work with clients who have not been diagnosed with mental illnesses and who can function at a satisfactory level. By helping clients clarify their values, set goals and objectives, and remove

9

Maximize Your Coaching Effectiveness with ACT

barriers, coaches help clients get beyond functioning at a merely satisfactory level so they can excel. Rather than viewing clients as broken and in need of fixing, coaches see them as stuck and in need of help in getting unstuck. The purpose of psychotherapy is to help clients with mental disorders who are not functioning at a satisfactory level return to normal functioning. Such disorders meet the criteria specified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) (APA, 2000). In essence, the mental disorder interferes with the client’s ability to work, parent, interact with others, function in social settings, and so forth. ACT therapists also work with clients who have diagnosed mental disorders, but these therapists share the view of coaches that clients are stuck, not broken. ACT therapists focus on helping clients accept their troubling thoughts and painful emotions rather than try to fix them.

Focus on the Future Coaching is future oriented. Clients come to coaches because they have hopes, dreams, and goals they want to meet. They are looking forward to moving to a better place and want help getting there. Though functioning on at least an adequate level, they want more out of their jobs, their relationships, their lives. In many cases, coaching clients are high achievers who are functioning well in many aspects of their lives but sometimes get stuck in a rut and need help getting out of it. Helping them get unstuck usually involves looking into the future and talking about where they want to be and what’s standing in their way. Coaches rarely spend a lot of time looking at the past to try to figure out where clients went wrong. While coaches help clients draw strength from their past failures and successes, they do not focus much of their energy on analyzing why clients are stuck or dissatisfied with their present lives. After a short assessment of this material, coaches start helping clients lay out a path to get to where they want to be. ACT therapists take a similar approach in that they do not spend a lot of time dealing with the past and are not concerned with trying to figure out where things went wrong. They focus on the present and on helping clients take action that’s congruent with their values while accepting troubling thoughts and painful emotions. Although most other forms of traditional psychotherapy also help clients look to the future, they try to get to the root of problems by looking backward and examining the historical precedents that led to the present dysfunction. Clients come to psychotherapy with problematic symptoms, are diagnosed with disorders, and work with therapists to fix these problems. Therapists usually approach these problems by talking at length to clients 10

ACT Coaching and Psychotherapy

about the history of their symptoms, the extent and duration of their suffering, and any past attempts to fix their problems. Therapists spend a lot of time discussing the past with clients in hopes of giving them insights into the origin of their problems.

Nature of the Client–Helper Relationship Coaches are facilitators who view clients as equals and as whole people who don’t need fixing. Coaches assume that clients already possess the resources and ability to increase their level of functioning and meet their goals. The coaching process unlocks those resources and unleashes clients’ abilities to use them. This is why there are fewer formal boundaries between coaches and their clients than there are between psychotherapists and their clients. Traditional psychotherapy is grounded on the establishment of formal boundaries and professional distance between client and therapist. Most psychotherapists are trained to maintain a level of professionalism that usually is transmitted by conveying a friendly but somewhat detached persona. Clients usually view traditional therapists as experts who will show them how to fix their problems and get better, so it’s harder for them to view their therapists as equals in the treatment process.

Soliciting Clients Coaches are free to seek clients in whatever fashion works. It’s easier for coaches than for psychotherapists to market their services, because what they have to offer clients does not revolve around problems or mental illnesses. For example, coaches could host a lecture or open house and freely talk about their services and unique approach to working with clients. Anyone attending an open house could be there for a variety of reasons. A person would not have to have a problem or illness to attend, learn more about the subject and the coach, and decide whether working with that coach would be a good fit. Now imagine if a therapist who was trying to attract new clients offered a lecture for the general public on depression. It would be much more difficult for those suffering from depression to sign up, attend, and ask questions without feeling subjected to stigmatization. It would be very difficult for the therapist sponsoring the event to interact with people in the audience without fear of violating their confidentiality or embarrassing them. While there are other differences between psychotherapy and coaching, the four areas just discussed lay out the basic parameters for the two practices. The area of overlap that serves as the guiding framework for this book is that both coaching and psychotherapy 11

Maximize Your Coaching Effectiveness with ACT

clients suffer from emotional distress to the extent that it makes them less psychologically flexible, causes them to get stuck, and makes it harder for them to meet their goals and dreams. It isn’t that both sets of clients don’t suffer; everyone suffers. What differs between the two types of clients is the level of functioning. Psychotherapy clients have disorders that disrupt normal functioning to such an extent that they meet the criteria established by the DSM-IV, while coaching clients do not. There is a fine line between the two, and establishing clinical diagnoses is as much art as science. In the remainder of this chapter, I’ll examine how coaches can use ACT principles and practices to help their coaching clients get unstuck and move forward.

ACT PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES FOR COACHES Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a form of psychotherapy whose principles and practices are linked to cognitive behavioral therapy and relational frame theory. Though originally designed to help clients who have diagnosable mental illnesses, ACT’s principles and practices have been adapted to help clients who are stressed and suffering from milder forms of anxiety and worry (but do not meet the DSM-IV criteria). In general, ACT principles and practices can be applied to anyone who is stuck as a result of psychological inflexibility and attempts to control, rather than accept, troubling thoughts and painful emotions. I’ve used ACT principles and practices in my own life as well as in my coaching practice. The starting point for integrating ACT into your coaching work is differentiating between using ACT principles and practices and being an ACT therapist. As already discussed, you don’t have to be an ACT psychotherapist to use ACT principles and practices in your work. As long as you understand your limitations as a coach and differentiate between using ACT principles and practices and performing ACT therapy, you are on solid legal and ethical ground. In the last section of this chapter, I provide guidelines for how to refer clients who need psychotherapy or other services that you cannot morally, ethically, or legally provide.

AN ACT MODEL OF COACHING As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, ACT identifies six factors that contribute to psychological inflexibility and getting stuck (attachment to the conceptualized self, cognitive fusion, and so on). As mentioned in the introduction, ACT therapy revolves around six 12

ACT Coaching and Psychotherapy

core therapeutic processes used to help clients overcome the factors that contributed to their psychological inflexibility. Thee processes are:

◆◆ Being present ◆◆ Defining valued directions ◆◆ Taking committed action ◆◆ Seeing the self as context ◆◆ Practicing acceptance ◆◆ Using cognitive defusion Being present is synonymous with paying attention, increasing focus, and becoming more mindful. Mindfulness training involves helping clients become more aware of what’s going on in their minds and bodies as well as their environments. Coaches can use mindfulness training to help clients become more aware of their thinking, feeling, and behaving, and note how this either helps or hinders their efforts to meet their goals. Defining a client’s valued directions revolves around clarifying the person’s values, which is a four-step process: 1. Identify values. 2. Rank values. 3. Make others aware of values. 4. Act on values. Coaches can use this process of values clarification to help clients set meaningful goals based on their values. Practicing acceptance revolves around accepting the way the mind works in generating thoughts and feelings, and giving up trying to control troubling thoughts and painful emotions. It works hand in hand with taking committed action. When clients take committed action, they are willing to move forward while living with their troubling thoughts and painful emotions, rather than feeling that they must eliminate them before they can act. Seeing the self as context and using cognitive defusion also work together. When clients take a self-as-context view, rather than be their thoughts and feelings, they become observers 13

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of them. Being the thoughts and feelings is referred to as taking a self-as-content view, the opposite of the self-as-context perspective. I’ll describe this in greater detail in chapter 2. Using cognitive defusion is the process of reversing the self-as-content view. When clients defuse, they break their overattachment to unhelpful thoughts and feelings. These therapeutic processes help clients 1) develop greater psychological flexibility by becoming more accepting of their pain and suffering and more willing to take action that’s congruent with their values; 2) learn how to live with their troubling thoughts and painful emotions instead of trying to control them; and 3) accept the way their minds work rather than fight it. Coaches could benefit from learning ACT principles and practices related to these therapeutic processes, as well as from understanding the theoretical framework that links defining valued directions to the other core therapeutic processes of ACT. As mentioned before, many coaches use an eclectic mix of techniques that are not linked to any research-based theoretical framework, so they would benefit from grounding some of these techniques in a solid theoretical framework, such as ACT’s six core therapeutic processes.

THE PSYCHOLOGICALLY INFLEXIBLE CLIENT Like psychotherapy clients, your coaching clients often get stuck because of their psychological inflexibility. You’ve probably seen that many of your high-achieving coaching clients are a little high strung, stressed out, one dimensional, unyielding, aggressive, and uncompromising. While these and other traits do not necessarily represent undiagnosed mental disorders, they might reflect the psychological inflexibility that holds people back from being all they can be. Let me use a stressed-out client named Lynette as an example.

Lynette’s Story Lynette is a former student and client. I’ve changed her name and a couple of other characteristics to maintain her confidentiality but retained all of the key aspects of her case to illustrate how I used ACT to help her. A high achiever, Lynette recently returned to college full-time at age thirty-five to finish her bachelor’s degree in business with a focus on management. She sees this as a stepping-stone to earning her MBA and attaining a high-level management position in a 14

ACT Coaching and Psychotherapy

large c­ orporate travel agency. She earned an associate’s degree in travel agency management fifteen years ago and has already had a successful ten-year career as an agent and owner of her own small travel agency. Besides attending college full-time, Lynette still manages her agency while being a mother, a wife, and a homemaker. Lynette is an intelligent, energetic, highly organized, and hardworking woman. On paper it looks as if she is successfully juggling her various roles, but in person, she’s a train wreck waiting to happen, because she’s stuck in her troubling thoughts and painful emotions about being a “superwoman.” Lynette has a personal script and mental image of herself as being able to not only manage all of these roles but do them all perfectly. She still clings to the same standards she set for each of these roles individually, even though now she’s involved in all of these roles simultaneously. Her mind’s standards for perfection might have worked for her in the past, when she was involved in only one or two of these roles at a time (for example, being a worker and a single person maintaining an apartment), but expecting to be able to meet the same standards of perfection while engaging in all her roles simultaneously is not only unrealistic but stressful. Lynette is threatened by her inability to be perfect in all her roles and feels unable to cope with being less than perfect. Lynette is not mentally ill; that is, she does not have a disorder that falls within the parameters of any of the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria. However, she is exhausted, unhappy, anxious, and worried, and she can’t fall asleep without sleeping pills. She feels stuck because she has created a personal script and mental image of a perfect life for herself but sees it as falling apart and doesn’t know how to reorganize her goals and priorities to continue moving forward. I tell her I won’t spend a lot of time discussing her past but will talk a little about how her past experiences factor into how she views the present and thinks about the future. Specifically, I explain an ACT view of how her mind works when it’s stuck and how it takes unhelpful information from her past and projects it into the future. I also explain that, rather than try to control, avoid, or eliminate these unhelpful thoughts and feelings about the past, present, and future, I will teach her how to accept these things and move forward in her life. I briefly explain how ACT research shows that ruminating over troubling thoughts and painful emotions actually makes them worse (see chapter 2 for a clear explanation of this). The next thing I do is help Lynette examine and clarify her values, which helps her examine her goal of earning her bachelor’s degree in light of what she truly values most in life, which she identifies as education, family, and career-growth opportunities. We rank her values and find that having a perfect house and workplace are the least important things

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to her. We also discuss how her goal of earning her degree represents a broad, long-term outcome and how she needs to set short-term, measurable objectives that can help her track her progress toward her goal. She decides that being a college student facilitates setting up quarterly goals, since school revolves around the quarter system. The last things we discuss related to her goals are the criteria she establishes for success, specifically, trying to do everything perfectly. She agrees that she can no longer do everything perfectly, because she simply does not have the time. She even admits that she can accept some things as being less than perfect (the cleanliness of her house, for one). Lynette understands that her mind sends her outdated visual images and personal scripts (collections of thoughts) about her standards for perfection and that she’s stuck trying to adhere to them, when in fact they are no longer helpful to her in meeting her goals. I explain to Lynette that she must be vigilant in paying attention to what her mind tells her about her goals, objectives, and standards for perfection. I explain that to do this, she needs to become more mindful, and I teach her how to practice mindfulness, both as a formal meditative experience and as part of her everyday practices, like eating, cleaning, and caring for her dog. Since Lynette is not afraid to commit to doing the work, the commitment part of ACT is simple. The hardest thing for her to understand is the notion of committing to act despite the presence of troubling thoughts and painful emotions. Once she understands how trying to control, avoid, or eliminate such thoughts and emotions actually makes them worse, she accepts that she can move forward while carrying her troublesome thoughts and painful feelings along for the ride. We spend the rest of the time talking about specific relaxation strategies and lifestyle changes related to managing her stress. She really likes diaphragmatic breathing and visualization, and she even goes so far as to write and record her own visualization script that revolves around a relaxing day floating on a raft in a mountain lake. She also starts to take control of her time more efficiently by using a cleaning service to care for her house; she manages to negotiate a good deal with the same service that cleans her office. Rather than try to micromanage her travel agency, she decides to hire an office manager to essentially run the place on the days she’s in school. Little by little, she begins to take control of her time and spend it more on the things she really values than on activities that are a source of stress. Lynette earns her undergraduate degree and enrolls in an online MBA program that affords her the greatest flexibility while providing a high-quality academic experience. When I last speak with her, she feels better and enjoys her life while steadily progressing toward

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her newest goal of earning her MBA. She explains that the work we have done together has helped her move forward and meet her goals while staying true to her values. She feels that she has learned how to accept her unhelpful thoughts about work, cleaning, and being a “superwoman.” She also is willing to live with the guilt she sometimes feels about paying someone to clean her house and about delegating some of her work-related tasks to others, because she realizes she values her time with her family more than cleaning and minor work tasks.

MAKING REFERRALS Sometimes, as much as you would like to work with a client, you know that the person’s needs and your abilities are not a good fit. When this happens, you are morally, ethically, and legally obligated to refer these clients to someone who can best serve them. In some cases the person needs help in areas where you lack expertise. In other cases you realize the client probably has a mental disorder that requires the help of a licensed therapist. The best way for you to avoid potential legal and ethical violations is to refer clients for additional help when their needs exceed your experience, abilities, and credentials. A key criterion for helping you decide when to refer clients to a therapist is when you suspect that the barriers they have to achieving their goals are mental disorders falling within the parameters established by the aforementioned DSM-IV (APA, 2000). You don’t need to be a therapist to understand this reference book, nor do you need to master every nuance of it. However, you do need to be familiar enough with it to use it as a guide when you suspect your clients have needs that are beyond your abilities to help them with. If you have a face-to-face practice, it would be helpful for you to develop a close working relationship with local area therapists. Not only are they good people to whom to refer clients in need of additional help, they will also serve as a good source of clients for you. If you have a virtual, or online, practice, you can help clients use the Internet to identify licensed professional counselors in their area.

EXERCISE: How to Make a Referral There are four key steps to making a referral: 1. Identify a client in need. 17

Maximize Your Coaching Effectiveness with ACT

2. Talk to the client about referrals. 3. Make the referral. 4. Follow up.

Identify a client in need. The following indicators suggest a client needs a referral: 1. During the initial intake assessment, you realize:

◆◆ The client’s needs, barriers, or goals are more suited for some other form of counseling than coaching, or even for psychotherapy.

◆◆ The client is hesitant to discuss her needs with you. ◆◆ The client seems utterly hopeless or helpless. ◆◆ The client talks about ending his life. ◆◆ The client asks for information or help that’s outside or beyond your range of knowledge, expertise, or training. 2. After working with the client for one or more sessions, you realize:

◆◆ Any of the issues discussed in step 1 is relevant. ◆◆ You feel you do not have the ability to help the person. ◆◆ The client describes changes in recent behavior that indicate a risk of suicide (for example, a dramatic drop in school or work performance, poor attendance at school or work that’s not due to physical illness, and dramatic changes in physical appearance and hygiene).

Talk to the client about referrals. Following are tips for talking to a client about referrals: 1. Explain to the client that you are very concerned about her welfare: “I want you to know that after hearing your story, I am very concerned about your mental and physical well-being.” 2. Describe what you have observed about changes in your client’s behavior, language, and grooming:

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◆◆ “Your performance and attendance at school or work have really taken a turn for the worse lately.”

◆◆ “You seem to feel very helpless and view your situation as hopeless.” ◆◆ “You mentioned you’ve considered suicide, and I am obligated by law and my professional code of ethics to refer you to someone who can help you with this problem.” 3. Describe your inability to help your client and why it’s unethical for you to continue working with him: “Based on what you’ve told me, I feel I can’t really give you the help you need. Because your needs are beyond the scope of what I can offer you as a coach, I am bound by my professional code of ethics to refer you to someone who can give you the kind of help you need. I hope you understand.” 4. Describe how this referral is a normal part of coaching:

◆◆ “It’s normal for coaches to refer their clients for additional help when they experience what you have been experiencing. Many of my clients in your situation have found it very helpful to speak with a psychotherapist.”

◆◆ “Now that you’ve tried talking to me and it hasn’t helped, it might be time to speak with someone else who might be able to help you.”

Make the referral. Here are the steps involved in making a referral: 1. Explain to your client that you are not allowed to make the actual appointment for her but can walk her through it from your office. 2. Offer to help your client make the phone call while he is with you. 3. If the referral is to a therapist in your office building or complex, offer to walk your client over and wait while the appointment is made. 4. If your client wishes to receive the referral at another time, coach her through it by using role-playing and give the client as much contact information as possible (for example, the correct telephone number, contact person, hours, and fee structure).

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Follow up. Here are the steps to following up with your client: 1. Explain to your client that you are not allowed to call the person you referred him to without his consent. 2. Explain to your client that you expect her to follow through and make the referral appointment because it’s in her best interest to do so. 3. Ask your client to call you after making the referral appointment. 4. Tell your client that if he does not call you to confirm that he made the appointment, you will call him to see how he’s doing. If you follow these guidelines, you should be on solid moral, ethical, and legal ground regarding how you handle referrals and care for your clients’ welfare.

In the next chapter I’ll introduce ACT and discuss how it works so you can begin to understand how to integrate its theories and practices into your coaching practice.

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Chapter 2

What Is ACT?

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a form of psychotherapy based on behavioral theory and, more specifically, relational frame theory (RFT) (Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, & Roche, 2001). The two main processes of ACT include mindfulness and behavioral change. Each has both theoretical and applied dimensions that can be very useful for you in helping your clients stay true to their values as they take steps to meet their goals. ACT is based on helping clients live lives that are consistent with their values and chosen goals.

THE ACCEPTANCE COMPONENT OF ACT Acceptance has four aspects:

◆◆ Mindfulness ◆◆ Accepting that thoughts and emotions can be helpful or unhelpful in taking action congruent with values

◆◆ Accepting what can’t be controlled (thoughts, emotions, personal scripts, and mental images)

◆◆ Accepting what can be controlled (behavior and physical environment) Let’s take a quick look at each of these aspects.

Maximize Your Coaching Effectiveness with ACT

A thread that runs through every aspect of ACT, mindfulness means paying attention to each moment, and being more aware of the internal (thoughts, feelings, body sensations) and external (immediate physical environment) events that are going on. Becoming more mindful is an important skill that can benefit your clients in many aspects of their personal and professional lives. Devoted to mindfulness, chapter 6 is chock full of helpful exercises for clients. To understand how thoughts and emotions can be helpful or unhelpful in taking action that’s congruent with their values, clients first need to clarify their values. This is such an important aspect of ACT that I’ve devoted chapter 4 to the subject. Therein, I spend a lot of time talking about values and how to teach your coaching clients how to identify and clarify their values. I also describe a few values-clarification exercises you can use with your coaching clients to help them start thinking about their values and how they relate to their goals. Accepting what can’t be controlled is a key element of ACT. One of the things that attracted me to ACT in the first place was the research on which the therapy is built. Rather than being based on speculation or mysticism, ACT is based on solid empirical research that studies the relationship among language, emotions, and behavior—research showing that focusing attention and self-talk on trying to control, avoid, or eliminate painful thoughts and feelings can actually increase suffering (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999; Eifert & Heffner, 2003). This is contrary to the prevailing underlying beliefs of most forms of Western psychotherapy. As a coach, however, you will probably find it a perfectly reasonable research outcome, because you do not have the historical bias of training as a therapist. As a coach you don’t dwell on your clients’ painful thoughts and emotions; you help clients take them as a given and move forward. ACT recognizes that pain and suffering are part of life and can be valuable teachers. Unfortunately, many people have the elimination of all pain and suffering as their primary focus in life, moving from one fad to the next in their quest for a pain-free life. Russ Harris (2007), a physician and leading ACT writer, trainer, and therapist, calls this the “happiness trap,” the misguided belief that one can control, avoid, or eliminate all pain and suffering. Over the years, I’ve found that many of my clients and students actually cite this as their goal in life. While this goal sounds good initially, it is counterproductive and actually increases suffering, because it’s an impossible goal to achieve. But clients can control their behavior and certain aspects of their physical environments (the jobs they choose, where they live, and so on). While clients can’t control the thoughts, feelings, personal scripts, and mental images that occur almost nonstop in their minds, they can control how they act in relation to them. For example, just because your client 22

What Is ACT?

feels angry doesn’t mean he has to punch the next person who looks at him the wrong way. Just because your client feels sexy doesn’t mean she will seduce the person who shares her cubicle at work. I’ll go into more detail regarding some of these components of acceptance later in this chapter, when I discuss ACT theory in a little more detail. Bear with me in this chapter, because although a little technical, it lays the foundation for the rest of the book, which is chock full of exercises you can use with your clients that apply the principles discussed here.

THE COMMITMENT COMPONENT OF ACT Commitment is a major part of coaching. Getting clients to commit to taking action that’s consistent with their goals is a foundation of coaching. Also a big part of ACT, commitment revolves around helping people persist with actions that are consistent with their values and goals. When you commit to something, you pledge to yourself to follow through with your plans. I’ve devoted all of chapter 5 to the topic of commitment. It will teach you what you need to know about helping clients stick to their goals and plans while living with their pain and suffering. Commitment training shows clients they don’t have to control, avoid, or eliminate their painful thoughts and feelings to move forward and get on with their lives. Clients often perceive pain and suffering as barriers to their efforts to move forward. ACT teaches them to avoid confusing pain and suffering with real barriers they need to attend to. As long as clients realize it’s normal to have painful thoughts and feelings and to suffer, they’ll feel able to cope with these issues and continue working on their goals. ACT teaches them that the best way to decrease pain and suffering is to accept it rather than try to avoid, control, or eliminate it.

THE THERAPEUTIC COMPONENT OF ACT The therapeutic part of ACT is based on helping clients develop greater psychological flexibility. ACT theory proposes that for a variety of reasons (which I’ll go into later), people lose their psychological flexibility and get stuck. When clients get stuck, they can’t move forward, grow as individuals, and realize their goals and dreams. ACT therapy consists of using different techniques to help clients get unstuck and become more psychologically flexible. As a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, ACT is grounded in the belief that thoughts and self-talk play a major role in psychological flexibility or inflexibility. 23

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A very pragmatic form of psychotherapy, ACT looks at the usefulness of thoughts, emotions, and behavior in specific situations or contexts, in relation to taking values-congruent action and meeting goals. To help determine what’s useful and what isn’t, ACT proposes that you have clients answer the following question: Are these thoughts and feelings helping me act in ways that are consistent with my values and goals? If the answer is yes, the thoughts and feelings are helpful. If the answer is no, they are not helpful with taking values-congruent action. Both helpful and unhelpful thoughts and feelings are accepted equally. Clients can learn how to take action despite the presence of unhelpful thoughts and feelings. For example, imagine that one of your clients is a writer who is having negative thoughts and painful feelings in response to her editor’s comments on the first draft of her manuscript. She tells herself, I’ll never be able to finish this book. I’m a terrible writer. I really don’t understand some of the concepts I’m writing about. She also feels anxious (churning stomach, muscle tension, nervous energy, shallow breathing) when she sits down to write. You explain to her that these thoughts and feelings are normal for all writers and that they do not have to stop her from sitting down and writing. To demonstrate this, you ask her to bring to your next session a copy of one of the chapters she’s working on, for instance on a flash drive. You have her load the chapter on your computer and ask her to sit at your desk and get ready to write. As she sits, you ask her what her mind is telling her about her writing and what sensations she is feeling in her body. You explain to her that it’s okay to think and feel these things, then ask her to address one of the changes her editor has suggested. You watch her struggle, and eventually she writes something down. When she is done, you ask her to stop and note that despite her pain and suffering, she was able to sit down and write. Though it wasn’t easy, she was able to do it, and it represents taking action that’s congruent with what she values (writing). You explain to her that in time, the pain and suffering she experiences when she rewrites her manuscript can lessen if she accepts it and writes, rather than try to avoid feeling it.

ACT THEORY 101 ACT theory revolves around four key concepts:

◆◆ The brain is a 24/7 thinking machine. ◆◆ Current thinking and feeling are filtered through past frames of reference. ◆◆ Words and language play key roles in well-being. 24

What Is ACT?

◆◆ Thinking can’t be controlled, but behavior in response to it can be. It’s essential to understand these concepts in order to grasp the notion of psychological inflexibility and getting stuck.

The Mind as a 24/7 Thinking Machine ACT research has found that the mind is a 24/7 thinking machine, working nonstop at churning out thoughts and feelings. Like a computer that runs continually, the mind constantly processes information and is capable of running multiple programs at the same time. Instead of word processing, spreadsheets, or other computer programs, the mind’s programs are thoughts, emotions, mental images, and personal scripts. Like the operating system and other programs on a computer’s hard drive, the mind’s programs run in the background without our even realizing they’re on. For example, as you read this page, your mind is also listening to sounds in your environment, processing sensory input (changes in lighting, temperature, smell, and so forth), and even daydreaming without your even being aware of it. Your mind never stops; you couldn’t turn it off even if you wanted to. Like viruses that invade a computer and cause it to freeze, illogical thinking and negative self-talk can invade the mind’s programs, slow down its processing, and cause it to freeze up (like a computer processor), get stuck, and function improperly. You’ve probably noticed, for example, that when you’re really stressed out, you just can’t seem to think clearly, you feel jittery and tongue-tied, and sometimes your mind just shuts down. The same thing happens to your clients when their minds get stuck in unhelpful thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions. While you’re no doubt familiar with thoughts, emotions, and mental images, let me take a moment to define what personal scripts are. Personal scripts are like scenes in a movie, which in this case is your client’s life, and each script is the dialogue related to a scene and how it’s supposed to play out within the context of the entire movie. Just as you have personal scripts about everything from your career as a coach to where you will go on vacation next month, so do your clients. They have scripts related to the goals they have set and their perceived ability or inability to achieve them. Personal scripts, like thoughts, emotions, and mental images, are based in part on the past (what ACT calls past relational frames). As a coach, your job is not to go back and delve into your client’s past and spend lots of time talking about this. Rather, your job is to focus on the future and help your clients achieve their goals. Fortunately, you do not need to delve into the past to use ACT practices to help your clients get unstuck. In the next chapter I 25

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will discuss the six core therapeutic processes developed by ACT to help clients get unstuck and show you how to apply them in your coaching practice.

Past Frames of Reference ACT research has found that your past learning plays a major role in how you process painful or threatening situations in the present. Steven Hayes and his colleagues (2001) at the University of Nevada–Reno found that when you learn something, you learn it in relation to other things specific to that time and place. This implies that the context of your learning is as important as the content of it. For example, imagine you have a new client named Jane, who has a goal of starting her own graphic-design business. Jane is anxious and afraid to take the plunge and leave the security of her steady job. Her current thoughts, emotions, mental images, and personal scripts about making this life change are related to their original frames of reference—what ACT refers to as relational frames—from her past. Jane’s past relational frames are where she initially learned about the pros and cons of working for someone else versus being selfemployed. These early lessons might have come from direct personal experience (working for herself), secondhand information from an influential person (for example, her dad always telling her about the dangers of self-employment), or indirectly from other forms of experiential learning (reading books, magazines, and newspapers or watching television, and so on). The way she responds to this current situation is influenced by her brain’s ability to use information from these original frames of reference. The mind uses information from previous relational frames as the basis for assessing the current tasks and situations. In addition, the mind can carry this one step further and use the same previous information to jump ahead and project an infinite number of future scenarios involving the current tasks and situation. The mind’s ability to use the past and present to jump ahead and anticipate the future (especially potential problems in the future) is the basis for a lot of worry, anxiety, and reluctance to take action. Let’s continue using Jane’s plan to start her own graphic-design business as an example of how this process works. Imagine that Jane is like many people who are making the transition from working for someone else to becoming self-employed. She has the interest, motivation, and solid work experience in the area she wants to move into. She has done her research, found her business niche, and saved some start-up money but is stuck in the final stages of developing her business plan and making the actual commitment to getting the ball rolling. Jane is filled with self-doubt, and overcome with the fear and anxiety associated with giving 26

What Is ACT?

up her current job and making the transition to her new career. Even though everything looks great on paper, and intellectually she knows it’s the right move to make, she is stuck in her inability to take the next action step. Jane tells you she feels very anxious about the process and finds herself thinking thoughts like these: I can’t do this. I’ll just die if this doesn’t work out. I don’t have what it takes to be a businesswoman. My father is right: I don’t have a good head on my shoulders when it comes to business. I should be thankful I have a job and just continue doing what I’m doing. She finds that the more she says these things to herself, the worse she feels. She realizes that her negative self-talk actually undermines her plans and minimizes her positive attributes, but she can’t stop saying these things. Her first response has been to try to control her thoughts and feelings about the career change. She feels that if she can control her negative thoughts and painful emotions, she will eventually be able to eliminate them. Unfortunately, she has found just the opposite to be true. The more she tries to control, avoid, or eliminate her negative thoughts and painful emotions, the worse they get. Jane’s father is a high-level corporate executive who always expected his daughter to follow in his footsteps. He expected her to major in finance in college, earn her MBA, take a corporate job in New York, and climb the same career ladder as he did. He was a stern taskmaster, for whom anything less than perfection was considered a failure. He was very critical of Jane and set the bar so high for her in every aspect of her life (academics, athletics, and so on) that she felt nothing she did was ever good enough and that she was pretty incompetent in general. Her early years were filled with self-doubt and low self-esteem. Jane can recall seeing little of her dad while growing up. He always worked long hours and was too tired to spend very much time playing with her. She can close her eyes and see her dad arriving home, briefcase in one hand, topcoat slung over his arm, looking exhausted as he walks in the front door of their house at 8:00 p.m. The image of her dad exhausted from toiling away in “the business world” is one that’s firmly etched in her mind. She remembers that her mom secretly told her, “Don’t go into the business world, because it’s no place for a woman, especially if you want to have a family.” In high school Jane was drawn to the arts and, after choosing a small college in Colorado, majored in graphic design. She can recall her dad’s exact reaction on the day she announced she would major in graphic design, not finance. He said, “You’ll never make any money as a graphic designer. Besides, you never were much of an artist.” She can close her eyes and see the look of disgust and disappointment in her dad’s eyes. The last time she saw her dad

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(about five years ago), he told her how disappointed he was that she was “wasting her life in Colorado playing around in the snow.” After graduating from college, Jane decided to stay in Colorado and work as a graphic designer for a couple of small design firms while following her passion, snowboarding. She is a very talented graphic designer who has worked her way up from being a staff designer to the creative director of the small firm where she currently works. She has amazed herself at her ability to find new clients and handle the business end of the job. Despite the fact that all of the negative events from her childhood and her relationship with her dad happened years ago, she can close her eyes and remember them as if they happened yesterday. Even though she has enjoyed a high degree of success in her work and has managed to meet every challenge that has come her way over the last several years, when she thinks about her career-change goals, she still feels like the incompetent little girl who disappointed her dad and was never able to live up to his standards. These past relational frames contribute to her being stuck in a rut, comfortable but neither living up to her true potential nor following her dream.

The Importance of Words and Language in ACT Past relational frames are often chock full of words and self-talk that undermine present thinking and functioning and that contribute to getting stuck. In a sense, the only way to get beyond them is to learn how to accept them. As mentioned earlier, ACT looks at the usefulness of thoughts, emotions, and behavior in helping clients achieve their goals. ACT operates from the premise that all thoughts are not equally helpful. From an ACT perspective, there are three kinds of thoughts:

◆◆ Helpful ◆◆ Minimally important or silly ◆◆ Illogical, negative, and self-destructive Helpful thoughts support clients’ values and help them meet their goals. For example, as a client works through a difficult task, he might find himself thinking, Boy, this is harder than I thought it would be. I’d better give myself extra time to complete it. This kind of thought helps him stay focused and accept the hard work involved in meeting his goals. Thoughts that are of minimal importance and those that are pretty silly can easily be dismissed. These thoughts usually don’t play a part one way or another in our getting stuck. 28

What Is ACT?

For example, imagine that Jane is at work and finds herself thinking about her upcoming vacation in the Caribbean. She realizes that her thoughts have drifted away from her work and onto her vacation plans, simply acknowledges that this has happened, and says to herself, I’d better get my mind back on my work, or I’ll never finish this project. The third, and final, category of thoughts consists of the illogical, negative, and selfdestructive thoughts that make it difficult for clients to meet their goals and live the kinds of lives they want. These are exactly the kinds of thoughts Jane had. By thinking, I can’t do this, I’ll just die if this doesn’t work out, I don’t have what it takes to be a businesswoman, My father is right, I don’t have a good head on my shoulders when it comes to business, and I should be thankful I have a job and just continue doing what I’m doing, she was engaging in illogical, negative, and self-destructive thinking based on past frames of reference that no longer work for her. Though such thinking is not helpful, it also needs to be acknowledged and accepted. In my first ACT book, Stress Less, Live More: How Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Can Help You Live a Busy yet Balanced Life (Blonna, 2010), I put together a list of ten common thinking traps clients fall into that keep them stuck. In the following section, I’ll go over them in detail.

TEN COMMON THINKING TRAPS When clients get stuck, it’s often because they fall into common thinking traps based on myths related to cultural norms, outdated research, and common misconceptions. These thinking traps are also inextricably linked to unhelpful relational frames from the past. While clients can’t stop their minds from creating these thinking traps in the first place, they can learn how to recognize them for what they are—traps—and learn new ways to behave in relation to them. Remember, although clients can’t stop their minds from creating or eliminate these traps, they can control how they behave once they realize they have fallen into them. With practice, they can also begin to recognize them more quickly and avoid falling into them once their minds spring them.

The “I Can Figure It All Out in My Head” Trap One of the common thinking traps my clients often fall into is related to having a selfas-content view of opportunities and challenges with which they have limited or no real life experience. When faced with these new situations, they fall into the trap of believing they

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can control the pain and suffering associated with these new challenges by working it all out in their heads. They spend endless hours ruminating about the situation and how to control all the things that could potentially go wrong. In addition to trying to control all the variables related to the situation, they try to control and eliminate the pain and suffering related to the new opportunity or challenge. The only problem with doing this is that their minds have the ability to generate an endless stream of thoughts and emotions associated with the situation, as well as the pain and suffering associated with it. Instead of controlling their pain and suffering, their minds generate even more things to worry about, thereby increasing their troubling thoughts and painful emotions about the situation. The truth is that they will never be able to figure out all of the things that could go wrong (or right) with a new opportunity or challenge. In addition, they can never eliminate the troubling thoughts and painful emotions associated with the new experience by just thinking about them. Often, the direct experience of the situation is totally different from what they thought it would be like, and many of the aspects of the situation they worried about turn out to be benign or positive outcomes. Clients fall into the “I Can Figure It All Out in My Head” trap when they believe they can control their pain and suffering by figuring everything out in their heads instead of accepting their pain and suffering and experiencing the situation for real. A perfect example of this trap happened to me recently, when I was asked to train mental health clinicians in using ACT principles and practices with their clients. Although I was flattered and excited about the possibility of earning extra income through training mental health professionals, the prospect of doing so triggered a flood of troubling thoughts and painful emotions. Some of my thoughts and personal scripts were: I don’t have enough clinical experience to work with these folks, I’ll look foolish trying to lecture to these people, I won’t be able to answer all of their questions and will look like a fool, I don’t know enough about ACT to train anyone, I will do a terrible job and will never be asked to do any training again, It’s too much work, and I’m not ready for this. When I closed my eyes, I saw the following troubling mental images: Everyone is quiet and not giving me any feedback, Everyone looks bored, and Lots of attendees are getting up and walking out halfway through the presentation. Instead of accepting that my mind was telling me these illogical things and creating images that were not necessarily true, I tried to eliminate these thoughts and pictures by thinking how to control all of the variables involved in doing the training and the self-doubts and fears they triggered. I finally realized I could neither control all of the variables associated with the training, nor control the pain and suffering associated with them. Rather than

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continue trying to work this all out in my head, I decided to accept the things I could not control and do three training programs as a trial. If, after doing three of them, I did not enjoy the experience, I would stop doing the trainings. I accepted the fact that the only way to know what the experience of training mental health clinicians would be like was to do it. Amazingly, the actual experience of doing the trainings was completely different from what my mind told me it would be like. I knew more than enough about ACT to satisfy my audience. I actually surprised myself with the depth of my knowledge of the subject. My audiences for all three training sessions were engaged, asked lots of good questions, and shared their clinical experience with each other. Instead of bored, scowling faces, I saw lots of smiles, encouraging nods, and knowing looks. In addition I met some wonderful people, expanded my professional network, and got to experience some interesting cities where the trainings were held. I also realized I enjoyed working with this audience, and I looked forward to being able to continue such work in the future. If I had listened to my mind and tried to avoid the troubling thoughts and painful emotions by not accepting the job, I never would have known what it was like. I would have avoided an enriching experience and an entirely new professional direction for me to pursue.

The “Thoughts Are Reality” Trap In his book The Happiness Trap, Russ Harris (2007) describes other common thinking traps that clients buy into. Getting hooked by these traps is a common contributor to getting stuck and not making progress toward goals. The “thoughts are reality” trap is based on the myth that clients’ thoughts about things represent their objective reality. In actuality, their thoughts about things are just that: their thoughts about them. Processed in the brain, thoughts are often distorted by interpretation, judgment, and other cognitive processes. A client’s reality of whatever he’s thinking about is really his version of it as it passes through the filters of his brain and all of its accumulated relational frames. Nowhere is this more evident than in thinking about events from the past. An example of this would be asking a client about some goal she achieved in the past. Her thoughts about the past event recapture it in the way her mind remembers and views it now. What she would describe to you would be her recollection of the event. Her thoughts could be subject to omission or embellishment of certain information. It’s common for clients to leave out certain bits of information or exaggerate others as they think about past events. Clients fall into the “thoughts are reality” trap when they believe their thoughts are the actual situation instead of just their thoughts about the situation. 31

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The “All Thoughts Are Equally Important” Trap The “all thoughts are equally important” trap values all thoughts equally. As previously discussed, most thoughts are really opinions, judgments, or evaluations. Some thoughts are very important and are related to key goals and decisions that are linked to values. Others are of minimal importance and have little relevance to day-to-day activities. For example, imagine that a client of yours in San Diego has just finished reading the newspaper. In the first section, she read distressing articles about the harsh working conditions in factories in Malaysia, a brown bear that had to be shot after wandering into downtown Boston, and the projected increase in gas prices in Southern California for Memorial Day weekend. She finds herself thinking, It’s really horrible about the conditions those Malaysian workers have to endure. Those people are really suffering. That poor bear—why did they have to kill him? They probably could have just put him to sleep and taken him back to the woods. Those big oil companies should be ashamed about what they charge; people will never be able to drive anywhere this holiday season. Great, what a start to summer. Now it will cost twice as much to drive somewhere. Most of these thoughts don’t directly apply to your client or affect her day-to-day life and therefore are less important than other things she thinks about. In fact, the only one that directly applies to her is the price of gas for Memorial Day weekend. Even that one is of minor importance to her since she doesn’t plan to do any major driving that weekend. For any of these thoughts, it would be perfectly okay if she said to herself, This thought isn’t really worth paying much attention to. It doesn’t really affect me that much and isn’t very helpful to dwell on. Clients fall into the “all thoughts are equally important” trap when they take all of their thoughts equally seriously and assign them the same high importance.

The “Thoughts Are Orders” Trap The “thoughts are orders” trap is based on the belief that just because clients think something, they feel they have to act on it. Clients can’t control their thinking but can control their behavior in relation to their thinking. Since all thoughts are not equal, and some are ridiculous and even embarrassing, it’s okay for a client to say to himself, There goes my crazy mind again. I don’t have to act on these silly thoughts. Clients don’t have to act on all of their thoughts. As their coach, you can teach them to use the gold standard for evaluating their thoughts. When they find themselves feeling compelled to act without carefully weighing the pros and cons of their behavior, advise them to ask themselves the following question regarding the thoughts that are driving their behavior: Are these thoughts and orders to act 32

What Is ACT?

helpful to me? If the thoughts are not helpful, tell your clients to accept them for what they are, unhelpful thoughts. For example, imagine having a client who creates a lot of interpersonal trouble because she feels compelled to correct other people every time they cite an incorrect fact or make a mistake. She personally can’t tolerate being wrong or making mistakes, and she feels compelled to set this same standard for her interactions with others. Even in situations where she likes the other person and wants to get to know him better, she will correct him and often embarrass him in front of others, telling herself things like, He should have known this, That is blatantly incorrect, and I can’t let him get away with that. She’ll then cut the other person off in conversation and correct his mistake. Just because her mind told her the other person is wrong and shouldn’t be allowed to get away with passing misinformation does not mean she has to act on these thoughts and publicly correct the other person. It’s perfectly all right for her to think, I really shouldn’t let him get away with this, but refrain from acting on the thought, because doing so would embarrass the other person and work against her efforts to befriend him. Clients fall into the “thoughts are orders” trap when they mindlessly treat unhelpful thoughts as marching orders.

The “Thoughts Are Threats” Trap The “thoughts are threats” trap is my favorite thinking trap. It takes me all the way back to my childhood and memories of the popular defensive taunt, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” For years I thought that was a pretty silly statement. It wasn’t until I really understood the power of words that it began to resonate for me. Unless you take them too seriously or act impulsively on them, thoughts (like words) can’t harm you. Thinking that something can hurt you isn’t the same thing as actually being hurt. For example, imagine that a client of yours has read a story about urban gang violence that really upsets her. After reading the story, she feels personally threatened by the high rates of urban gang-related crime and violence, and helpless in her inability to cope with this problem. In fact, however, she lives in a very secure suburban community with little violent crime and a very active neighborhood-watch program that has a strong relationship with the local police department. Her thoughts about the problems with urban gang-related violence are just her thoughts; they’re not the reality of her life at this moment in time. Clients fall into the “thoughts are threats” trap when they perceive the mind’s extrapolation of events that threaten others as something that’s personally threatening. 33

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The Outdated Thoughts and Personal Scripts Trap Your clients carry around thoughts and personal scripts about themselves that are outdated and no longer represent who they are as people. Like faded photographs and newspaper clippings of themselves in old albums, these images represent part of who your clients are, but they are often just dated mementoes of their pasts. Like black ice that’s invisible until they slip on it, these outdated images, thoughts, and scripts can send their minds spinning wildly and sabotage their best efforts to stay on course in moving toward their goals. For example, think back to Jane, the graphic designer from Colorado discussed earlier in the chapter. Even though she has been a highly successful designer, easily meeting every challenge in her life, when she thinks about her current career-change goals, the images her mind creates are of the incompetent little girl from years ago who was never able to live up to her dad’s impossible standards. Such images are clearly outdated and no longer helpful in getting her where she wants to go. Clients fall into the outdated thoughts and personal scripts trap when they buy into old thoughts and personal scripts and create unnecessary barriers to taking the valued action they so desperately want and need.

The “Scary Pictures Are Real” Trap Harris (2007) refers to troubling mental images as “scary pictures.” Over the course of their lives, your clients have created a mental scrapbook of scary pictures dating all the way back to early childhood. When they equate the scary pictures in their minds with reality, it’s as if they have gone to a horror movie and believe the zombie on the screen is real and is actually munching on the innocent victim’s leg. Scary pictures in your clients’ minds are just that, pictures in their minds. They don’t exist in the real world in the present moment, and they don’t pose an actual physical threat to your clients’ well-being. They’re just like the crazy thoughts and scripts that their very creative minds churn out nonstop all day long. Sometimes these scary pictures can set up barriers to clients’ achieving their goals. For example, Jane can probably close her eyes and conjure up all kinds of scary pictures that stand in the way of leaving her current job and starting her own graphic design business. I’m sure she sometimes sees mental pictures of herself homeless, on the street and having lost everything. She might also see herself in an empty office, staring at the silent phone, waiting for clients to call and place orders. Or she might see herself sitting in her kitchen

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with a stack of unpaid bills piled on the table, wondering how she will pay them. In fact, none of these pictures is real. None of these scenarios has actually played out in real time; they are just figments of Jane’s very active mind that allow her to project into the future and create a limitless array of negative images. Instead of equating her scary pictures with reality, she could just as easily tell herself, There goes my old movie projector again, and then view her scary pictures as just another crazy mental picture show. Clients fall into the “scary pictures are real” trap when they believe the images in their heads are real, rather than mere pictures their minds create whenever they feel afraid.

The Permanence Trap Martin Seligman (1990), a pioneer in the positive psychology movement, coined the term explanatory style to describe personality attributes related to how people perceive troubling events and how this contributes to their pessimism or optimism. A person’s explanatory style has three key components: permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization. Permanence refers to how long a person believes a troubling situation will last. Most troubling situations do not last forever and are linked to time frames that eventually expire. Clients often get stuck because they believe troubling events will last forever and affect them permanently. Such clients use words like “always” and “never” when referring to the permanence of events. For example, what if your client, Jane, did leave her job to start her own small business? It’s very common for new businesses to operate in the red for a while until there are enough accounts receivable to offset operating expenses. If Jane found herself thinking, My business will never get out of debt or I’ll never get enough clients to become profitable, she could get stuck in the belief that she would never start to make money and wouldn’t be able to take the kinds of risks she would need to take to get her business moving forward. A more realistic view of troubling events is to view them as temporary. In most situations, the negative thoughts and painful emotions accompanying troubling events and circumstances are temporary and don’t represent a permanent state of being. For example, Jane could choose to say things to herself like Although this is a very painful thing for me to experience, I know it’s a normal part of starting a small business. In time I’ll build my client base and generate more than enough income. Clients fall into the permanence trap when they believe temporary conditions will last forever. When this happens, they lose their faith in the future, no longer act on their values, and fail to live the lives they want to lead.

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The Pervasiveness Trap The second component of Seligman’s (1990) explanatory style, pervasiveness refers to how extensive clients perceive specific problems to be. Clients often overestimate the extent of their problems and negative personal characteristics. When this happens, they tend to view their problems or negative personal attributes as affecting every aspect of their lives instead of viewing them as context-specific characteristics. For example, suppose Jane started her graphic design business and, after a few months, found the office-management aspect of the job (keeping up with telephone calls and supplies, paying bills, and so on) daunting. After making a few billing mistakes and forgetting to return calls from a couple of potential customers, suppose Jane told you, “I should never have started this business. I can’t do anything right. I’m just not good with the details of running a business.” In fact, she’s incredibly artistic, with a flair for design, and one of her accounts won a Best Commercial Design award from her professional graphic design society. The fact that she’s not the most skilled office manager has nothing to do with her talent as a designer. In fact, in a short time, her excellence as a designer would allow her to hire an office manager who could take good care of all the tasks she found tedious. Clients fall into the pervasiveness trap when they allow their thoughts about contextspecific troubles and personal attributes to become pervasive and influence other facets of their lives that are not affected.

The Personalization Trap The last explanatory style component is personalization. Personalization refers to the extent to which clients believe that responsibility for their problems is exclusively linked to themselves or others, which Seligman (1990) used the terms internal and external to describe. That is, clients can take an internal or external view of responsibility for their problems. Those with a more external view tend to blame others or society for their problems. Seligman found that an external style was associated with greater optimism, while an internal explanatory style was related to pessimism. While Seligman’s internal and external categories supported his work on pessimism and optimism, in terms of an ACT view on personalization, responsibility for problems is rarely one dimensional or exclusive. Therefore thoughts and personal scripts that exclusively blame the self or others for problems or barriers that stand in the way of taking values-congruent action aren’t very helpful.

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For example, if Jane started her business and took an external view of her problems as a small business owner, she might engage in the following kinds of personalization self-talk: The government really has made it impossible to run a small business. There are too many things to keep track of, too many forms to fill out. Clients expect too much input and are always making me do things I don’t want to do. If she took a more internal view, she would probably react to these situations in this way: It’s really my fault I’m having so many problems understanding these forms and regulations. I need to either spend more time understanding these government forms or hire an office manager who knows this stuff, and I need to be a little more flexible regarding my design ideas and take more of my clients’ needs and ideas into consideration. In fact, Jane’s problems with her new business would really be related to a combination of things associated with the government and her. Clients fall into the personalization trap when they assign responsibility for their problems exclusively to themselves or others. As a coach you can help clients understand the shared nature of their problems and when they are assigning too much or too little personal responsibility for them.

DEFUSING FROM COMMON THINKING TRAPS Defusion is a technique ACT therapists use to help clients separate themselves from, or defuse from, their unhelpful thoughts. In the next chapter I’ll discuss defusion in greater detail. Adapted from my book Stress Less, Live More (Blonna, 2010), the following exercise is a great technique to use with clients to teach them how to distance themselves from what the mind tells them.

DEFUSION EXERCISE: The Whiteboard When clients get hooked by one of the common thinking traps, they fuse with it. In other words they become the thought rather than just note that it’s something they are thinking at that particular time. If clients can learn how to defuse from the traps they are stuck in, the unhelpful thoughts accompanying those traps will pass. To do this exercise you will need either a whiteboard with markers and an eraser, or a large pad with colored markers. Give your clients the following instructions: 37

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1. The next time you get hooked by one of the thinking traps and are stuck, get out your whiteboard or large pad and markers. 2. Pick up one of the markers and write this heading: “Unhelpful Thoughts My Mind Is Telling Me About        ” (whatever you’re stuck about). Example: “Unhelpful Thoughts My Mind Is Telling Me About   Starting My Own Graphic Design Business .” 3. List all of the thoughts your mind is telling you about being stuck. Examples: I can’t do this. My dad was right. I’m not a businesswoman. I should have gone into finance. I’ll never be able to learn everything I need to start my own graphic-design business. I’d be better off continuing to work for someone else. Having your own business is not such a big deal. 4. Be sure to list all your thoughts, no matter how crazy, silly, or inconsequential they might seem to you. 5. When you’re done, put down the marker and step back a few feet from the board or pad. Tell yourself, These are merely my thoughts. They are not me. I am much more than these thoughts. 6. Feel the distance between you and these unhelpful thoughts. Try stepping back even farther, to put more distance between you and these unhelpful thoughts. 7. Keep moving back a couple of steps at a time until you can feel your connection with your thoughts loosening. 8. How do these thoughts feel now?

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Having your clients step back and observe their unhelpful thoughts from a distance puts these thoughts in a different context. Clients can start to see them more clearly as things their minds are telling them. When clients learn to think things such as My mind is telling me          , or My mind is having the thought that          , the unhelpful, painful thoughts are seen as just that, unhelpful thoughts, allowing clients to view these thoughts as things their minds tell them instead of as little pieces of themselves. The thoughts become mere thoughts, something the brain generates 24/7. Remember to reemphasize to your clients that not all of these thoughts are equally helpful in helping them move forward. In the next chapter I’ll continue describing how to get unstuck when you find yourself getting hooked by common thinking and feeling traps.

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Chapter 3

Getting Stuck and How to Get Unstuck

In chapters 1 and 2, I introduced the concept of psychological inflexibility and discussed how it contributes to clients’ getting stuck and being unable to take values-congruent action. I also mentioned the six key factors associated with psychological inflexibility:

◆◆ Attachment to the conceptualized self ◆◆ Cognitive fusion ◆◆ Dominance of outmoded scripts and learning ◆◆ Experiential avoidance ◆◆ Lack of clarity concerning values ◆◆ Inaction, impulsivity, and rigidity These key factors contribute to clients’ getting stuck by limiting their ability to deal with situations in new and creative ways. When clients are inflexible, they have fewer options available to cope with or solve their problems.

Maximize Your Coaching Effectiveness with ACT

GETTING STUCK I love the notion of getting stuck versus having a mental disorder, because it’s both very forgiving and a great fit for coaching. Everybody gets stuck at times: you, me, your clients. When we get stuck in a rut, we can’t move forward. It’s like having a beautiful car that gets stuck on a patch of ice; it just spins its wheels and gets nowhere. When we get stuck, we also spend a lot of time spinning our wheels and going nowhere. Helping clients get unstuck by using ACT principles and practices frees them up and gets them moving forward again. In this chapter I’ll describe how the key factors related to psychological inflexibility contribute to getting stuck and show you how to use ACT therapeutic processes to help your clients get unstuck and resume making progress toward their goals.

GETTING UNSTUCK Getting unstuck involves helping clients develop greater psychological flexibility by using the six core therapeutic processes:

◆◆ Being present ◆◆ Defining valued directions ◆◆ Taking committed action ◆◆ Seeing the self as context ◆◆ Practicing acceptance ◆◆ Using cognitive defusion For example, cognitive defusion is used to alleviate attachment to the conceptualized self and cognitive fusion. Other core therapeutic processes are more generic and cut across all elements of psychological inflexibility. For example, being present and practicing acceptance are useful in offsetting all the factors contributing to psychological inflexibility. In the rest of this chapter, I’ll go into greater detail regarding the key factors associated with psychological inflexibility and how to use the six core therapeutic processes to help clients develop greater psychological flexibility and get unstuck. I’ll provide concrete

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examples and activities you can use with clients to help them apply the information to their lives in meaningful ways.

The Conceptualized Self and Cognitive Fusion Steven Hayes (2005) uses the term conceptualized self to refer to what people would probably think of when asked to describe themselves. It is their internalized picture of themselves. Most people describe their conceptualized selves with statements that summarize or evaluate who they are and what they do. For example, if I asked you to describe yourself, you’d probably say things like “I’m forty years old; I’m about five feet ten inches tall, with an average build; I’m happily married; I’m an art history teacher; I’m honest and trustworthy,” and so forth. These kinds of self-statements sum up who you are and how you measure up compared to others and societal standards based on intelligence, income, occupation, body composition, and so on. ACT refers to this way of describing the self as the self-as-content view. In other words, it’s the sum total of all the things contained inside a person. The mind breaks the conceptualized self into pieces and attaches labels to these pieces. Each piece has its own personal scripts. These pieces and the scripts associated with them create stereotypes, or shortcuts, to understanding the self and explaining it to others. For example, imagine you have a client, Molly, who enjoys running in addition to a thousand other things. Part of her conceptualized self is a runner. The personal scripts and stereotypes she has of herself as a runner are positive and center around her love of physical activity and movement, the actual feeling of running, and the side benefits of being lean and healthy. Her runner script contributes positively to her sense of self and purposeful living and is part of the content of her conceptualized self. Imagine that, in addition to being a runner, Molly has asthma and therefore also has personal scripts and stereotypes of herself relating to having asthma. Rather than view herself as a person with asthma, she views (internalized picture) and refers to herself (external characterization) as an asthmatic. Asthma is a disease characterized by tightened chest muscles, constricted air passageways in the lungs, and difficulty breathing. A person with asthma is a human being who also happens to have a disease that triggers these symptoms. Being an asthmatic represents a totally different version of the conceptualized self. When she calls herself an asthmatic, she becomes the illness. All the personal scripts and stereotypes she associates with asthma (having to avoid specific situations and activities that can trigger an attack, being dependent on long-term controlling medications and rescue inhalers, feeling

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self-conscious around people who are unfamiliar with the disease, and so on) now substitute for her, the person, who also happens to suffer from asthma. This restricted way of viewing herself and the world around her limits her choices and options (real and imagined) because it doesn’t allow her to see the world clearly. It’s as if she views the world through asthmatinted glasses, which limits her psychological flexibility so that she gets stuck. When she views herself as a runner or an asthmatic, versus a person who runs or a person with asthma, Molly fuses with those parts of her conceptualized self. This is what ACT means by cognitive fusion. The mind can fuse with all kinds of helpful and unhelpful aspects of the conceptualized self. When clients fuse with a part of the conceptualized self, they view the world through this fused concept of reality, rather than see the actual reality of the present moment. Often, as in the case of running, this isn’t necessarily a negative phenomenon that contributes to getting stuck (by “isn’t necessarily,” I mean that many runners are so obsessive about running that their view of themselves as a runner does contribute to their getting stuck in ruts, such as injury, addiction, or extreme guilt if they miss a workout). In general, however, fusion with a positive part of the conceptualized self, such as running, doesn’t contribute to getting stuck.

COGNITIVE DEFUSION AND THE SELF-AS-CONTEXT In their book Learning ACT (2007), authors Jason Luoma, Steven Hayes, and Robyn Walser describe a second view of the self, called the self-as-context view. Remember, when clients fuse with an aspect of the conceptualized self (such as being an asthmatic), they take a self-as-content view (I am the content, so I am an asthmatic). To detach from, or defuse from, this viewpoint, clients need to change the way they think about themselves and adopt a self-as-context view. When clients adopt a self-as-context view, they become observers of their thoughts rather than the content of their thoughts. A self-as-context view allows clients to step back and observe from a safe distance all the thoughts, personal scripts, and stereotypes that make up their conceptualized selves. A helpful way to visualize this perspective is to think of a large pitcher used to hold beverages. The pitcher is the vessel that holds whatever liquid fills it at any given moment. It can be filled with a variety of liquids: water, iced tea, apple juice, and so on. The pitcher can be viewed as the vessel that holds different liquids depending on the situation (“Pass the pitcher”), or it can be referred to by its contents (“Pass the iced tea”). When your clients

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adopt a self-as-context viewpoint, they look at themselves as the vessel (the pitcher) that contains the thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions they experience at any given time. In a sense, it allows them to think of themselves as being more than any of those individual aspects of their conceptualized selves. They begin to see themselves as the context in which these aspects of the self play out on a daily basis. Although their thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions are constantly in flux, the constant in their lives is the vessel that contains these elements and transcends them. The observer is the self that witnesses all the events in their lives that make them who they are: their first day of school, first date, first failure, and first broken heart. The observer self has been the constant throughout all of these firsts and the hundreds of thousands of additional experiences that make up the tapestry of your clients’ lives. Learning to take an observer view when clients get fused with unhelpful aspects of their conceptualized selves will help clients detach and get unstuck from them. So, instead of being an asthmatic, Molly is a person with asthma who occasionally has difficulty breathing under certain circumstances. In addition to having asthma, she has a rich, interesting life, full of challenges, and a history of successes that spans many years and involves a myriad of positive experiences. Besides having asthma, Molly is a great teacher, a gourmet cook, an avid photographer, a good mother, and a trusted friend. Viewing her asthma as being in the same vessel as these other positive aspects of her conceptualized self can put this fused part of her conceptualized self in a different perspective and help her get unstuck from it. ACT uses the term cognitive defusion to describe the process of helping clients separate from their unhelpful thoughts about aspects of the conceptualized self that keep them stuck. When you teach your clients how to defuse from unhelpful thoughts, they can step back and observe them without judgment and start accepting that these thoughts represent just a part of who they are. They also begin to realize that they don’t even have to take all of their thoughts so seriously or act on them if they aren’t helpful in meeting their goals. As impartial observers of their unhelpful thoughts, clients are aware of and acknowledge them but don’t assign them the equivalent weight of helpful thoughts. When clients accept that they have merely unhelpful thoughts, those same thoughts begin to exert less influence on their behavior, which can be very helpful for your clients. When you teach them how to defuse from their unhelpful thoughts, they can move forward and make progress, while accepting these thoughts and other negative aspects of their conceptualized selves. Following is a simple defusion exercise you can use with clients.

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DEFUSION EXERCISE: Take Off Those Asthma-Colored Glasses Give these instructions to your clients: 1. Imagine that you have a pair of really dark sunglasses that you use when it’s very sunny outside. These sunglasses are so dark that when you come indoors and forget to take them off, it’s really hard to see. 2. Now imagine actually doing that: putting on your dark sunglasses; walking around outside on a bright, sunny day for a while; and then coming in and forgetting to take them off. 3. Imagine what it would actually be like to walk around indoors with these dark sunglasses on, with your vision limited. Not only would you be restricted in what you could see, but you’d also be restricted in what you could do. It would be very difficult to take action on something simple that you value, like being able to prepare your breakfast or do your laundry. 4. Imagine how easy it would be to fix this problem by simply taking off your dark sunglasses. 5. Now shift gears and imagine that you have asthma (or some other chronic condition that impacts your health on an ongoing basis). 6. Imagine that these same dark sunglasses represent your self-as-content view and say to yourself, I’m an asthmatic or I’m a diabetic, or use some other chronic health condition. 7. Now imagine that your view of yourself as an asthmatic or a diabetic is standing in the way of your taking action on something you value (such as exercise, travel, or dancing). 8. As soon as that happens, put on those asthma-tinted sunglasses and say to yourself, There I go again, putting on my asthma-colored glasses. 9. Imagine walking around in the dark with your asthma-colored glasses on for a few moments, thinking about how limiting they are and how they are keeping you stuck.

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10. After a few moments, stop and say to yourself, I don’t have to wear these glasses. I can just take them off whenever I want to. Then imagine that you just take off the glasses, fold them up, and put them away in your pocket. Along with the glasses, imagine putting away the thought, I’m an asthmatic. 11. Last, imagine taking the action you planned while keeping your asthma-colored glasses and unhelpful words in your pocket. You can live with them and take action without trying to get rid of them. 12. Practice this simple defusion exercise whenever you’re stuck in any stereotypical personal script based on a self-as-content viewpoint. In time you can learn how to defuse from the self-limiting thoughts associated with the stereotype.

Other defusion activities are scattered throughout the remaining chapters in this book that demonstrate how defusion is tied to the other components of ACT and the core therapeutic processes. Another way to help clients adopt a self-as-context view is to remind them that they cannot work everything out in their heads. As I mentioned earlier in the chapter, when they try to do this, they fall into the “I Can Work It All Out in My Head” thinking trap, adopting a self-as-content (conceptualized self) view. The following exercise is a simple way to remind clients that what their minds tell them about a situation is often entirely different from the reality of that experience.

SELF-AS-CONTEXT EXERCISE: A Drink of Ice Water The purpose of this exercise is to help clients start to adopt a self-as-context view of the self, using a very concrete item, a glass of ice water. Adopting a self-as-context viewpoint begins when clients learn to distinguish direct experience through the five senses from thoughts about direct experience. Clients often confuse their thoughts about situations with the reality of experiencing those things firsthand.

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You will need a glass of water with ice cubes for this activity. 1. Tell your client the following: Close your eyes and relax. Take a couple of deep breaths. Now imagine that you are taking a drink of ice water from a clear glass. Think for a couple of seconds what that experience would be like. When you are finished, open your eyes. 2. Now pour your client a glass of ice water. Make sure to use a clear glass and get a few ice cubes in the glass along with the water. 3. Hand your client the glass of water and say the following: Please hold the glass in one hand and notice the weight of it. Now rotate the glass in your fingers and notice its shape. You may use the fingers of both hands to do this. Notice how the glass feels in your hand when you lift it to your mouth to drink. Notice the size of the glass and the level of the water. Notice the ice floating in the water. Notice the clarity of the water and the ice cubes. Notice how the color is affected by the light as you hold the glass up to a window or light. Close your eyes, move the glass closer to your ear, and roll the glass so that the ice cubes bounce against its sides. Notice the sound this makes. With your eyes still closed, notice the smell of the water. With your eyes still closed, take a sip of the water and swirl it around your mouth. Notice the taste and temperature of the water. 48

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With your eyes still closed, take another, longer drink and notice how the water feels as it slides down your throat and reaches your stomach. When you are finished with these instructions, put the glass down. 4. Have your client answer the following question: How did thinking about drinking the water differ from actually drinking it and experiencing it with your five senses?

Explain to your client that people often confuse their thoughts about something, particularly something that’s troubling about the future, with actually experiencing the event. Often people avoid things simply because they think their thoughts about the event are the same as actually experiencing it. In fact, they are two distinctly different experiences.

Experiential Avoidance Experiential avoidance is another element of psychological inflexibility. Experiential avoidance is the exact opposite of openness to experience. Clients often avoid experiences because engaging in them triggers troubling thoughts and painful emotions. It’s safer and less painful for them to remain in their comfort zone and avoid the experiences. However, avoiding experiences limits clients’ growth and the opportunity to develop new, positive relational frames and greater flexibility. Though they often understand intellectually that moving out of their comfort zone is necessary and makes sense, clients are still resistant to such moves. They are not willing to accept their pain and suffering and take values-congruent action. Their minds can project into the future and create a steady stream of negative personal scripts and reasons why they should stay where they are and avoid potentially troubling experiences. To help your clients get out of this rut, you need to help them understand and accept that their minds have the power to generate endless negative scripts and unhelpful thoughts about experiences that take them out of their comfort zone. Next, you need to help them move forward and engage in values-congruent behavior while accepting the discomfort that goes along with doing so. Though this process will feel uncomfortable for your clients at first, it will result in their developing new relational frames and greater psychological flexibility.

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BEING PRESENT AND PRACTICING ACCEPTANCE If you remember from chapter 2, acceptance contains four aspects:

◆◆ Mindfulness ◆◆ Accepting that thoughts and emotions can be helpful or unhelpful in taking action congruent with values

◆◆ Accepting what can’t be controlled (thoughts, emotions, personal scripts, and mental images)

◆◆ Accepting what can be controlled (behavior and physical environment) You can help clients develop each of these four aspects of acceptance. Acceptance exercises are scattered throughout the rest of this book, but the following one is the most basic of all, building mindfulness. Regularly practicing this exercise helps clients develop both mindfulness and acceptance.

MINDFULNESS AND ACCEPTANCE EXERCISE: Just Sitting Becoming more mindful of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations starts with the simple Buddhist practice of sitting and breathing. You’ve probably already noticed that a lot of your clients have a hard time sitting still. You can introduce this exercise anytime, and clients can practice in their sessions with you or on their own. Give these instructions to your clients, explaining that it will seem strange to do this exercise at first, but with practice it will become easier to do. 1. For the next five minutes, sit quietly in a straight-backed chair, with your feet flat on the floor, eyes closed, back straight, and hands folded gently in your lap. 2. Be mindful of what it feels like to be stuck, starting with your breathing. Follow the course of your breathing from the inspiration of air into your nose all the way down to your lungs and then out again. What does this feel like?

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3. Next, note any other body sensations. What’s going on in your arms, legs, chest, back, and other parts of your body? 4. Now be mindful of your thoughts and emotions. What are you thinking and feeling? 5. Don’t judge your sensations, thoughts, and feelings; merely note their presence. 6. Try to keep your focus on the present moment. When your mind drifts into the future or past, gently remind yourself to return to the present, using phrases like There goes my mind drifting off again. It’s okay, but now I’m going to get back to the present moment and what’s going on in my mind and body. 7. When your five minutes are up, take a few minutes to write down what went on in your body and mind. 8. Bring these notes with you when you come back for our next session, and we’ll talk about the next step, accepting what’s going on within you as you take action.

Tell clients to practice this exercise both when they are stuck and when they’re not stuck, which will enable them to be mindful of the differences and learn how to accept both states.

Outmoded Scripts This element of psychological inflexibility is very similar to cognitive fusion and attachment to the conceptualized self. Sometimes clients fuse with outmoded personal scripts that aren’t helpful for taking values-congruent action. These scripts are outmoded because they are linked to past relational frames that don’t accurately represent the client’s current level of functioning. When clients fuse with outmoded personal scripts, this dominates their thinking, making it difficult to think clearly about the present moment. Think back to Jane’s situation from chapter 2. She is trying to start her own business in spite of all the negative frames of reference she has accumulated because of her dad. This is a perfect example of how fusing with outmoded scripts and previous learning continue to drive current behavior. Also in chapter 2, I described personal scripts as being like scenes in the movie of a client’s life. Another way of putting it is that a script is really a story the mind creates, complete with its own dialogue, about some personal experience.

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Clients have scripts running around in their minds about everything from their first sexual experience to what they are going to do for dinner tonight. These scripts are related to a host of demographic, experiential, and developmental factors. Some scripts were developed as far back as early childhood, while others are as recent as twenty minutes before their appointment with you today. Some of these personal scripts are helpful in meeting clients’ goals, while others are barriers to their taking action. A script becomes outmoded when it no longer represents clients’ current level of functioning or helps them meet their goals and live their lives in a way that’s congruent with their values. A key first step in assessing whether personal scripts are outmoded and unhelpful is being mindful and accepting of their existence, which is why mindfulness training and acceptance are key components of ACT. For example, imagine that one of Jane’s personal scripts revolves around having failed at her first attempt to open her own small business many years ago. Further, imagine that since this initial failure, she had three other business ventures that did very well. Even though she has been very successful, her personal script related to business is filled with self-defeating statements and worry about her failures rather than praise for her successes. A key step in her ability to move forward with future ventures is to acknowledge that she still carries this negative script around, even though it’s no longer true or helpful. Once she is aware of its presence and acknowledges that it’s no longer true, she can begin to accept that she doesn’t need to rid herself of it to pursue her goal of opening up her next business. She can just accept that it’s part of who she is, and though troubling, it does not have to keep her from moving forward.

MINDFULNESS, ACCEPTANCE, AND DEFUSION Clients can get stuck when they miss or deny the presence of outmoded scripts that sneak into their thinking and influence their behavior. Mindfulness training will help them become more aware of their outdated scripts that influence their behavior at any given time. Once they become aware of the presence of the scripts, through acceptance training, clients can see them for what they are (evidence of a 24/7 mind at work) and observe, record, and accept them without judging or evaluating them. Last, defusion training will help clients step away from these unhelpful personal scripts and defuse from them. The following exercise, “My Lineup Photo,” focuses on examining outdated scripts and shows how they contribute to the avoidance of potentially enriching new experiences. It helps clients create actual physical distance between themselves and their outdated scripts.

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DEFUSION EXERCISE: My Lineup Photo Give these instructions to your clients: 1. Cut up twenty pieces of firm poster board to 8 inches by 10 inches. 2. Make five piles of the poster board (four pieces in each pile). 3. Label the five piles and individual pieces according to the following five stages of your life: infancy, early childhood, teen years, early adulthood, adulthood. 4. For each stage of your life, gather four photographs of yourself. Make sure to include photos that bring back both pleasant and painful memories. 5. Mount each photo on a piece of poster board, leaving enough room under the photo to write a couple of sentences. 6. Under each photo, write the approximate date of the photo and the personal script you associate with it. Make sure you have two positive and two negative scripts. 7. Now take one pile and line up the four photos, preferably at eye level on a shelf, and step away from them. Keep stepping back until you achieve a comfortable distance between yourself and these images. 8. Go through the four pictures and describe the things about you displayed in each photo that still hold true (you like to cuddle, you still play softball, you’re still no good at math, and so on). Actually write these things on the poster boards. 9. For each item, describe the things about you displayed in the photo that are no longer true. 10. Go through each pile and each photo, repeating steps 8 and 9. 11. Which of the thoughts or beliefs still contribute to your being stuck? 12. Take any individual photo containing an outdated description of you and say the following: This no longer represents who I am. I’m not going to let it keep me stuck or let it stand in the way of meeting my goals.

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13. Take the photos that represent beliefs that contribute to your being stuck and put them in an envelope. 14. Put the envelope up high on a bookshelf, where you can’t see it but still know it’s there. 15. Say to yourself, I know those photos and unhelpful thoughts are part of me, but I can tuck them away for the time being and move toward my goals. While these are part of me, I’m much more than the sum total of these outdated photos and stories from the past.

The preceding exercise can be repeated several times since it may span several decades. You might want to assign it to your clients as homework on more than one occasion, when in the course of your work with them, different outmoded personal scripts arise.

Absence of Clear Values A value is a combination of a concept, a belief system, and a pattern of behavior that’s held in the highest regard possible. Many of the things people value exist independently of empirical evidence and are based on faith. Take religion as an example. Clients who value religion have an underlying concept that anchors this value. For most religious people, there’s a faith that God or some creator exists. In addition to this concept of God, religious clients have a belief system based on their particular denomination. It has a formal doctrine, established practices, and rules for living. Clients’ religiosity also revolves around a pattern of behavior that includes praying; attending religious services; and following certain dietary, sexual, and other patterns. These daily patterns of behavior are really part of a lifestyle that gives structure and meaning to their lives. It influences how they spend their time, structure their days and weeks, and engage in long-term planning. For example, a Muslim client’s day includes multiple sessions of prayer. A Christian client’s Sunday is built around attending mass or church and fellowship activities. In addition to observing these daily and weekly rituals, religious people note special holy days, such as Ramadan, Lent, Easter, Passover, Christmas, Hanukkah, and so on. These holy days often involve specific dietary rules and other sacrifices. Other religious ceremonies involve rites of passage such as bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah, and sacraments such as marriage and death rites.

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If your religious clients are clear about their values, it helps them take action that’s congruent with their values and function at a higher level. If they are not clear about their values, it’s harder for them to set goals, make plans, and engage in values-congruent behavior. When this happens, they can get stuck and function at a lower level. This holds true for any values, not just religious ones, which is why it’s important to spend time helping your clients clarify their values.

DEFINING VALUED ACTION Most people never take the time to clarify their own values. They live their lives according to the values and goals set for them by others, such as their families, spouses, or culture. They never question whether or not these values work for them. If clients live their lives according to what other people value rather than what they themselves value, they will eventually get stuck and experience a lot of conflict. Being unclear about personal values is a lot like being in a sailboat without a rudder, at the mercy of the prevailing winds. Clients without clear values are subject to the prevailing winds of peer pressure, societal expectations, and so on. Values are the rudder that allows clients to steer their ship along the course they’ve set to reach their goals. Your job as a coach is to help clients clarify their values to take advantage of the prevailing winds in their lives. I’ve devoted the entire next chapter to describing how to help clients clarify their values. Following is one example of a values-clarification exercise, but there are more in the next chapter. I’ve adapted this one from the classic book, Values Clarification: A Practical, ActionDirected Workbook, by Sidney Simon, Leland Howe, and Howard Kirschenbaum (1995).

VALUES-CLARIFICATION EXERCISE: What Are You Willing to Die For? Read the following paragraph to clients, explaining that the importance of this activity is to help them clarify what they value, not change their values. There are no right or wrong answers when it comes to values. The following statements are designed to help you examine the strength of your values. There are no right or wrong responses. They are designed to help you gain insight into what’s truly important in your life. Complete these statements: 1. I would be willing to die for          . 55

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2. I would be willing to fight for          . 3. I would be willing to strongly argue in public (in a group or society) for          . 4. I would be willing to strongly argue in private (with friends or family) for          . 5. I would be willing to publicly support          . 6. I would be willing to privately support          . 7. I prefer to keep the following values to myself:          .

By identifying their strengths, clients can understand how people, situations, and opportunities that conflict with their strong values can create barriers to action. Understanding values-based barriers is important if clients are to set reasonable goals and objectives for living a purposeful life. For example, if a client strongly values individualistic personal adornment and works for an organization that frowns on tattoos, earrings, and nontraditional clothing, he will have a hard time setting long-range work goals and objectives in such an environment. Although doing values-clarification work with clients might not seem to be related to traditional coaching practice, it really helps clients understand why they just can’t seem to get started at working on some goals and why other goals flow effortlessly. Often this is due to the congruency or lack of congruency of the goals with their values. When clients work toward goals they value, it often doesn’t even seem as if they’re working at all. When they work on things that conflict with their values, every moment they are involved is painful, and time seems to stand still.

Inaction, Impulsivity, and Rigidity Inaction, impulsivity, and rigidity are closely related to lack of clarity regarding values. Inaction is often due to clients’ lack of clarity about their values, which leads to their not setting goals that relate to what they value. If clients are unclear about what they value in life and have no specific goals, it’s easy for them to get stuck and do nothing. Taking no action is the opposite of behaving in ways that are consistent with clients’ values. Acting impulsively is also related to a lack of values. When clients are unclear about their values and goals, they often jump at trying anything that sounds good, without really 56

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thinking about how their behavior will affect their long-term well-being. Impulsiveness is often a by-product of trying to avoid all pain and suffering. When we try to avoid pain and suffering, seeking relief from pain becomes our life goal instead of a goal that requires long-term planning and acceptance of discomfort and setbacks. When this is the case, it’s easy to run from one quick fix to another in an impulsive attempt to avoid pain and seek immediate happiness. Being rigid is the exact opposite of being flexible. Being rigid limits clients’ options but also keeps them in their comfort zone, because they are in familiar territory. When clients are rigid, they try to avoid or control the pain and suffering that’s often inherent in taking valued action in new, unfamiliar directions. In many cases your clients already know this and can cite examples from their own lives where they lived with the discomfort and sacrifice associated with moving in a new direction and accomplishing a major goal.

GETTING UNSTUCK BY TAKING COMMITTED ACTION ACT incorporates willingness training to help clients break through their inactivity, rigidity, and avoidance to take valued action. Willingness is based on trust, faith, and accepting that they don’t have to control, avoid, or eliminate their pain and suffering to move toward and reach their goals. Willingness involves trusting that they can act and make progress toward their goals while carrying their troubling thoughts and painful emotions along for the ride. ACT frequently uses metaphors to teach willingness and other skills. Adapted from the classic ACT metaphor, “Monsters on the Bus” (Luoma, Hayes, & Walser, 2007), the following willingness exercise can be used with clients to illustrate the concept of being willing to take valued action without having to control, avoid, or eliminate painful thoughts and feelings.

ACCEPTANCE AND WILLINGNESS EXERCISE: The Subway Train Read this metaphor to clients: Think of yourself as a subway conductor. Each day you have your route to drive your subway train. As you guide your train along your route each day, you stop at various stations and pick up passengers. Each station has its own unique features that become as familiar to you as the rooms in your home. At each stop, passengers get on and off; 57

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some of them are new, some are regulars, some are friendly, some are nasty, and some are troublesome. As your passengers get on and off your subway train, you keep an eye on them, paying more attention to some than others, but you realize you can’t keep them from getting on the train. All you can do is observe them and keep an eye out for trouble. Throughout the day, these different types of people get on and off your train. In time, all the passengers get off, and you finish your route and park the train in the station for the night.    Now think of this subway route as your to-do list for the day. The activities on your list represent your goals for the day. Each goal represents something you want or need to do to live life according to your values. Instead of people getting on and off the train, imagine your passengers to be the troubling thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and painful emotions that are related to the goals you set for yourself for the day. The troubling thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and painful emotions are related to places you must visit, the people you must interact with, and the tasks you must accomplish. As you did when you visualized actual people on the subway train, you can step back and observe these troubling thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and painful emotions without having to try to control, avoid, or eliminate them. As with the people, you accept that they’ll also come and go, and you continue to follow your route for the day while living with your passengers. You realize that each day brings a new dawn, a new route, and a new set of passengers on the journey of your life. After clients have completed this exercise, ask them what they think of the metaphor and how their thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions are like the passengers on the train. This metaphor speaks to the issues of acceptance and willingness without having to go into great detail about any underlying theory. It takes time to learn to willingly accept pain and suffering and continue moving forward. Throughout the rest of this book, I’ll teach you many more exercises you can use with clients to help them be more willing to act in the face of their pain and suffering. In the next chapter we’ll take a closer look at values and their relationship to ACT.

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Chapter 4

Helping Clients Define Their Valued Directions

There are many different ways to define values. In chapter 3, I defined a value as a combination of a concept, a belief system, and a pattern of behavior that’s held in the highest regard possible. Because values are held in the highest regard, they are difficult to change. Values are personal and totally subjective, and as previously mentioned, there are no right or wrong values. Values often revolve around moral and ethical issues but don’t necessarily have to. Some thoughts or beliefs are evidence based, but values often exist independently of empirical evidence. Consequently, value statements are often judgmental and evaluative. Because clients hold so dearly what they value, values conflicts are among the most common reasons for getting stuck.

WHAT ARE VALUES? Another way to think of values is to view them as the foundation of what I refer to as the big picture of our lives. The big picture is made up of our thoughts, personal scripts, and mental images about how our world and the people in it should be. We often use valueladen words like “should” and “must” to describe the big picture. Beliefs like She really should marry someone of her own faith, The president must be above moral reproach, He should really

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save more of his salary for a rainy day, and Everyone must be allowed to die with dignity are all big-picture statements that are evaluative and judgmental and reflect values. Like all the other personal scripts and mental images we develop, the ones related to our values have been continually evolving ever since we started using language. When we were children, our values mirrored those of our parents. We valued what they did because it was all we knew. As we moved through childhood and adolescence into young adulthood, some of our values began to change. As we were exposed to new experiences, information, and ideas, our values slowly began to shift. Most of us don’t even realize this shift has occurred until one day, in the middle of a discussion with our parents, we suddenly realize we no longer share some of their values. Let’s look at an example of how values reflect personal scripts and individual perception, using the value of having a college education as an example. As a college professor I meet students every semester who tell me they really did not want to go to college but were forced to do so by their parents. Many would have preferred to go to a community college or trade school to learn a craft rather than obtain a university degree. Many have valuable work experience as craftspeople and tradespeople that their parents undervalue, insisting they would do better in life if they earned a university degree. Often these students are forced to give up well-paying jobs in their crafts or trades to meet the academic and other requirements of undergraduate school, with no guarantee that doing so will result in finding a better job. Many would earn substantially more and have a greater sense of personal fulfillment if they stuck to their original plans. I’ve talked to friends and other parents with children who are in similar situations. Let’s look at how two different parents would view the value of earning a university degree. The first parent, Janice, a nurse with a baccalaureate degree in nursing (BSN) whose daughter wants to attend a culinary arts school and become a chef, values education and professional training very highly. The second parent, Greg, a high-school graduate and navy veteran, is a mechanic whose son wants to go to college and major in psychology. This father thinks that going to college in this day and age is an expensive waste of time and that most craftsmen, like himself, can make a better living for themselves and their families. Janice is torn between wanting her daughter to be happy and fulfilled in her career choice and upholding her own personal values regarding having a college education in general and being a professional in particular. Janice feels that her daughter can “do better than become a cook.” Her choice of words shows the judgmental and evaluative nature of her thoughts and personal scripts regarding training at culinary arts school (which in Janice’s mind translates to “cooking school”). Janice believes her daughter will regret not going to college and

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becoming a professional. Janice also thinks her daughter has a better chance of meeting a “suitable husband” (her actual words) in college than in a trade school. While there’s always an economic demand for people who either cook for or care for others, Janice believes the long-range economic consequences of her own profession outweigh those of the culinary arts. In addition she thinks it’s important for her daughter to meet potential mates who are college educated. Janice believes that part of being a good parent involves making tough decisions for her children that have far-reaching consequences. Greg is an excellent mechanic who spends a lot of time with his son, who’s also very mechanically inclined. Over the years Greg and his son have worked together at restoring old cars. Despite his talents as an auto mechanic, Greg’s son has no desire to make a living at this work. He wants to study psychology but is unsure what he wants to do with the degree. Greg feels his son would be better off following in his footsteps. He would love to see his son work with him and eventually take over his garage. A lot of his friends’ kids went to college, only to come back home and get involved in the family business. He also has many friends from the service who went to college and majored in fields like psychology, only to become unemployed and end up joining the navy. Greg will consider letting his son go to college only if he attends a local junior college and works in his garage while he determines whether it’s really what he wants to do. Neither of these parents’ set of values about obtaining a university degree is right or wrong. They subjectively determine the value of the degree, based on their own backgrounds and life experience. Note that when discussing the merits of their positions, they make judgments and evaluations that are not completely based on empirical evidence about the value of a university degree. You must allow clients to tell you what they value without requiring that they support their positions with evidence or proof. Your main job as a coach is to help clients clarify their values and assess whether their values are helpful or contribute to their getting stuck. This is very important information to identify, because it will either help or hinder your clients’ progress in achieving their goals.

VALUES ARE THE MIRRORS OF THE SOUL Another way to think about values is to view them as mirrors of the soul. If anything can paint a picture of what someone is really about, it’s the person’s values. Your clients’ values are the truest reflections of who they are as people and what they care most about in the world. While their knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior are part of who they are, and 61

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paint a picture of them for others, it’s their values that are the foundation on which these other dimensions are built.

Core Values and Satellite Values There are two different levels of values: core values and satellite values, and they do not carry the same weight. One of the best ways to understand this is to visualize an atom, with the nucleus at the core, and the electrons spinning around it. Core values represent the nucleus, with satellite values spinning around it, creating energy in a synergistic way. Core values represent the things that are central to who people are and what they’d be willing to fight or die for. Core values are the bedrock of personality and are related to things like a person’s country, spouse, children, religion, and freedom. Satellite values consist of less-important things that people hold dear but aren’t as strongly committed to and typically include political beliefs, cultural traditions, community service, personal attributes (intelligence, beauty, and so on), hobbies, recreational activities, sports, and so forth. Remember, values are very subjective, and one client’s satellite values might be another’s core values. As a coach you can never take this for granted and assume that all of your clients value the same things equally. The only way to know what your clients value is to have them tell you, and there are many ways to help them do this. I learned a very interesting and fun way to do this from Gregg Krech and Linda Anderson Krech of the ToDo Institute in Vermont (Krech & Anderson Krech, 2005). They believe that a good indication of what your clients value would be evident if your clients could create a perfect day. If they could plan a perfect day, what would they do, whom would they spend it with, and where would it occur? Their daily-life criteria for a perfect day are their standards for living life well. These criteria are concrete activities (cooking a meal, making love, and so forth) that clients would partake in that represent their values. What would a perfect day be like if someone could meet all of her daily-life criteria during a twenty-four-hour period? Generally, the day would be free of the need to play mind games and take on roles that compromise the person’s values and beliefs and therefore make the person feel uncomfortable. A perfect day would involve doing all of the things that have value and meaning and bring joy, even though the goal of that day might not be total happiness. Because the things you would do on such a day would give your life meaning and reflect your deepest values, they would be both fun and challenging, and time would seem to be suspended as you engaged in these activities.

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While such a day might have its ups and downs, the negative aspects are generally offset by the overall goodness of the day. A good day represents a state in which people value what they are actually doing, because it meshes seamlessly with their values. The more your clients live in concert with their daily life criteria, the more their lives will be driven by their own values, not those of others. Here’s a simple exercise that will help clients examine what they really want and need to be happy and meet their daily life criteria for a perfect day.

VALUES-CLARIFICATION EXERCISE: A Perfect Day Give your clients these instructions: If you could plan a perfect day, what would it include? What specific activities would you be involved in? Where would you be? Whom would you be with? Would you be living on an island, in a new city or country, or right where you are now? Would you be in a new job or even working at all? Would you be with a new partner or your current one? Let your imagination run free, but be as specific as possible. Instead of saying something like “relaxing,” say, “lying by a pool with my partner” or “meditating under a tree.” List up to ten daily life criteria for a perfect day:

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After your clients have completed this exercise, ask them these questions:

◆◆ How do these daily life criteria reflect your core and satellite values? ◆◆ How does your typical day compare to this perfect day? ◆◆ What stands in the way of your meeting your daily life criteria for the perfect day? Most clients have not formally put this kind of information down on paper. They might have thought about it but never formalized the process or had a chance to write down their thoughts. Seeing their daily life criteria and the barriers to achieving them on paper is often transformative and motivates them to take values-congruent action.

CLARIFYING VALUES: A FOUR-STEP PROCESS The original model for clarifying values, developed by Sidney Simon, Leland Howe, and Howard Kirschenbaum (1995), involved four steps: 1. Explore values. 2. Choose and rank values. 3. Publicly affirm values. 4. Act on values. It’s important to understand the four steps to be able to use them with clients.

Explore values. Most of my students and clients never formally explored their values until working with me. Most clients you work with probably think about their values from time to time, but rarely write them down and think about how they relate to their goals. During the first step of the values-clarification process, clients use a variety of exercises and activities to identify what they value and what matters most to them in life. 64

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Choose and rank values. The second step of the values-clarification process involves ranking your values from most to least important. As discussed earlier, clients’ core values are central to defining who they are as people, while satellite values are those of lesser importance. Remember, both core and satellite values are important, but when they must be ranked, core values hold more weight than satellite values. People can rank their values any way they want. Just because one client ranks something as a core value doesn’t mean it has to represent that for all of your clients. Everyone values things differently.

Publicly affirm values. During the third step of values clarification, clients let others know what they value, rather than keep their values to themselves. This action step is key because it’s what solidifies the value for your client. Publicly affirming values doesn’t mean your clients literally have to stand on a soapbox and proclaim their values to the world (although they might choose to do this). There are lots of ways they can show others what they value. They could do this by just sharing something they value with one other person in a private conversation (or in front of a large group, in a classroom, in a workshop, and so on). They can also share their values with others through the written word. A written document serves as a testament to what clients value, and it will stand the test of time. Unlike spoken words, when something is in writing, it’s a permanent record. Sharing values in writing is very empowering but can be scary at first. It can help clients develop the courage to continue to live up to their convictions. Be aware, however, that sharing your values can be threatening to others.

Act on values. Stating one’s values is a form of action, but it’s not quite the same as acting on those values. For example, a client might speak out in favor of the Second Amendment and the right of Americans to own firearms. Joining a firearm advocacy group or buying your own gun, however, is a very different and more-direct form of action. Taking action is the final measure clients can use to test the validity of their values.

VALUES CLARIFICATION: AN ACT-BASED FRAMEWORK An ACT-based framework for values clarification integrates its four components with basic ACT concepts about how the mind works. For example, ACT established that the mind is a 24/7 thinking machine, capable of cranking out the most bizarre personal scripts. Some of these bizarre thoughts and personal scripts are related to values. An ACT-based approach 65

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to values clarification gives up trying to avoid, eliminate, or control troubling thoughts, personal scripts, scary mental images, and painful emotions related to values. Rather than trying to control the mind—attempting to limit its activity to logical and rational thoughts and personal scripts about values—an ACT-based approach accepts how the mind works and commits to seeing all four steps of the values-clarification process through. Becoming more mindful of the present moment, a key component of ACT, also extends to values clarification. Mindfulness training can help clients develop a heightened awareness of their values and whether or not values conflicts contribute to their getting hooked by unhelpful thoughts that keep them stuck. An ACT-based approach to helping clients get unstuck from values-based thoughts and personal scripts is to teach them to always come back to the key question regarding such thoughts: Are these thoughts and personal scripts helpful in meeting my goals? Mindfulness training helps clients realize when their thoughts are not helpful and contribute to their stuckness. For the rest of the chapter I’ll work through an ACT-based approach to the four steps of values clarification: explore values, choose and rank values, publicly affirm values, and act on values.

Categorizing Values: An ACT-Based Approach A helpful technique you can use to teach your clients how to explore their values is to have them categorize their values. Different values fall into different categories. Clients might find that their core values fall into certain categories and their satellite values fall into others. I’ve developed a framework for categorizing values that incorporates my work with students and clients for over twenty-five years, along the various dimensions of health and the work of Steven Hayes (2005) regarding values. My framework has ten categories:

◆◆ intimate relationships ◆◆ family relationships ◆◆ friendships and other relationships ◆◆ health ◆◆ spirituality ◆◆ finances 66

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◆◆ learning ◆◆ work ◆◆ the environment ◆◆ civic duties I break relationships into three separate categories, because different kinds of relationships are worth looking at separately.

INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS Intimacy in relationships is characterized by a deeper level of sharing of personal information and experience than friendships or other more-casual relationships. Intimate relationships can be sexual or romantic, but they also can be platonic. Intimacy can be expressed in a variety of ways beyond the deep trust and sharing of personal information that form its foundation. Let your clients define their intimate relationships for you.

FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS Family can be defined in many ways, depending on a person’s culture and subcultures. It could be limited to the person’s partner and children or parents and siblings (nuclear); include aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and so on (extended); or consist of a mixture of friends, family, domestic partners, and so forth (blended). What clients value about their family relationships is strongly influenced by the culture and subcultures in which they were raised. As a coach, don’t assume that all families are healthy, functional, and valued. Any pattern of neglect or abuse in your clients’ family histories will strongly influence their values around family.

FRIENDSHIPS AND OTHER RELATIONSHIPS This category covers the entire spectrum from close friends and casual associates to relationships with pets. It differs from the other two relationship categories because these relationships aren’t among family members and don’t include romantic love, sex, or the same type of commitment one would pledge to an intimate partner.

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HEALTH Health is a multidimensional concept covering seven areas of well-being: the physical, social, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, environmental, and occupational dimensions. Health is related to both form and function. Your clients’ health values can relate to both how they look and how they feel and function. Some clients value how they look more than how well their bodies function. Others couldn’t care less about how they look but are very concerned about how well their bodies perform on a day-to-day basis. Clients can value the role of healthy behavior (regular exercise, healthy eating, preventive checkups, and so on) or not value it at all.

SPIRITUALITY Spirituality revolves around feeling connected to something beyond the self. The sense of feeling connected to something or someone beyond the self is the essence of all religious and secular definitions of spirituality. In a religious sense, spiritual practice usually revolves around prayer, attendance and participation in religious activities, and tithing of income. In a secular sense, spirituality can manifest itself in things like participation in community activities, efforts to improve the environment, or helping others who are less fortunate.

FINANCES Finances refers to such matters as how much money people want or need; their saving, spending, and budgeting concerns; and the importance of money in their lives. Finances also extend to the larger level of consumerism, taxes, and government spending. Your clients’ financial values influence everything from their choice of occupation and spouse to their retirement expectations.

LEARNING Learning is the formal and informal pursuit of knowledge, information, and skill. Some of your clients value learning, while others do not. Some value formal learning experiences (acquiring degrees, qualifications, certifications, licenses, and so on), while others value informal approaches (reading, taking adult-education courses, and so on). Clients value different things associated with learning. For some, it means possessing a piece of paper that testifies to their status. For others, it’s simply learning new things and gathering new skills. 68

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WORK Work is an important part of life, offering opportunities for personal growth, income, and socialization. There are four key components of work: the physical work environment, social relationships with coworkers and bosses, the actual job, and earnings and benefits associated with the job. Clients value different things related to work. Some value the actual work, viewing it as an avenue for personal expression and fulfillment. Others see a job as a paycheck, and they value the wages and benefits above all else. Some clients like the work environment; for example, some fishermen love being out on the sea, some truckers value the open road, and some professors like the stage a podium in a lecture hall offers. Still other clients value above all else the personal relationships they establish with colleagues.

THE ENVIRONMENT The environment can be broken down into the micro and macro levels. The microenvironment includes a person’s immediate surroundings: school, home, neighborhood, town, city, and so on. The microenvironment means things like air and water quality, privacy, safety, and recreational opportunities. The macroenvironment is broader and encompasses entities such as the state and country where a person lives and the world at large. Clients value different things about their microenvironments.

CIVIC DUTIES Civic duties refers to different aspects of citizenship, ranging from being a member of a community to being actively involved in politics and voting at various levels. Most clients think of their communities as relating to their local neighborhoods. As members of communities, clients value different things, ranging from the familiarity of being settled in one place to the pride associated with the local high-school football team. Politics and voting cover every aspect from school-board elections to electing the president of the nation. Some clients value voting and being actively involved in politics at all levels, while other clients couldn’t care less about this and don’t trust any politician at any level of government. With ten categories and many sublevels within these divisions, it’s easy for clients to lose track of their core and satellite values. I’ve developed the following simple but useful mindfulness exercise to help clients sort through and categorize their values.

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VALUES-CLARIFICATION EXERCISE: Sorting the Mail Having clients sort through all of their values across the ten categories can get pretty confusing. One useful way to help them do this is to ask them to imagine that they are sorting through the mail and putting individual value positions (the letters) into the appropriate slots (one of the ten categories). Give these instructions to your client: Plan to spend thirty minutes on each part of this exercise. You will probably have to spend more than one session to work through all of your values. You can set up the exercise two different ways: buy a ten-slot organizer from your local office-supply store, or make one using ten manila folders fastened securely to poster board or a piece of wood. In either case, label the slots or ten manila folders with these ten titles:

◆◆ Intimate Relationships ◆◆ Family Relationships ◆◆ Friendships and Other Relationships ◆◆ Health ◆◆ Spirituality ◆◆ Finances ◆◆ Learning ◆◆ Work ◆◆ The Environment ◆◆ Civic Duties On 5-inch by 8-inch file cards, answer the following values questions for each category: What exactly do I value about          ? Fill in the category. You can have more than one value for each category. Example: What exactly do I value about intimate relationships? I value having someone who shares my love. 70

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I value having a single sexual partner. I value having someone with whom I can share my deepest thoughts and feelings. I value having a close companion to share each day with. Take your time as you work through each values category. Don’t judge your values; accept them for what they are and put them in their proper place. You’ll rank them later. For now, just spend the time categorizing and sorting them.

When clients have completed this exercise, explain to them that they will find this to be hard work and very time consuming but that it is time well spent and lays a strong foundation for many of the other exercises to come (throughout the rest of this book).

Ranking Values: An ACT-Based Approach The second step in the values-clarification process is to rank values. Ranking values can help clients distinguish their core values from satellite ones. While this might seem like nit-picking, it will help them understand the power associated with certain values and how these tend to drive their behavior. It will also help them understand how having strong values can contribute to their getting stuck. It’s much easier to be psychologically flexible when we’re dealing with things that are not that important or valuable to us. When clients are dealing with matters they value deeply, it’s much easier for them to become rigid in their thinking, because the stakes are much higher. For example, imagine that Mary, one of your clients, is considering marrying someone of another faith she met through work. Mary is a geologist who specializes in discovering natural gas hidden in the strata of rock formations beneath the earth’s surface. Last year while on a temporary work assignment in Turkey, she fell in love with a man who’s a Muslim. When she returned to the United States, they continued their relationship at a distance, each flying off to visit the other a couple of times during the year. On their last visit together, they decided to get married early the next year. Mary arranged to get transferred to her company’s Turkish headquarters in Istanbul, where her fiancé lives. Mary values her work very strongly and is very adventurous. One of the reasons she became interested in geology and gas exploration was that she knew it would be her ticket out of New York and to exotic new places around the globe.

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Born and raised in Brooklyn, where her family still lives, Mary grew up in a very parochial environment. Her parents are Italian American, very traditional, family oriented, and controlling. Most of their socializing was with other family members, and Mary was expected to accompany them to all of the family get-togethers, such as birthday parties, first Holy Communion celebrations, and weddings. While Mary is not very religious currently, she was raised as a Roman Catholic, and her mother and father are deeply religious, attending church every Sunday. They have always expected their daughter to marry someone of her own faith, have children, and raise them as Roman Catholics. They insisted that Mary attend Catholic elementary and high school and were extremely disappointed when she rejected their suggestion that she attend a religious university. It was only when Mary threatened to go to college in California that they relented and agreed to send her to New York University, where she majored in geology while living at home. Mary couldn’t wait to graduate and attend graduate school at the University of Texas, where there was a special program in oil and gas exploration. Mary has come to you primarily for career counseling, but after your first session together, it’s quite clear that Mary also has some values conflicts that contribute to her feeling stuck. She’s not sure if her move to Turkey is in her best interest careerwise. She knows it’s the best thing to do for her relationship with her fiancé, but something holds her back from fully embracing the plan. While she’s excited about the job and the new adventures it will bring, she has heard from friends within the company that leaving corporate headquarters in New York to move to Istanbul would diminish the exposure she needs to work her way up the corporate ladder. You suspect that while this is a valid concern, it isn’t the one that makes Mary feel stuck. It seems to you that Mary is stuck in a swirling mix of values related to her relationship, work, and family. For the first time in a few years, Mary feels uncertain about her plans. She’s not sure how to talk to her fiancé about her career concerns without hurting his feelings, and she has no idea how to broach the subject of marrying someone of a different faith to her parents. In addition, neither she nor her future husband wants to have any children, another issue that’s sure to be problematic with her parents. A couple of months ago, Mary tested the waters by mentioning in passing to her parents how close she and her new Turkish boyfriend were getting and that for the first time, she thought she really was in love with someone. She also let them know he was a Muslim. She wasn’t surprised when her parents reacted harshly to this information. Both parents immediately reminded her of the importance to them that she marry someone of the same faith and how it would be a sin to not raise her children as Roman Catholic. Her mom

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said, “How can I tell the family you’re going out with someone who’s not Italian and not a Catholic?” Her dad said, “Mary, you know it’s against our religion for you to marry someone of a different faith. You could never get married in the church.” As Mary ponders this previous conversation, her mind fills with negative thoughts, painful emotions, outdated mental images, and personal scripts that no longer represent who she is. Her mind keeps telling her unhelpful thoughts and personal scripts like I should please my parents and stay in New York. Good girls do what their parents say. I’m really letting my parents down by marrying someone who’s not Roman Catholic. She feels guilt and shame for wanting to do something that would hurt her parents and go against their wishes. When she closes her eyes, she sees herself as a little girl, standing between her parents as they walk into church together. She also sees a gas exploration rig out in the middle of the desert, with her future husband and other scientists milling around and listening to her explain where to sound for gas cavities in the area. She realizes she’s not in that picture. Mary has come to you for help in sorting through all of this and developing a plan of action to make the break. You can see how having conflicting values contributes to Mary’s stuck feelings and inability to move forward. Helping Mary sort through and rank her values are important steps in helping her understand how they relate to her goals and plans for moving to Turkey. The next values-clarification exercise builds on the previous one by helping clients rank their values.

VALUES RANKING AND DEFUSION EXERCISE: Core vs. Satellite Values Give these instructions to your clients: 1. Look at the ten envelopes or the organizer you set up in the previous exercise. Rank each envelope or slot in order of importance (1 = the highest). 2. If you’re using envelopes, put the three most important envelopes in a pile and scatter the remaining seven around the ones in the middle (somewhat like the way electrons circle the nucleus of an atom). 3. Pull out all of the value cards from the three most important envelopes or slots and put them into a pile. 4. Read each value a few times. 73

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5. Rank each of the values contained in this pile from most important to least important. 6. Line up all of these cards in order of their importance. 7. Step back three feet from these cards and tell yourself: These are my most deeply held values, and I accept them for what they are. While they are important to me, I am more than these values. They are part of who I am and I carry them with me always, but they don’t have to control the actions I know I need to take to realize my dreams. 8. Step back another three feet, distancing yourself a little more from the cards. Give yourself a little more breathing room to create some more space between you and the things you value.

After clients have completed this exercise, tell them that creating some distance between themselves and their most deeply held values helps them begin to see the values for what they are, parts of the whole of who the clients are. Explain to your clients that they are more than their individual values. They don’t have to be afraid of their values and don’t need to avoid, control, or eliminate them to move forward and take action.

Publicly Affirm Values: An ACT Perspective The next step in the values clarification process is having clients let others know what they value. As I mentioned before, this affirmation can be to one person or a million people. Public affirmation is a form of willingness. It shows others that clients acknowledge and accept their values and are willing to act on them. When clients are willing to affirm their values, it means they won’t try to control, avoid, or eliminate whatever repercussions follow their disclosure. They are willing to accept the consequences of their affirmations. Publicly affirming values sets the stage for the final step in the values-clarification process: taking action. Being willing to make values known to others sets the stage for accepting the pain and suffering that might accompany such disclosure. Take Mary’s situation. If she decides to hold a family meeting and disclose her intentions to marry her Muslim fiancé and move to Turkey, she will open herself to their judgments, evaluations, and criticisms. She will also open herself to their possible support, praise, and encouragement. At this point, Mary does not know how things will work out but realizes that to take the next step, she has to affirm what’s most important to her. 74

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Choice of language can make all the difference in the world regarding how others interpret and accept someone’s public affirmation of values. An excellent strategy for clients to use when publicly disclosing values is to use “I” language whenever possible. In fact this is the best way for clients to show someone that they take responsibility for their values. “I” language does not blame others for clients’ actions, thoughts, and feelings. For example, before even speaking with her family, Mary has made up her mind that they will oppose her decision and make her feel guilty for wanting to marry someone of a different faith and move to another country. Mary could approach this situation two ways. The first way would be the usual way she communicates with her family when discussing issues like her current decision. She could say something like, “You guys are always laying guilt trips on me when I want to do something different and spread my wings a little. You make me feel bad for wanting to be happy and fulfill my dreams. I hate it when you make me feel that way. You never understand and see things my way. I’m going either with or without your approval.” In this monologue Mary blames her family three times for her own feelings (“you guys are always laying guilt trips on me,” “you make me feel bad,” “you make me feel that way”). Actually Mary feels this way because those are the feelings her mind associates with her parents from previous personal scripts and mental images. A more productive approach regarding this example would be for Mary to take personal responsibility for her feelings and actions and to be more gracious in setting the stage for her monologue. Using “I” language would be central to this approach. For example, “Mom and Dad, I know you love me and love having me around, and the thought of my marrying someone of a different faith and moving to another country makes you sad. I also know you want the best for me and really appreciate my success at college and work. I feel guilty when I think about moving away after all you’ve done for me. I also feel a little selfish about just putting my needs ahead of yours, but this is something I really need to do to be happy and fulfill my dreams. I hope you understand.” This approach is more gracious and humble, uses “I” language, and transmits respect for her parents as well as asserts her own needs. It is a win-win approach.

Act on Values: An ACT-based approach Taking action, the final step of values clarification, is the culmination of the other three components. By acting in concert with their values, clients behave in ways that are consistent with what’s most important in their lives. This kind of action can be a minor undertaking (like writing a check to support a group they value) or a major one (moving twenty-five 75

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hundred miles away to attend college). The best types of action are the ones that support the goals clients have set for themselves. I will discuss goal setting in greater detail in the next chapter. The final exercise in this chapter, “Clarifying Your Values,” uses an ACT-based approach to clarifying values and combines all four of the values-clarification processes. It will help you teach clients how to clarify their values. Have clients pick one value to work with throughout this exercise.

VALUES-CLARIFICATION EXERCISE: Developing a Plan for Acting on Your Values Give these instructions to clients: 1. Explore what you value. Pick one of the values categories from the “Sorting the Mail” exercise. Choose one card from the category to work on. Copy what you wrote on that card on these lines: 2. Rank this value. Write down the rank you gave the value from the “Core vs. Satellite Values” exercise: 3. Publicly affirm. Some things I can do to affirm this value to others are:

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4. Take action. Some things I can do to demonstrate this value to others are: 5. Identify the things that make it difficult to affirm and act on your values. The thoughts, personal scripts, scary pictures, or emotions that make it difficult for me to speak about this value or act on it are: 6. Identify what you are willing to accept. I’m willing to accept the following to affirm and act on this value: Since this is a complicated exercise, here’s an example using Mary, our imaginary client. 1. Explore what you value. I value my work and the adventure it provides. 2. Rank this value. I rank this value the highest I can, at 10. 3. Publicly affirm. Tell my family members how much I value them and let them know of my decision to go to Turkey to be with my future husband. Write my parents a detailed letter explaining how important this is to me.

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4. Take action. Take my mom and dad to Istanbul to meet my fiancé and see where I’ll live and work. Put my co-op apartment up for sale. Get all of the paperwork finished to apply for a marriage license. 5. Identify what makes it difficult to affirm and act on your values. Thoughts: I should please my parents and stay in New York. Good Italian daughters do what their parents say. I’ll be deserting my family if I move to Turkey and marry my fiancé. Personal Scripts: I have this image of me boarding the plane, with my parents, grandmother, and aunt standing in the terminal crying. I’m making them all feel bad and I feel very guilty because of it. I try calling out to them, “Please don’t cry! I’ll be back in six months to visit!” but they can’t hear me because of the noise in the terminal. Scary Pictures: I close my eyes and see myself in Istanbul, alone in my dorm room, missing my family. I have my flannel pajamas with the little feet on and look like a scared little girl. Emotions: I feel guilty, afraid, worried, and anxious. 6. Identify what you are willing to accept. Feeling guilty and anxious about leaving and being in a new, strange place. Having my painful thoughts, scripts, and scary pictures roll around in my head while I take action.

When clients have completed this exercise, tell them they can use information from it to set goals. By setting goals that are consistent with what they value, they can increase the likelihood of attaining their goals. Since clients’ goals should reflect their values, they will see how important it is to combine the two processes.

AN ACT PERSPECTIVE ON VALUES As I discussed in chapter 2, ACT revolves around how the mind functions in different contexts. While most people view values as fixed and immutable, those of us who subscribe to an ACT view tend to view them as more fluid. Remember, ACT helps people look at how useful their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are in the service of the values and goals they’ve set for themselves. 78

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While values are central to defining who one is as a person and they ideally set the stage for all goals, they are not fixed and incapable of change. Values change as people are exposed to new information and experiences. When this happens, people begin to rethink their positions on issues and grow as individuals. Some values never change completely; they just bend a little, as trees do in the wind. Think of each of the values categories discussed earlier as trees. Like trees, values have deep roots that nurture and sustain them. The branches of any individual tree represent all of the values positions a person has in that category. When a tree is confronted by heavy winds, it has the ability to bend without breaking. When someone’s values are confronted by the winds of change in life, the more psychological flexibility the person has regarding that values position, the more likely he will be to bend without breaking from the strain. Think about Mary and all of the values she has about two categories: work and family. Discussing her plans with her family is like a strong wind blowing through the branches of her trees. Her ability to bend without breaking depends a lot on her psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility is what makes Mary’s values fluid, able to adjust and serve her, rather than fixed, requiring her to adjust and serve them. She had many internal conflicts until she realized she’d outgrown a value still held deeply by those she loves, respects, and trusts. One part of her wants their approval and pulls her away from her own, new values, while another part of her pulls her toward her new values, creating distance between her and her loved ones. This kind of values-related tension is perfectly normal for people who allow themselves to grow and evolve as individuals. It makes perfect sense for people’s values to change as they do. Unfortunately, most people are not psychologically flexible enough to accept this, and they cling to their outdated values long after the values stop reflecting who they are as people. Instead of viewing values as fluid and capable of change, they view them as fixed and unchangeable, and they feel threatened by the idea that their values can change as they evolve and grow. They interpret their changing values as a sign of weakness in that they conflict with the values they were raised with. A more psychologically flexible view sees changing values as a healthy adaptation to the growth that accompanies exposure to new information, ideas, and experiences. This is exactly what Mary is going through. As she has evolved as a person and been exposed to new places and ideas through her relationship, work, and travel, her values related to family have become outdated. While she still values her home and family, her conception of what this means has changed. Home, in her mind, doesn’t have to be the place where she and her family grew up. She can move away, get married, explore new places, and still value

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her childhood home as a place that is important and will always have a special meaning. She also still values her family, but she defines it differently now—to include her future husband. She can still love and respect her mom and dad without embracing their religion and parochial views. Approaching values from an ACT-based perspective of how they function in a particular context can be very difficult for clients who don’t have sufficient psychological flexibility. In Mary’s case she has fused with certain thoughts and personal scripts related to family that keep her stuck and unable to move toward her dreams.

FUSING WITH VALUES Sometimes when clients get stuck because of a values-related issue, it’s because they’ve fused with a value that no longer works for them or that’s causing a conflict. Sometimes they’ve simply outgrown the value and it’s no longer helpful to them in meeting their goals. Other times, as in the case of Mary, the value they’ve fused with is still important and has meaning for them, but it puts them in conflict with other values. In either case, clients want to move forward, but their old values keep them stuck and they can’t find a way out of their problems. When this happens, they become the value, or fuse with it, rather than merely view it as one part of their overall being. As a result, they have a hard time stepping back and clearly seeing the conflict. When this happens they need help in distancing themselves from the values that hold them back. The following exercise, “The Values Whiteboard,” is extremely helpful for teaching clients how to step back and view what their minds tell them about a value they’ve fused with. It’s used with permission from New Harbinger Publications from my book Stress Less, Live More (Blonna, 2010).

DEFUSION EXERCISE: The Values Whiteboard Give these instructions to clients: 1. Whenever you’re stuck in a values conflict, identify the underlying value as clearly as possible. Use a whiteboard, flip chart, or sheet of paper to write on. Say to yourself, My mind is telling me the following things about this values conflict, then write down everything

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your mind tells you about this conflict. Make sure to include both individual words and personal scripts regarding the values conflict.

◆◆ Say to yourself, I see the following scary pictures regarding this values conflict, then close your eyes and attend to the exact mental images you see in your mind’s eye. Write them all down exactly as you see them.

◆◆ Say to yourself, I feel the following emotions and body sensations regarding this values conflict, then write down these emotions and body sensations. 2. Now step away from the board, chart, or paper, putting at least six feet of distance between it and your body. Say to yourself, My mind really has a lot to say about this values conflict—how interesting. 3. Do not judge or evaluate what your mind tells you. Instead ask yourself this question: How helpful is any of this in managing my stress and meeting my goals? Write your answer on a different part of the board, chart, or paper. 4. Ask yourself, What am I willing to accept about this conflict to move forward so I can live my life and meet my goals? Write your answer on a different part of the board, chart, or paper.

When clients have completed this exercise, explain to them that in time and with practice, they will find that distancing themselves from what their minds tell them about the values conflict they’re experiencing will help them defuse from it. When this happens, they can begin to view the value and the conflict as parts of themselves that exist in their own contexts and with their own functions. In the next chapter, I’ll show you how to help clients set goals that are more consistent with their values and with what gives meaning to their lives.

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Helping Clients Commit to Act by Setting Goals

In the last chapter I discussed values and why they are so important in your clients’ lives and in acceptance and commitment therapy. In this chapter I show how values, commitment, and goal setting are related. ACT emphasizes the importance of having clients set clear goals that reflect their values. When clients’ goals mirror their values, it helps keep them focused and minimizes the discrepancy between what’s most important to them (their values) and the direction of their lives (their goals). Clients come to you because they want and need your help in reaching goals they have set for themselves. These goals run the gamut from running a first marathon or writing a first book to getting that next promotion or increasing their personal wealth. Clients may not realize it, but their chances of success increase immeasurably if their goals mesh with their values, which is why the first step in helping them is to have them spend time clarifying their values. Once you’ve spent the time helping clients clarify their values, you then have to help them examine the goals they want to achieve in relation to those values. Getting them to commit to an action plan to achieve their goals is a big step, and you’ve got to be sure that the behaviors you want them to engage in go with, rather than against, their values. When clients’ values are the basis of their goals, their commitment to action is true and enables them to overcome any adversity that will come their way. Action plans that are based on someone else’s values and goals are based on lies and set the stage for getting stuck. You

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might not realize it, but one of your major jobs as a coach is to help clients be true to themselves. You might be the first person to ever look the client in the eye and say, “So how do these goals relate to what’s important to you as a person?” When clients follow their values and what’s in their hearts and minds, tell them they are on their way to living purposeful lives.

A PURPOSEFUL LIFE Morita therapy, a form of Japanese psychotherapy that’s very similar to ACT in many respects, advises to take purposeful action in the face of troubling thoughts and emotions (Morita, 1998). Like ACT, Morita therapy teaches that the worst thing we can do with painful thoughts and feelings is to dwell on them and try to work on them. Rather than waste precious time doing this, Morita therapy proposes that it’s better to shift our attention away from painful thoughts and feelings by engaging in purposeful behavior. When I asked my spiritual teacher, Gregg Krech, to explain what this means, he simply said, “That means doing what needs to be done.” I asked him to clarify this, and he responded that he couldn’t tell me exactly what kind of activity to engage in. All he could teach me was how to be more mindful of the moment and to understand and trust my values. If I were mindful of the moment, I’d know what needed to be done. The right behavior would be the one that was consistent with what the situation demanded and how this meshed with my values. Part of your job as a coach is to help your clients find their purpose in life and let this drive their behavior, especially when their troubling thoughts and painful emotions cause them to lose their psychological flexibility and get stuck. One of the most incredibly powerful aspects of ACT is that even though it is values driven, it takes a values-neutral approach to helping people get unstuck. There’s room in ACT for people like myself, who are more materialistic and value wealth and success, and those like Gregg, who are more spiritual and place a small premium on material things. If I were to ask you to describe your purpose in life, how would you answer? You might say something like “I want to be the best coach I can be,” “I want to be a good husband and father,” or “I want to earn enough money to be able to have all the things I want in life without having to worry about them.” Most people describe their purpose in terms of their goals. Your clients would probably react the same way. They would probably relate their purpose to their careers, family, or work goals. Some would answer the question with statements like “I’m planning to go to medical school and become a doctor,” “I’m working on my first novel, because I plan to become a successful writer,” or “I’m saving up enough 84

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money to open my own bed and breakfast at the beach.” Others might have more altruistic responses: “I want to help others, so I volunteer at the local food bank,” or “I want to save the environment, so I work part-time for a nonprofit group devoted to stopping global warming.” Still others with more hedonistic goals would answer, “I just want to enjoy myself and do something fun each day,” or “I want to travel and visit all of the continents while I’m still young enough to enjoy them.” As is evident from these statements, one’s purpose in life is very personal and can be defined in many different ways. Regardless of how your clients differ regarding their life purpose, the common thread that links them all together is the notion of intent. When they do something on purpose, they intentionally do it, not by chance, on a whim, or in response to a dare. When clients engage in purposeful living, they intentionally live their lives according to their values, goals, and plans. From a coaching perspective, purposeful living doesn’t mean that clients should have the right purpose as defined by you. It means having a purpose that meshes with who they are, based on what they value and what gives their lives meaning. One of the things you can do to help your clients keep their life directions is to teach them how to set realistic goals that are based on their values and life purpose.

SETTING REALISTIC GOALS I always tell my students and clients that setting realistic goals involves having their heads in the clouds but their feet firmly on the ground. In other words, I want them to dream and stretch themselves, but I also want them to have some way to measure their success and stay focused. Realistic goals are based on measurable objectives, small steps that ensure success. Measurable objectives are also based in behavior, in taking action. Let’s use Jane from chapters 2 and 3 as an example. Jane’s goal is to start her own small graphic-design business. With her expertise in graphic design and experience working with small businesses, it would seem to go without saying that this is a realistic goal. To further assess how realistic it is involves looking at the objectives Jane has set for herself. If she doesn’t have any objectives, I’d say her goal is not realistic at all. Without breaking her goal into smaller, measurable pieces and steps, the task of starting her own business can be overwhelming, even for someone with her experience. Establishing measurable objectives will help Jane stay focused when she loses direction and says to herself, So why am I doing this? which often happens when clients get bogged down in the process of working toward their goals and taking care of their day-to-day responsibilities.

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Measurable objectives are action oriented and are based on behavioral outcomes that can be quantified. Measurable objectives answer this question: Who will do how much of what by when? Realistic goals usually have several measurable objectives spaced out over a timeline. Using Jane as an example again, let’s develop a set of measurable objectives for her goal. Goal: Start my own small graphic-design business. Objective 1: By the end of 2011, I will finish writing my business plan. Objective 2: By the end of 2011, I will decide where I want to locate my business. Objective 3: By the end of 2011, I will join the Colorado Small Business Association. Objective 4: By the end of 2012, I will finish earning my small business owner certification from Colorado College extension division. Objective 5: By the end of 2013, I will raise twenty-five thousand dollars to serve as collateral for a small business loan. Objective 6: By the end of 2013, I will have identified five potential funding sources for loans or grants to use to start my business. All of the objectives answer the who, what, when, and how much criteria. Measurable objectives allow clients to track their progress toward their goals, which increases the likelihood that the goals will be met. While realistic goals and measurable objectives can help ensure your clients’ success in meeting their goals, unrealistic goals and objectives that can’t be measured work exactly the opposite way and set clients up for failure. When your clients have goals that are too lofty or unrealistic, they will have a hard time meeting them, regardless of their objectives. One of your jobs as a coach is to help assess your clients’ goals to see if they are unrealistic in terms of their resources and abilities. When your clients set unrealistic goals and fail to meet them, this usually reinforces unhelpful thoughts, personal scripts, and mental images that they already have about themselves and their abilities. Rather than build new, positive, and helpful relational frames that lay the foundation for future success, failing at unrealistic goals contributes to keeping clients stuck. Writing realistic goals and measurable objectives takes practice. Make sure your clients don’t cut corners and leave out parts of the formula for writing measurable objectives. It’s much harder for them to track their success if their objectives aren’t measurable. The following exercise helps clients develop goals and objectives that reflect their values. 86

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GOAL-SETTING EXERCISE: Setting Values-Based Goals and Objectives Give these instructions to clients: 1. Pick one of your three most important values categories you identified in the “Core vs. Satellite Values” exercise you completed in chapter 4. 2. Pick one value from the category you selected. 3. Describe how this value currently influences your personal and professional lives. Personal:      Professional:      4. Write one new personal goal related to this value. Personal Goal:      5. Write three measurable objectives related to this goal. Remember, measurable objectives answer the question, Who will do how much or what, by when? 87

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a. b. c. 6. Write one new professional goal related to this value. Professional Goal:      7. Write three measurable objectives related to this goal. Remember, measurable objectives answer the question, Who will do how much or what, by when? a. b. 88

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c. Following is an example of this exercise using the values and goals of a former client who’s a licensed professional counselor (LPC) and writer. Explain to clients that this goal is from a book you read on ACT. Read or show the example to your clients. 1. Pick a values category. The category I chose was work. 2. Pick one value from the category you selected. One of the things I value as part of my work is writing. 3. Describe how this value currently influences your personal and professional lives. Personal:    Because I value writing, I often use personal time at night and on weekends to   write, so I can stay on schedule and meet my deadlines. I’m usually able to do this without  taking time away from activities and responsibilities I share with my wife.        Professional:   Because I value my personal writing above work-related writing tasks, I often fall behind in my case notes and documentation. My old supervisor accepted this fact and gave me extra time to catch up on my case notes. My new supervisor has taken an exactly opposite approach and has threatened to file a complaint if I do not keep my case notes current. 4. Write one personal goal related to this value. Personal Goal:   I will not let my book writing interfere with activities and responsibilities related to my relationship with my wife.



5. Write three measurable objectives related to this goal. a. By the end of April, I will start each day by going for a walk with my wife before we leave for work.

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b. By the end of April, I will end each day by spending time talking with my wife instead of writing. c. By the end of May, I will go bicycle riding at least twice a week and go to the movies at least once each week with my wife. 6. Professional Goal:   I’d like to finish my first trade paperback book on memory development that I am currently working on.     7. Write three measurable objectives related to this goal. a. I will finish the first draft of the first half of my new book by the end of August. b. I will finish the first draft of the second half of my new book by the end of December. c. I will submit the finished manuscript to my literary agent by New Year’s Day.

When clients have completed this exercise, tell them to periodically (for example, daily, weekly, or monthly) review their progress at meeting the objectives they have set for reaching their goals. If they’ve written them correctly, all of their objectives should include a time frame. After reviewing their progress, tell them that it’s okay if they decide to change the time frames attached to the objectives, or add or delete objectives. While goals and objectives help give your clients’ lives and goals structure, they should also be flexible enough to adapt to change.

INFLEXIBILITY AND GOALS If you recall from chapter 3, ACT uses the term “psychological inflexibility” to explain how your clients get stuck and how this limits their ability to deal with situations in new and creative ways. Being psychologically inflexible also limits their ability to set clear and meaningful goals and workable action plans for achieving them. As a coach, you can help clients get unstuck using ACT principles and practices.

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Key Factors Related to Inf lexibility In the rest of this chapter I’ll review the key factors that contribute to psychological inflexibility and show you how they interfere with effective goal setting. If you recall, the key factors ACT identifies as being related to psychological inflexibility are:

◆◆ Lack of clarity concerning values ◆◆ Dominance of outmoded scripts and learning ◆◆ Cognitive fusion ◆◆ Attachment to the conceptualized self ◆◆ Experiential avoidance ◆◆ Inaction, impulsivity, and rigidity I’ve rearranged the order from the way I presented them in chapter 3 to make it easier for you to understand how they influence goal setting. Remember, these key factors are not linear (one doesn’t precede the next) but act together in a synergistic way to produce psychological inflexibility.

LACK OF CLARITY CONCERNING VALUES As you saw in chapter 4, being clear about what we value is the foundation on which clear goals and measurable objectives rest, which is why helping clients understand and clarify their values and goals is an essential first step in coaching them. It’s important to keep reinforcing the importance of values clarification to your clients. As long as they feel their values are driving your work together, they will trust you and stay motivated to continue working on setting clear goals and revising them as needed.

DOMINANCE OF OUTMODED SCRIPTS AND LEARNING Outmoded personal scripts and prior learning also set up roadblocks to effective goal setting. Take the case of Ralph, a thirty-year-old teacher who wants to shift gears and go into sales. Ralph grew up in a very conservative household, with a mom who was a public health nurse and a dad who was a high-school history teacher. Both parents had ­public-sector jobs

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that were safe and secure and provided steady income growth. Ralph remembers countless discussions around the dinner table about jobs and careers during his formative years. Words like “security” and “benefits” continually cropped up. Ralph’s parents urged him to major in education in college, hoping he would follow in his dad’s footsteps and take a job teaching high school and coaching football. They dissuaded him from his choice, which was to major in business and go into sales after graduation. As a successful athlete with an outgoing personality and a competitive edge, Ralph envisioned a job in sales or marketing, perhaps for a sporting goods manufacturer. Unfortunately, Ralph followed his parents’ advice by majoring in education and landing a job in a local high school, teaching physical education and coaching football. Although a successful coach, Ralph really did not enjoy teaching and was frustrated by his inability to earn the six-figure salary he valued. After seven years of this, Ralph is bored to death, dreads going to work, and fears he is losing his chance to live the kind of life he really wants for himself. He has come to you for help in developing a plan for shifting into a career in sports sales and marketing. As you work with Ralph on clarifying his values and setting clear goals, he keeps getting stuck in his outdated personal scripts related to work. He has a hard time setting goals toward a job in sales because his thoughts about this keep getting overshadowed by outdated ones. He tells you he can literally recount the conversations with his mom and dad about the “lack of security” in sales, the fallacy of the “big payout” compared to slow and steady wealth accumulation. The more he struggles with trying to avoid, control, and eliminate these thoughts and scripts, the worse they seem to get. He’s filled with self-doubt, which drives him crazy because he’s usually a very self-confident guy. Ralph illustrates how outdated scripts and learning can stand in the way of effective goal setting. He needs to learn how to accept his outdated scripts and learning and carry them along with him as he sets goals for his new career. He needs to understand that the more he tries to control, avoid, and eliminate them, the worse they will get.

COGNITIVE FUSION It’s very difficult for clients to set new goals when they are fused with outdated pictures of themselves. Imagine a client named Andrea who wants to write her first book. Andrea is a marketing director for a major airline, and one of the perks of her job has been free travel on her carrier throughout the world. She has visited all of the continents and acquired a world of experience related to traveling the globe as a single woman. She’d love to write a nonfiction book titled The Sophisticated Woman’s Guide to Travel. Though she has never 92

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written a book, Andrea is brilliant and quite capable of framing her thoughts and eloquently describing them in words. Unfortunately Andrea has absolutely zero confidence in her ability to write this book. A self-described vagabond, she grew up in a military family. Her dad, a major in the army, moved the family about ten times as he was transferred to different bases and moved up the career ladder. Her mother, a stay-at-home mom, took care of the household, raising Andrea and her sister. Nothing Andrea did was ever good enough for her dad. “The major,” as she refers to him, was a strict disciplinarian and a real taskmaster, who believed in setting the bar high for his children. Andrea remembers her dad reading every essay she ever wrote for school. All she can remember is the red ink he used to correct her work and his comments about her writing. Andrea was always prone to elaborate prose while “the major” thought everyone should write the way he did, with concise, short sentences. She recalls his saying “You’ll never go anywhere if you can’t write better than this,” “You’re not writing a novel; this is an essay,” and “You’ll never get into college with this kind of writing.” After having all of this drummed into her head for years, Andrea began to doubt her writing abilities and actually started shying away from opportunities to showcase them. After majoring in marketing in college (she really wanted to major in English and specialize in writing), she worked in various marketing jobs before sticking with her current one, where she manages a team of marketers. One of her major responsibilities is editing all the copy for the company’s print and online marketing campaigns. When you sit with Andrea and help her clarify her values, it’s quite evident that she really values writing and considers it central to who she is as a person. It’s ironic, however, that even though she’s quite successful at what she does and writing is a huge component of her work, she still views herself as this high-school kid who can’t write well enough to please her dad. She’s stuck because she has fused with the image of a little girl who can’t write. Filled with self-doubt, she’s afraid to take the necessary steps to get started on her novel. Before she can move forward, you need to help her defuse from this inaccurate picture of herself.

ATTACHMENT TO THE CONCEPTUALIZED SELF Remember, the conceptualized self refers to what clients would probably think of if you asked them to describe themselves to others. It’s the internalized picture they have of themselves and the self-statements they use to describe it. ACT refers to this way of describing the self as a self-as-content view. Because the thoughts your clients have about their conceptualized selves are filtered through their minds, they are subject to distortions. How your 93

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clients view themselves and the different segments of their lives are often reconstructed in ways that differ from the reality of their life experiences. Take our marketing director, Andrea, for example. By all objective accounts, she’s an intelligent, independent, worldly, sophisticated woman who has experienced success at many different levels. To hear her describe herself, however, you’d never know she has accomplished a fraction of what she actually has done. She has described herself to you as a woman of average height and build, a nice person, somewhat introverted, moderately talented. She just doesn’t see herself as the vibrant, dynamic person she really is. Part of your job as a coach employing ACT methods is to help Andrea realize that she’s much more than just “the major’s daughter,” with all of the faults inherent in that version of her conceptualized self. You need to help her realize that while the scripts associated with being “the major’s daughter” are real for her and are part of who she is, they don’t completely define who she is and how she views herself. There are many different segments of her conceptualized self that transcend being “the major’s daughter” and reflect Andrea’s successes, strengths, and uniqueness. You can use the following exercise to help clients like Andrea defuse from unhelpful aspects of their conceptualized selves.

DEFUSION EXERCISE: A New Me Give these instructions to your clients: 1. Whenever you’re stuck in an outdated version of one aspect of your conceptualized self, identify the actual thoughts, emotions, personal scripts, and mental images that no longer represent who you are as a person in terms of that segment of yourself. 2. Use a whiteboard, flip chart, or sheet of paper to write down everything your mind tells you about this outdated aspect of yourself.

◆◆ Start with your actual thoughts. Say to yourself, My mind is having the following thoughts about this aspect of myself that no longer represents who I am. Now write down those thoughts.

◆◆ Move on to your personal scripts. Say to yourself, My mind has created the following dialogue about this aspect of myself that no longer represents who I am. Now write down the dialogue.

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◆◆ Close your eyes and attend to the specific mental images you see with your mind’s eye. Say to yourself, I see the following scary pictures regarding this aspect of myself that no longer represents who I am. Write them all down exactly as you see them.

◆◆ Last, attend to your emotions and body sensations. Say to yourself, I feel the following emotions and body sensations regarding this aspect of myself that no longer represents who I am. Write down these emotions and body sensations. 3. Now step away from the board, chart, or paper, putting at least six feet of distance between it and your body. Say to yourself, My mind really has a lot to say about this aspect of myself that no longer represents who I am—how interesting. 4. Do not judge or evaluate what your mind tells you. Instead ask yourself this question: How helpful is any of this in meeting my goals? Write your answer on a different part of the board, chart, or paper. 5. Ask yourself, What am I willing to accept about what my mind is telling me so I can move forward to live my life and meet my goals? Write your answer on a different part of the board, chart, or paper.

When clients have completed this exercise, tell them that in time and with practice, they’ll find that distancing themselves from what their minds tell them about the outdated aspects of their conceptualized selves will help them defuse from these thoughts. When this happens, clients can begin to view these outdated thoughts, scripts, mental images, and emotions as parts of themselves existing in the distant recesses of their minds that don’t have to control their behavior in the present moment.

Experiential Avoidance As I mentioned in chapter 3, experiential avoidance is the exact opposite of openness to new experience. Most of your clients come to you because intellectually they want to experience new things and they understand how important it is to move in new directions. Often, however, there’s a world of difference between knowing something and actually doing it.

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Take Christos, for example. Christos is a former student of mine who wants to become a clinical psychologist. He understands the need to earn his master’s and doctoral degrees, and he has done his due diligence by researching programs in clinical psychology across the country. Admissions standards vary, and competition for scholarships and graduateteaching and research assistantships is fierce. An excellent student but with just average graduate examination scores, Christos has a much better chance of getting into a smaller, less prestigious university in a different part of the country. Yet he has confined his search to institutions within thirty-five miles from his home in northern New Jersey, so he can continue to live with his extended family. He’s the first in his family to obtain a bachelor’s degree, and his family is very proud of him. They also want him to continue living at home so he can attend a graduate school in the immediate area and commute. Christos comes to me to discuss this and help him get unstuck. I’ve known Chris for several years, having had him as a student in three of my undergraduate classes. He earned “A”s in all three, so I know he values education in general and getting a doctoral degree in particular. Chris already did a lot of values-clarification work with me in his undergraduate classes, so we quickly get to the heart of the matter, which is a values conflict he has between his future schooling and being with his family. He hopes there’s a way to remain true to both values, but he avoids telling his family about it because he doesn’t want to face the painful reality of potentially leaving home to accomplish his educational goals and meet his dreams. Part of Chris’s problem with avoidance is that he isn’t even applying to any programs. By avoiding even applying, he risks being shut out of attending graduate school anywhere for a full year. Most of the programs he’s interested in do not enroll at midyear, so he has about three weeks to get his applications finalized and sent off. He has avoided sending the applications in, because as long as he does this, he won’t have to have the dreaded discussion with his family. He can continue working in his father’s restaurant and go to graduate school part-time at night in a nearby university, even though that’s not what he really wants to do. He’d much rather attend graduate school full-time and live away, totally immersing himself in the university experience. It is interesting to learn that some of Chris’s personal scripts and thoughts about family are very rigid and don’t allow for things like independent-living arrangements, leaving the area (even temporarily), and not working part-time in the family business. These scripts are all outdated because they really belong to his family, not him—at least not anymore. He needs to accept this and start moving forward by developing new family scripts. We explore different scenarios related to his plans and family values. One such scenario revolves around

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the notion of permanence. After a while Chris begins to see that he does not have to view the immediate changes in his life that he’s considering (living away at a graduate school that offers him an assistantship) as permanent conditions. This leaves the door open for him to return to the life he is temporarily leaving to attend graduate school. This subtle language shift opens the door for him to discuss the issue with his parents and stop avoiding it. You can use the following exercise to help clients defuse when they’ve fallen into the permanence trap.

DEFUSION EXERCISE: Rethinking Permanence Use this exercise to help your clients defuse from any of the three “P” traps (the permanence trap, the personalization trap, and the pervasiveness trap) discussed in chapter 2. You might want to go back and reread those respective sections in that chapter before using this activity with your clients. This exercise works particularly well with whatever clients view as permanent issues that are, in fact, just temporary. Give these instructions to your clients: 1. Whenever you fall into the permanence trap, identify the actual thoughts, emotions, personal scripts, and mental images related to your feeling that whatever issue you are stuck in is permanent. 2. Say to yourself, My mind is telling me the following things about the permanence of this condition, then, using a whiteboard, flip chart, or sheet of paper, write down everything your mind tells you about this outdated aspect of yourself.

◆◆ Start with your actual thoughts. Say to yourself, My mind is having the following thoughts about the permanence of this condition. Now write down those thoughts.

◆◆ Move on to your personal scripts. Say to yourself, My mind has created the following dialogue about the permanence of this condition. Now write down the dialogue.

◆◆ Close your eyes and attend to the specific mental images you see. Say to yourself, I see the following scary pictures regarding the permanence of this condition. Write them all down exactly as you see them.

◆◆ Last, attend to your emotions and body sensations. Say to yourself, I feel the following emotions and body sensations regarding the permanence of this condition. Write down these emotions and body sensations. 97

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3. Now step away from the board, chart, or paper, putting at least six feet of distance between it and your body. Say to yourself, My mind really has a lot to say about the permanence of this condition—how interesting. 4. Do not judge or evaluate what your mind tells you. Instead ask yourself this question: How helpful is any of this in meeting my goals? Write your answer on a different part of the board, chart, or paper. 5. Ask yourself, What am I willing to accept about what my mind is telling me, so I can move forward with living my life and meeting my goals? Write your answer on a different part of the board, chart, or paper. Here’s an example of this exercise using Christos and his problem. You can set the stage by explaining his situation to clients before going over it. 1. My mind is having the following thoughts about the permanence of this condition: I’ll never come back if I leave. My family will never welcome me back if I leave. 2. My mind has created the following dialogue about the permanence of this condition: Chris, once you leave home, there’s no coming home because you’ll just forget about your family and friends (Dad speaking to me). My dad will never welcome me back if I move out of the house and go to school in a different part of the country. 3. I see the following scary pictures about the permanence of this condition: I see me standing on the Golden Gate Bridge with a sad look on my face, carrying my suitcase and textbooks. I see myself returning from graduate school and going back home. I’m standing there trying to get the key to work, when I realize my parents have changed the locks. I see myself out on the street in front of my parents’ house, looking up at my old bedroom window, with my suitcase, laptop, and textbooks at my feet. 4. I feel the following emotions and body sensations about the permanence of this condition: I’m so sad that I start crying. I’m afraid. I feel my chest tighten, and my eyes start to well up with tears. 98

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5. I step back from what I’ve written down and say out loud: My mind really has a lot to say about the permanence of this condition—how interesting. 6. My answers to the question, How helpful is any of this in meeting my goals? are: Not helpful at all. They keep me stuck. They do nothing to resolve the problem. 7. I am willing to accept the following, so I can move forward with living my life and meeting my goals: I’m willing to accept my troubling thoughts and personal scripts. I’m willing to accept my scary mental images and painful emotions. I’m willing to accept the idea that I don’t have to control, avoid, or eliminate these things my mind tells me before I start moving toward my goal of going to graduate school wherever I get the best offer.

After your client has completed this exercise, reinforce what you’ve already told your client about how powerful unhelpful thoughts, scripts, mental images, and emotions can be and why it’s important to be able to take a self-as-context view of them. Explain that by learning how to step back and view these unhelpful thoughts, scripts, mental images, and emotions as just part of who we are rather than as the totality of ourselves, we can step away from them and defuse their power. Being able to view them for what they are (things our minds tell us about our goals) makes it easier to accept them and be willing to move forward, while bringing them along for the ride.

INACTION, IMPULSIVITY, AND RIGIDITY Inaction is standing still instead of moving forward. Your clients’ failure to set clear goals and measurable objectives is a form of inaction. As you’ve seen in this chapter, inaction can be due to any of the core psychological processes we’ve already discussed or any combination of them. For example, if your client has a values conflict that leads to avoidance, as Christos

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did, it’s easy to see how this can lead to avoiding action. Inaction is often cleared up by clarifying values, resolving values conflicts, and setting clear goals and measurable objectives. As mentioned, impulsive behavior is often linked to avoidance and falling into the happiness trap. Impulsive behavior can occur because clients are unsure of their values and goals or want to avoid the pain and suffering inherent in hard work and deferred gratification. One way to help clients stop being so impulsive is to get them to set goals that are consistent with their own values rather than those of other people. If they can buy into the goals because the goals represent what they truly want, they are more likely to stop acting in ways that threaten their ability to meet those goals. The other thing that can help is to work with clients to set small, obtainable, measurable objectives that allow them to see their successes. Success builds success, and meeting their goals one small step at a time can help clients focus on the task at hand, rather than allow their impulsive thoughts to distract them. Last, teaching clients to be mindful of, but not enslaved by, their impulsive thoughts will help them see the thoughts for what they are: thoughts, not marching orders. Rigidity is directly related to control. Clients who are rigid want to be able to control, avoid, or eliminate factors that trigger threatening thoughts and feelings. As a coach you need to teach your clients about the fallacy of trying to control their troubling thoughts, personal scripts, painful emotions, and scary mental images. Giving up control is a key element in becoming more flexible. Clients need to understand that they can set goals and move forward with their action plans without having to control all of the variables that could possibly affect them. They need to understand that their minds are capable of nonstop rumination about all of the potential threats to their plans. Trying to work out and control for all of these possibilities is not only fruitless; it also keeps them stuck.

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Chapter 6

Helping Clients Be Present

You can help clients be present by teaching them to be more mindful and attentive. Being mindful and paying attention are skills clients can develop at any point in their lives.

WHAT IS MINDFULNESS? Simply put, mindfulness is being aware of the present moment and giving it your full attention. Christopher Germer (2005) refers to mindfulness as moment-by-moment awareness and uses the term mindful moments to describe this state of being. Mindful moments are:

◆◆ present centered ◆◆ nonjudgmental ◆◆ nonverbal ◆◆ nonconceptual Mindful moments always focus on the present, never the past or future. Unlike most thinking moments, which focus on past or future events, and are therefore one step removed from the present, mindful moments always exist in the present space and time. You probably refer to this with your clients as being fully involved in the here and now. Mindful moments are nonverbal, existing at the subvocal level of speech, in the things people say

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to themselves. Even writing down subvocal speech adds an additional layer of interpretation and distance from mindful moments, taking the self-talk out of the present moment and into the thinking realm. Last, mindful moments are not thinking moments, where the purpose is to try to figure something out, evaluate it, or judge it. During mindful moments, we merely note the occurrence of something and accept it for what it is. In essence, we pay attention to the present moment without judging it. Mindfulness and acceptance are closely linked. To accept thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, emotions, and bodily sensations, we first must be mindful of them. Once they are brought to our attention, we can accept them without judgment. Mindfulness is closely linked to paying attention. Mindfulness is a growing therapeutic approach that transcends many different forms of psychotherapy and helping. Mindfulness is currently being used to treat a host of mental health issues, ranging from stress to depression and eating disorders. For coaching, mindfulness techniques can stand on their own or be part of a broader ACT-based approach, like the one presented in this book. In chapter 2, I discussed how ACT characterizes the mind as a 24/7 thinking and feeling machine. The mind is always trying to figure things out, evaluate them, and judge them against other criteria. Relational frame theory and ACT emphasize the mind’s ability to take information from past relational frames, bring them to the present moment, and project them into the future, extrapolating them into endless scenarios. Given the way the mind works and its incredible processing ability, you can see how difficult it might be for your clients to just sit and note what’s going on in the present moment, without judging or projecting or analyzing it to death. Your clients are so used to processing information this way that when you ask them to just sit quietly and merely note what’s going on inside their minds and in their immediate environments without judging, evaluating, or doing anything with it, they will look at you as if you are crazy. They will also struggle with this. Your job is to teach them why the struggle is worth it. One way to teach clients about this is to have them complete the following exercise, whose purpose is to illustrate the mind’s proclivity toward judgment and evaluation versus description.

MINDFULNESS EXERCISE: Tell Me About This 1. Collect several pictures of the following categories of images from magazines: cars, houses, fashion (male and female), works of art, hairstyles. 2. Pick one picture from each category. 102

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3. Using one picture at a time, ask your client to tell you about the picture. Language is very important in this step. The phrase “Tell me about this” is the least directive of all instructions and does not sway the client’s perception in any way. 4. Have the client write down the key words he would use to describe the picture. 5. Circle the judging and evaluating (such as “good,” “bad,” “ugly”) words and the describing words (such as color, size, shape) the client uses to tell you about the pictures. Don’t let the client see your notes. 6. Estimate the ratio of the judging and evaluating words to the describing words.

After you’ve completed this exercise with clients, show them how they were much more likely to judge and evaluate a picture than describe it. Explain to them that paying attention to the present moment on purpose is more about describing and accepting what is, rather than judging or evaluating it.

BASIC ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT ATTENTION The four basic assumptions about your clients’ attention that I’ve distilled from the work of Gregg Krech and Linda Anderson Krech (2005) and David K. Reynolds (2002) are:

◆◆ Clients’ experience of life is based on what they pay attention to. ◆◆ What clients pay attention to grows. ◆◆ Most clients exercise little voluntary control over their attention. ◆◆ Attention is a skill clients can develop with practice. Let’s spend a little time examining each of these assumptions in greater detail.

Clients’ Experience of Life Is Based on What They Pay Attention To Unlike being able to watch the instant replay of a sporting event on television, clients get one shot at experiencing their lives. There’s no instant replay of life events, nor is there 103

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the opportunity to rewind an experience to go through it all over again. Even though clients experience things firsthand, if they don’t pay attention to them, they miss them. How many times have your clients recounted situations, such as driving in the car with their families, when one of their kids said, “Hey, Dad, did you see that?” and they drove right past something because they weren’t paying attention. How often have clients described watching something (a television show, movie, or play) or listening to something (music, a speech, something a friend said) with someone, where their companion turned to them and said, “Did you see that?” or “Did you hear that?” and they didn’t because they were distracted? I’m sure they’ve also described missing tasting, touching, smelling, and generally experiencing things simply because they were distracted and weren’t paying attention to the present moment.

What Clients Pay Attention to Grows There are both positive and negative aspects of this assumption, which has a strong connection to ACT theory. A positive example would be when your clients pay attention to something beautiful and relaxing in their immediate environments, like the sounds of the wind blowing through the trees, the sensation of warmth coming from the sun on their faces, or the smell of a lover’s hair after it was just washed. Paying attention to beautiful things in their physical environments like this heightens their sensual awareness and helps them become more mindful of the present moment. A negative example of this is when your clients pay too much attention to unhelpful thoughts, outdated personal scripts, scary mental images, and painful emotions in the internal environments of their minds. Focusing on these unhelpful things and trying to control or eliminate them actually fuels them, keeping them alive longer than necessary. It’s important to teach your clients how paying attention can both enhance and diminish their lives. It will help them appreciate the power of the present moment and its ability to either enhance or diminish helpful and unhelpful aspects, such as thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, emotions, and experiences.

Most Clients Exercise Little Voluntary Control Over Their Attention Industrialized culture is so enamored with forms of communication that revolve around shortening, compressing, and speeding up the transmission of information (through media 104

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such as television, video games, text messaging, and so forth) that it’s very easy for your clients to get distracted. Your clients who have grown up in this culture have been involuntarily programmed to expect life to move at an unnaturally fast pace. It’s unnaturally fast because, in most instances, the real world doesn’t move at such a pace. I’ll give you two examples, which relate to human relationships and food preparation. The average sixty-minute television police drama often condenses, at a minimum, a full day of human activity. Take a typical episode where a crime is committed and the cops are called to investigate. Viewers are swept along through the crime, the investigation of the crime scene, the laboratory analysis of the evidence, and the arrest and prosecution of the suspects. All of this happens in sixty minutes, which is actually closer to forty-five if you factor in commercial breaks. In the real world, police investigations just do not move along that fast. In the not-so-distant past, people in industrialized countries actually went food shopping regularly and prepared whole meals from scratch. Vegetables were pared, washed, and cooked. Meats were trimmed, spiced, and roasted. Potatoes were peeled, boiled, and mashed. Such preparation often took a couple of hours and involved more than one family member. Today, one family member often picks up dinner on the way home from work after another family member has ordered it in advance to save waiting time. The meal is unloaded, served in the store container, and consumed in fifteen minutes so family members can run off to their respective commitments (if they are all even able to gather together in the first place). In both the police drama example and the family-meal example, the unnaturally fast pace of the activities just sweeps the participants along involuntarily, making it difficult for them to voluntarily slow down and give things their full attention. Clients are exposed to this unnaturally fast pace every day and eventually come to accept it without even questioning their ability to slow it down if they wanted to.

Attention Is a Skill Clients Can Develop with Practice Increasing their ability to pay attention is a skill your clients can learn. Like all skill building, increasing attention requires practice, time, and commitment. It involves unlearning old habits and replacing them with new ones (and in the meantime, developing new relational frames). Your clients have the ability to do this. Ask them to describe some of the skills they’ve mastered through practice and repetition over time. Some of them will mention sports (tennis, skiing, and so on) or cooking (learning new cuisines), while others will describe work skills (such as mastering computer software). The key is showing them 105

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that they have the ability to develop the skill of paying attention in the same way they developed their other skills.

MISDIRECTED ATTENTION: NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE PRESENT MOMENT The brain is a remarkable organ that can do more than one thing at a time, such as engaging in a conversation with someone while daydreaming about going on vacation. One of the reasons we can do this is because the average person speaks at a rate of about 125 words per minute. The average person’s brain, however, can think at a rate of 400 words per minute. In other words, the difference between talking to someone and thinking about something else is a rate of 275 words per minute (Lee & Hatesohl, 1993). Because the brain is capable of thinking at a rate that’s much faster than speaking, it’s easy for people to get distracted and focus part of their attention on what someone is saying while thinking about something else. If you pay attention to this tendency in your clients’ behavior, you’ll notice cues that they are not giving you their full attention while talking to you. Their eyes will drift, looking past you, to their cell phones, to something else they are holding, or to something written down somewhere on your desk. How often have you found yourself doing the same while talking to a client, listening to your spouse, or interacting with your friends? How often have you allowed your brain to be somewhere other than fully focused on what you were doing in the present moment, whether it was a session with a client, making love with your partner, or listening to music? John Kabat-Zinn (1995), founder of the mindfulness-based approach to stress management, talks about our devolution from human beings to human doings. He has found that many people have lost the ability to merely be in the present moment. Whether they are on vacation and relaxing by the pool, sitting in a favorite chair listening to music, or making love with their partners, they find their minds mulling over things from the past or planning what they will do in the future, instead of simply enjoying being in the present moment and giving it their full attention. Kabat-Zinn admits that this is so common that even he, on occasion, has found himself doing this. One personal example he gives relates to his taking his morning shower and simultaneously visualizing himself holding a meeting with his colleagues that was to occur later that day. Besides seeing the actual meeting in his head, he noticed his mind going through the dialogue he planned to conduct during the meeting. His mind was not only 106

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framing his own position on the issues to be covered but also planning potential rebuttals to his colleagues’ comments. He goes on to describe how he was able to shower and do all of this thinking, but in doing so, he completely missed out on the experience of being in the shower: the warm, fragrant, soapy water streaming down his body, washing away his cares and worries from the previous day and getting him ready to face a new day. The entire shower took place on automatic pilot, while his mind was miles away, planning the day’s events. While this example of distracted thinking might not seem like such a harmful thing (and to some people, it might even seem like a good idea), focusing on future or past events at the expense of the present moment can actually result in your inability to be in the present when it really counts, like when you are driving your car, in a session with a client, or making love with your partner.

Areas of Misdirected Attention Krech (2002) describes three areas of misdirected attention: the past, the future, and the self. Focusing on the past and future are pretty self-explanatory. Focusing on the self is a little more complicated. Misdirected attention that focuses on the self revolves around judging, evaluating, controlling, avoiding, and trying to eliminate unhelpful thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions instead of accepting them. Obviously, there are times when it’s perfectly acceptable for your clients to shift their attention away from the present and to the past, the future, or the self. Clients often focus their attention on the self when clarifying their values. They focus on the past when trying to remember some person, place, or event, and on the future when setting goals and objectives. These are appropriate examples of focusing on the past and future that will help them live a purposeful life. It’s inappropriate, however, for clients to focus on the past or future when they do this while engaged in something in the present that demands their full attention. This type of focusing is really misdirected attention and can have unhelpful consequences. It’s important for you as a coach to help clients understand the difference and why paying attention matters.

The Consequences of Misdirected Attention While there are many consequences of misdirected attention, Krech and Anderson Krech (2005) describe ten key ones.

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Psychological Suffering: As I’ve already mentioned, the more we try to judge, evaluate, control, avoid, or eliminate painful thoughts and feelings instead of accept them, the worse they become. Constantly ruminating on painful thoughts and emotions keeps them in the forefront of our awareness. Making Mistakes: When people don’t give their full attention to what they are doing, they make more mistakes. In some instances those mistakes are merely annoying, like when someone daydreams while walking behind the lawn mower and needs to go back over a section of the lawn. In other cases, such as when a client is incorrectly billed for ten thousand dollars instead of a hundred thousand dollars, it’s very serious and could result in losing a job. Increased Safety Risks: Misdirected attention is a major risk associated with accidents. Failure to pay full attention to safety procedures (like fastening a seatbelt before driving) and protocols (like reading the safety precautions completely before using a new chain saw) is the cause of many injuries at work and play. Oversensitivity to Changes in the Body: Hypochondriacs have misdirected attention. Their overattention to every little body change is a unique form of misdirected attention. Being overly attentive to some things can be just as bad as not paying full attention to other ones. Not Appreciating Others’ Support: Failing to pay attention to support from others shows a lack of gratitude. When our attention is constantly turned inward, toward the self, we fail to notice what others have done and are doing to support us. Boredom or Lack of Interest: When people give each moment their full attention, their world becomes much more interesting, indeed, even a nonstop source of amazement. It’s easy to get bored when we don’t pay attention to the richness of the world around us. Not Noticing What Needs Doing: When people do things like walk past soiled clothes on the floor without picking them up and putting them in the hamper, ignore long overgrown lawns, and litter instead of picking up trash and putting it in the wastebasket, they are doing what they want to do instead of what needs to be done. When our attention is misdirected, we often confuse what we feel like doing with what needs to be done. Forgetfulness: Misdirected attention often shifts the mind away from things that need to get done, onto the past, future, or self. When this happens, we forget to do what needs to be done; forget where we put things, important dates, and appointments; and forget to even put items on our to-do lists. 108

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Wasting Time: Misdirected attention is a big time waster, diverting our attention away from what needs to be done and onto activities that use time inefficiently. Causing Unnecessary Trouble to Others: When our attention is misdirected, it doesn’t just affect us; it also influences others. In this sense, the costs of misdirected attention are passed on to others. When people make mistakes, they sometimes force others to clean them up; for example, when clients miss appointments, they set back others’ schedules. When people don’t pay full attention to their driving or use of tools, they can injure others and cause unnecessary pain, suffering, and even death.

MULTITASKING Multitasking basically means doing more than one thing at the same time. Most people multitask without even realizing it. For example, I love to ride my recumbent exercise bike while watching sports on television, often even talking to friends on the telephone while doing this. Another thing I like to do is throw in a load of wash while writing, which forces me to get up from the computer every thirty minutes to move the wash load to the dryer, stretch my legs, and rest my eyes. I don’t really have to multitask in these examples; I do so by choice and don’t think it interferes significantly with the quality of any of the individual activities (biking, watching sports, speaking with friends, writing, washing). In our fast-paced society, however, it has become commonplace to have to do more than one thing at a time. Your clients have so many commitments that they often overlap. They take work calls while watching their kids play soccer. They check e-mail on their wireless devices while at the supermarket. They send text messages while driving. Is there a price to pay for all of this divided attention? The main price to pay for multitasking is misdirected attention. No one can argue that intentional multitasking doesn’t result in an increase in productivity by increasing the sheer volume of things you can accomplish. Obviously, you can simply do more work by doing multiple things simultaneously. The question is whether the quality of the work performed is acceptable. If someone is writing a report for work while watching television and listening to music, how high is the quality of that work? How much better would that report be if it received the benefit of the person’s full attention? Individuals must decide that for themselves, based on their morals, ethics, and personal standards. On a more somber note, the consequences of multitasking can be fatal. Texting and driving is one example of multitasking gone wild. Distracted driving is a major cause of fatal 109

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motor vehicle accidents (NHTSA, 2010). I drive fifty-three miles each way to work in the morning and regularly see the following examples of distracted driving: texting while driving, reading (books, newspapers, e-mail) while driving, eating and drinking while driving, applying makeup while driving, dressing (jackets, ties, blouses, bras, pants) while driving, and my favorite, kissing while driving. Needless to say, when I see these activities, I pass these folks with caution and drive as far ahead of them as possible. From a mindfulness perspective, the biggest problem with multitasking is when clients don’t even realize that it has become their unintentional standard of behavior. Many of your clients have become so caught up in multitasking that they don’t realize they are doing it, and if they do, they can’t turn it off. They find themselves automatically doing multiple things simultaneously without giving any of them their full attention. This becomes a problem because they never give themselves the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in something when they really want to, such as when they go to a movie, make love with their partners or spouses, or watch their kids play soccer.

PRACTICING EVERYDAY MINDFULNESS One of the best ways to help your clients develop mindfulness is to have them integrate it into their everyday activities, such as eating, showering, mowing the lawn, even waxing their cars. Some of your clients will remember the movie The Karate Kid, where the young disciple learns to be fully mindful of waxing his sensei’s car. He is instructed to devote 100 percent of his attention to applying and removing the wax, using the phrases “wax on” and “wax off” to direct his attention to his motions (which mimics defensive arm positions and builds strength). Similarly, you can help your clients fully focus their attention on everyday activities. You can use the following exercises to help your clients become more mindful and direct their full attention to whatever activities they are involved in.

MINDFULNESS EXERCISE: Mindful Lawn Mowing Give your clients the following instructions: 1. Pick a time to mow your lawn when you have nothing else to do. Give yourself a minimum of thirty minutes as a cushion of time between the end of your lawn mowing and your next activity. The idea is to be able to mow without rushing. 110

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2. Tell your family members you will be mowing the lawn and don’t want to be disturbed for the next thirty minutes. They must fend for themselves during that time. 3. Pay attention to every step of the lawn-mowing process, no matter how trivial it may seem initially. 4. As you check the oil and gas levels of the lawn mower, pay attention to the color, smell, and viscosity of the gas and oil. Note the sound the gas makes as it sloshes in the tank or splashes from the filling can into the tank. Feel the tension in your hand and fingers as you tighten the gas cap. 5. Before you cut, look at your grass from a couple of different angles and perspectives. Observe it while standing, sitting, kneeling, and even lying on your side. Get a sense of its depth and texture. 6. As you cut, slow the speed if you have a self-propelled mower, so you can move with the mower rather than have it propel you along. If your mower is a push mower, walk at a comfortable pace, not too fast, not too slow. 7. Synchronize your breathing with the number of steps it takes you to breathe fully but comfortably. For example, you can take six steps to inhale and six steps to exhale if you are walking at a moderate pace. 8. Tell yourself as you start to mow, This is my time to mow the lawn. I have nowhere else to go and nothing else to do during the next thirty minutes except care for this beautiful, green lawn. 9. As you continue to mow, count your paces to yourself. Saying One, two, three will help you focus your self-talk on the present moment and keep your mind from drifting to the past or future. When your mind wanders, as it will, tell yourself, My mind is telling me          . This is okay, but I will now redirect my focus to my counting. 10. As you mow the lawn, pay attention to the pattern of your cut. Admire the even lines and the changing height of the lawn as your mower passes over it. Keep your visual attention on the lawn, and when you get distracted by passing cars, waving neighbors, or other visual distractions, come back to the lawn.

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11. Continue mowing in the present moment until the lawn is finished. Have a forgiving mind-set and always come back to your counting (self-talk) and lawn (mental image) when you get distracted. 12. When you are finished mowing, give the after-mowing work your full attention. Clean up and put your mower away with the same focus and attention you directed toward the mowing. 13. Take a few moments to admire your cut lawn. Sit or lie down on it and appreciate the sight, smell, and feel of it. 14. While this may seem a bit extreme to you now, after a few practice runs, you will begin to appreciate the beauty of something as simple as mowing your lawn.

After your clients have completed this exercise and reported back to you, tell them it’s normal for them to be distracted when mowing their lawns mindfully. Explain that developing focus and mindfulness takes practice and time. They should expect that it might take a summer’s worth of mindful lawn mowing practice for them to be able to minimize their distractions and be fully mindful of their mowing. The next exercise does not require a lawn and might be more appropriate for apartment dwellers or those who do not mow their own lawns.

MINDFULNESS EXERCISE: The Sensuous Orange You’ll need to purchase an orange for your client to do this exercise. Navel oranges work best since they are the easiest to peel. You’ll want to put the orange on some paper towels to absorb any orange juice and oil that’s released during the exercise. Plan to devote twenty minutes to this exercise. You might find it easier to record the instructions and then play them back for the client. Give your clients these instructions: 1. As you work through this exercise and get distracted, tell yourself, It’s okay. My mind is telling me          . I will now refocus my attention on my orange. This is my time to practice mindfulness.

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2. Take your orange and examine it visually. Without judging your orange, note its color (not all oranges are perfectly orange), shape, size, and texture. 3. Like humans, oranges have distinguishing characteristics. What distinguishing characteristics does your orange have? Does it have a scar, a dimple, or any other irregularity that sets it apart from other oranges? 4. Now shift your attention to the sensation of touch. Close your eyes and feel the orange. Feel it with your fingertips. Then roll it around in your hands and notice its weight. What does your orange feel like? Is it smooth, rough, bumpy? Is it cool, hot, warm? 5. With your eyes still closed, roll the orange around your face, over your cheeks, eyes, nose, and down your neck. What does it feel like on your face? 6. Open your eyes and slowly peel the orange. Your goal is to take the entire peel off in one piece. Take your time; you have nowhere to go and nothing to do but practice your mindfulness on your orange. 7. Now shift your attention to the smell of the orange. Close your eyes and smell the unpeeled fruit. What does it smell like? 8. Break off a two-inch piece of the peel and twist it until the orange oil is released. What does that smell like? Is it the same as the unpeeled fruit, or is it more pungent? 9. Now close your eyes again and shift your attention to the taste of the orange. First taste the orange oil. Describe what the oil tastes like. 10. Open your eyes and taste a small piece of the peel. What does it taste like? 11. Carefully separate the orange into sections. Take one section and gently open it, peeling back the delicate membrane that holds the section together. Peel away the membrane and hold it against the light. What do you see? 12. Take one small piece of orange pulp out and look at it. What does it look like? Now place that piece of pulp in your mouth and burst it with your tongue on the roof of your mouth. What does it taste like? 13. With your eyes closed, take a bite of the section of orange. Chew it at least fifteen times slowly. Focus first on the sound of your chewing. What does it sound like to chew the orange? 113

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14. Continue eating the remainder of the orange section. What does your orange taste like? How does the fruit differ in taste from the peel and the oil? 15. Now slowly finish eating the entire orange, section by section, with your eyes closed. 16. Focus all of your attention on the taste and smell of the orange. If you get distracted by other mental images, come back to the mental picture of what your orange looked like. If you get distracted by unrelated self-talk, tell yourself, My mind is telling me          . That’s okay. My orange tastes and smells like          . Keep returning to your thoughts and self-talk about your orange. 17. When you are finished, spend a few moments thinking about your orange and the sensory delights it just provided you.

When your clients have completed this exercise, tell them they can repeat it with any fruit or vegetable. They can also modify it to fit any food or combination of foods they choose. Explain that the key is to have them be fully mindful of the food in the present moment. Tell them that when their thoughts and mental images shift gently to the past or future, it’s normal and okay, and have them redirect their focus as described in the exercise. Explain that regular practice of mindful eating will help them learn how to pay attention to the present moment, on purpose.

BECOMING MORE MINDFUL Even though your clients can’t control their troubling thoughts, outdated personal scripts, scary mental images, and painful emotions, it’s important that they pay attention to them. Being mindful of these things is an important first step in learning how to live with them. This is a hard concept for your clients to understand, because most of them have spent the better part of their lives trying to avoid, control, or eliminate their troubling thoughts, outdated personal scripts, scary mental images, and painful emotions. Rather than help them try to control, eliminate, or avoid their troubling thoughts, outdated personal scripts, scary mental images, and painful emotions, your job as a coach is to help clients learn to be more mindful and accepting of them. You can actually teach them to not only acknowledge and accept them but sort them into categories according to the traps

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framework (the “I can figure it all out in my head” trap, the “thoughts are reality” trap, and so on) discussed in chapter 2. This will help them understand how their minds work in relation to painful and troubling stimuli. For example, if clients get stuck mostly in the “all thoughts are equally important” trap, they can step up their efforts to defuse from this kind of thinking when it occurs. If they pay more attention to the traps their minds habitually fall into and then accept this, they can learn how to defuse from their unhelpful thinking. Modified from my first ACT book, Stress Less, Live More (Blonna, 2010), the following exercise will help your clients become more mindful of when they fall into the common thinking and feeling traps.

MINDFULNESS EXERCISE: Checking the Mail Give these instructions to your clients: 1. To do this exercise, you will need ten large manila envelopes, paper, and something to write with. 2. Label the ten manila envelopes with the following titles: The “I can figure it all out in my head” trap The “thoughts are reality” trap The “all thoughts are equally important” trap The “thoughts are orders” trap The “thoughts are threats” trap The outdated thoughts and personal scripts trap The “scary pictures are real” trap The permanence trap The pervasiveness trap The personalization trap

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3. On any given day when you get stuck and can’t progress toward the goals you have set for yourself, start to focus your attention on what your mind is telling you about the situation. 4. Write down on paper the actual words your mind tells you. For example, write, “My mind is telling me I will never learn this new software program,” “My mind is telling me I’m a lousy lover,” or “My mind is telling me I can’t do anything right.” 5. Decide which trap your mind just fell into because of what it told you about the situation, and put that paper in the proper envelope. 6. Each week, sort out all the envelopes and see which traps you fall into most often. See if you can categorize the kinds of things and situations that trap you.

After clients have completed this exercise, tell them that in time, they’ll become more aware of the kinds of traps they fall into in response to specific situations. They might notice, for example, that they fall into the permanence trap more frequently than others, or they might often get stuck in the “thoughts are reality” trap. They’ll also become more aware of how their minds work in response to certain categories of troubling thoughts or situations. For example, I tend to fall into the “thoughts are reality” trap when I get stuck in a rut regarding money or my children. I have a hard time thinking clearly about real or imagined threats to my financial well-being (like a dip in the stock market) or my children (when one of my sons gets a minor snowboarding injury). I tend to think the worst in these situations. By having your clients become more mindful of the traps they habitually fall into, they will eventually start to recognize the traps before they actually fall into them. This is the final stage of awareness, the one that can help your clients more effectively manage their unhelpful troubling thoughts, outdated personal scripts, scary mental images, and painful emotions. When clients notice themselves falling into one of the traps, they can stop and tell themselves, Oh, I’d better be careful; I’m falling into the XYZ trap again. Let me step back and look at things differently. They can then use defusion activities, such as “My Photo Lineup,” from chapter 3, to help them defuse from the trap. When clients start noticing the traps before they actually fall into them, they begin to use their heightened mindfulness in a preventive fashion, as an aid to defusing from unhelpful traps before the traps snare them.

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MINDFULNESS MEDITATION Mindfulness meditation is a form of nonfocused meditation. Nonfocused meditation, also known as open-focus meditation, does not require a single focal point to focus attention on. During nonfocused meditation, clients don’t try to control their thoughts or feelings as they meditate; they simply watch them come and go. ACT uses nonfocused meditation as a key element in formal mindfulness training. From an ACT perspective, the purpose of mindfulness meditation is not relaxation; it is developing heightened awareness. Steven Hayes (2005) notes that a great misconception about mindfulness meditation is that it is designed to stop our thinking and feeling while we exist in some peaceful place. When practicing mindfulness meditation, your clients will experience the same range of painful emotions, troubling thoughts, outdated personal scripts, and scary pictures as when they’re not meditating. Practicing mindfulness meditation will teach them how to attend to these unhelpful mental processes while intentionally just sitting calmly for several minutes. The “ just sitting calmly” part of this experience teaches them that they do not have to judge these mental functions, nor do they have to do anything about them except note their presence and accept them. The instruction to just sit calmly for several minutes can be somewhat misleading. It sounds pretty simple, direct, and uncomplicated. However, unlike other times when you ask your clients to just sit, during mindfulness meditation they not only sit but also pay full attention to everything going on inside and outside their bodies and minds, and in the surrounding environment. In other words, you are asking them to be fully aware of all the thoughts, personal scripts, emotions, and mental images that enter their consciousness as well as all the sensations going on inside their bodies. These sensations are related to muscle tension, pain, breathing, or any other physiological activities they sense. In addition, you are asking them to be fully aware of things going on around them in the environment, such as the temperature and movement of air, sounds, scents, and so forth. Last, you want your clients not to judge any of these stimuli, but rather to accept them without judgment or evaluation. You merely want them to acknowledge and accept their presence. You want your clients to focus completely on the here and now through momentby-moment awareness. Adapted from my first ACT book, Stress Less, Live More, the following exercise provides basic guidelines for practicing mindfulness meditation (Blonna, 2010).

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MINDFULNESS EXERCISE: Mindfulness Meditation Give your client these instructions: 1. Sit on the floor, on a cushion, or in a straight-backed chair. 2. Sit with your head up and your back straight. Imagine that your head is floating gently on your neck and spine. 3. Take a few slow, deep breaths. 4. Pay attention to the thoughts, sensations, and feelings that come over you. Go with them wherever they take you—do not fight them. 5. Try to endure uncomfortable physical experiences (an itch, pain, the urge to move, and so on) for a while to see where this takes you. Sometimes you’ll notice that these responses (like thoughts and emotions) will pass if you let them play themselves out. If you have to move, do so slowly and intentionally. 6. Continue to sit for five minutes, noting what you’re experiencing in an accepting, nonjudgmental way. If you catch yourself drifting to the past or future, tell yourself, My mind is taking me out of the here and now and into           (describe where it’s taking you). 7. If you find yourself evaluating or judging something, tell yourself, My mind is judging or evaluating again instead of merely noting           (whatever it’s judging or evaluating). 8. As you notice things, you can label them. You can say to yourself, I am having the feeling that          , or I am having the thought          . You can use this self-talk to categorize anything you experience. Hayes (2005) points out that such selftalk incorporates defusion training into meditation practice.

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After clients have completed this exercise, tell them they need to give themselves time to get used to becoming more mindful. They need to be patient and forgiving with themselves when learning mindfulness meditation. Tell your clients they will need to practice mindfulness meditation at least three times a week for a couple of months to really get the hang of it and to begin to experience some of the benefits. Tell them not to worry if they need to take a few days or a week off. Explain to them that they are in this for the long haul, and it’s normal to experience temporary setbacks when learning a new skill. Although you will start your clients’ practice with five minutes of meditation, you should gradually expose your clients to longer practice sessions, adding additional minutes to each session until they can just sit calmly for twenty minutes. At that point, stay at twenty minutes for your remaining sessions with them. Set a timer so your clients won’t get distracted by thinking about when the time is up. Although it doesn’t matter if your clients meditate indoors or outdoors, I suggest teaching them this skill under your supervision in your office, which will ensure that they won’t be disturbed by other people or distractions like phones, television, or computers. Becoming more mindful is a key component of ACT that will help your clients manage their unhelpful troubling thoughts, outdated personal scripts, scary mental images, and painful emotions for the rest of their lives.

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Chapter 7

Increasing Acceptance and Willingness by Giving Up Control

ACT uses the phrase getting hooked to refer to allowing yourself to buy into unhelpful thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions. Your clients get hooked by the common thinking and feeling traps described in chapter 2 as well as any of the six factors of psychological inflexibility discussed in chapter 3. In most cases your clients won’t even know they are hooked; they’ll just feel stuck. One of your most important jobs as a coach is to teach them that getting stuck on their journey toward their goals is normal human behavior. They are not crazy or deficient in any way when their minds allow them to get hooked—they are just human. In addition to getting hooked by the six factors of psychological inflexibility and the common thinking and feeling traps, clients often get hooked by trying to control things that can’t be controlled. If your clients are like mine, control is a major issue for them, and lack of control is very threatening. The thought of not being in control is enough to get them stuck. True control freaks won’t want to take any action until they feel they are in control of all the variables involved in a decision. I call this “being mesmerized into inactivity.” Control freaks often try to rationalize their control issues by saying they are applying more intellectual rigor to their decision-making process. This sounds great, and they can intellectualize

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their inactivity for as long as you are willing to listen. The bottom line, however, is that all the intellectualizing in the world will not allow them to control everything. Teaching clients the difference between what they can exert some control over and what they can’t control at all is a major part of your job, if you plan to integrate ACT principles and practices into your coaching repertoire. In addition, you need to teach your clients that when they take action in the face of their lack of total control, they create an entirely new set of circumstances for their minds to get involved in. Taking action allows things to unfold and opens doors that would not exist for them had they stood still and tried to figure everything out beforehand. Let’s take a closer look at what we can and cannot control.

WHAT CAN BE CONTROLLED Clients often get hooked by thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions because they try to control them. They don’t know that not only are these things beyond their ability to control, but trying to control, avoid, or eliminate them only makes them worse. One of your jobs as an ACT coach is to teach clients the difference between the things they can exert some control over and the things they can’t control at all. The two areas where clients can exert some control in their lives are their behavior and their immediate environment.

Behavior While clients can’t control their minds from working 24/7, churning out all kinds of illogical thoughts, painful emotions, outdated personal scripts, and scary pictures, they can control the way they behave in relation to the activities going on inside their minds. Clients already do this every day; they just rarely focus on it. For example, imagine that one of your clients, Rachael, is in a meeting at work today and proposes a solution to a problem the group is discussing. Most of Rachael’s colleagues like her solution and compliment her on her creativity. One, however, blasts her for coming up with such a “simplistic solution for a complex problem that you obviously don’t fully understand.” This colleague is obviously trying to undercut Rachael’s influence in the group, yet his comments have her seething. Her mind tells her, What a jerk he is, trying to upstage me. I should go over there and punch him in the mouth. Instead of reacting to these irrational thoughts and punching her colleague in the mouth, Rachael just ignores his comments and calmly asks the group to vote on her idea. In other

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words, Rachael’s behavior is not driven by her mind’s initial thoughts and scripts, which clearly are not helpful. Instead, her behavior is driven by her goals and values related to work. Situations like this occur every day. The mind has the ability to churn out an endless stream of thoughts that if taken as marching orders would get most of us into serious trouble. Your job as a coach is to help your clients understand the relationship between unhelpful thoughts and their connection to behavior. The ACT literature (Hayes, 2005) refers to behavior as “taking valued action”—in other words, doing what is in harmony with one’s values or doing what needs to be done in any given situation. The easiest way for clients to evaluate whether or not their behavior is in harmony with their values and goals is to simply ask themselves, Will what I am about to do help or hinder reaching my goals? This is the same question discussed in chapter 2 regarding illogical thoughts, painful emotions, outdated personal scripts, and scary pictures. The major difference between asking this question in relation to actions versus thoughts and feelings is that people can control their behavior. Unhelpful thoughts do not have to lead to unhelpful behavior. When this happens, clients fall into the “thoughts are orders” trap. Clients can accept how their minds work and begin to exert more control over how they act in relation to what their minds tell them. They don’t have to let their minds dictate their taking unhelpful action. This is a key concept that you must teach your clients. It is also something that our culture works against. American culture romanticizes being out of control. It’s fashionable for people to get swept away by emotions like passion, lust, and anger and to let themselves get caught up in the moment, even if it’s unhelpful or causes problems. You’ll have to show your clients that while getting swept away by their emotions and buying into common thinking and feeling traps might make for interesting drama in their lives, it’s rarely helpful in meeting their goals. Evaluating their actions in terms of whether or not they are helpful in meeting their goals is a pragmatic, emotionally evolved way of thinking, and your job is to help your clients accept this. It isn’t easy to accept pain and suffering and to move forward despite these feelings. It’s much easier to avoid things that cause pain and suffering and to get mesmerized into inactivity. An ACT approach to mental well-being is not for the fainthearted. There are no shortcuts to using ACT to help your clients reach their goals. They must learn how to face their fears and troubles, accept them as products of an active mind, and keep moving forward. They need to learn how to embrace their pain and suffering while living a meaningful life. This is not easy to do, but armed with the strategies in this book, you can teach your clients how to harness the power of their minds to achieve their goals.

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The Environment As with their behavior, clients can exert some control over their environments. As introduced in chapter 4, the environment can be broken down into two different dimensions: the microenvironment and the macroenvironment. The microenvironment has both physical and social components, and it includes the people, places, and situations people interact with every day. It includes a person’s school, home, office, work site, neighborhood, and the family, friends, and associates that go along with them. A person’s social support system is also part of the microenvironment. The microenvironment greatly affects clients’ health and personal safety as well as their ability to meet their goals. It influences whether they are at risk for and fear such things as theft, crime, and violence. Air and water quality, noise pollution, overcrowding, and traffic are also a part of the microenvironment. Essentially, the microenvironment includes all the things Abraham Maslow (1968), the great humanist thinker, described over fifty years ago in his pyramid of needs. Maslow (1968) explained that for individuals to fulfill their potential and become fully self-actualized (the top of the pyramid), they must first meet their basic needs for physiological integrity (nutrition, sleep, and so on), safety and security—which are represented by the bottom part of the pyramid— and belonging and love, represented by the middle part of the pyramid. Expecting clients to fulfill their potential when they don’t have a place to sleep or food in their bellies is unrealistic and a disservice to them. It’s important that you help clients assess how their microenvironments relate to their goals and influence their ability to make progress. I have found it very common for clients and students to have as a goal to move to a better environment. Included in this new environment would be things like better housing, a safer neighborhood, cleaner air, less noise, and better recreational and cultural activities. What all these aspects of the microenvironment have in common is that clients can exert some degree of control over them. For example, if your client finds his current job stressful or unfulfilling, he can look for a better one. While changing jobs isn’t easy, with your help, your client could develop a comprehensive job-search plan and give himself enough time to implement it. If you sensed that living in her current apartment was adversely affecting a client, you might help her explore setting goals related to changing her living situation. Last, if you found that a client needed more social support, you might help him set some goals for expanding his social network. Such microenvironmental changes are well within your clients’ reach and could make all the difference in the world in terms of helping them meet other goals.

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The macroenvironment relates to the state, region, and country where a person lives; the world at large; and the people who inhabit these places. Changing the macroenvironment is much harder to do and consequently is very frustrating for many people. Many clients have deeply held values relating to the world beyond their immediate environments. They are committed to things like working for world peace, stopping global warming, and protecting fragile ecological habitats, such as the Brazilian rain forest. They feel powerless and unable to act in ways that make a difference in events that transpire outside of their microenvironments. As a coach, you can help your clients find ways to exert some degree of control over this broader environment. You can show them that organizations that span state, national, and international borders are always looking for support. You can show clients that they can get involved in organizations that are consistent with their values by supporting them either directly by volunteering or indirectly by providing financial support. In most cases they can get involved from the safety and comfort of their own homes by using the power of the Internet to speak out, organize others, send money, or join an advocacy group. Taking this kind of valued action can help them feel more connected to the macroenvironment and reduce their unhelpful thoughts about being unable to do anything.

WHAT CAN’T BE CONTROLLED As I described in chapter 2, the brain is a 24/7 thinking-and-feeling machine that constantly processes information and is capable of running multiple programs at the same time. The programs the mind runs are thoughts, scripts, mental images, and emotions. The brain also has the ability to conjure up just about every conceivable thing that might go right or wrong with a situation, and therefore creates anxiety about potential outcomes that it can’t avoid, control, or eliminate. Trying to manage this 24/7 process sometimes feels like trying to stop a runaway train. Rather than trying to avoid, eliminate, or control this runawaytrain brain, it’s often better to just step out of its way and watch it pass by. Adapted from the one I included in my book, Stress Less, Live More (Blonna, 2010), the following exercise incorporates acceptance and defusion and is designed to help clients observe their thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions without being swept away by them.

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ACCEPTANCE AND DEFUSION EXERCISE: Train Watching Give these instructions to your clients, adapting for gender and life situation: 1. The next time you feel yourself getting swept along by your unhelpful thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions, imagine that they represent a one-hundred-car freight train barreling down the railroad tracks at maximum speed. 2. Loaded down with the freight and baggage that make up your mind, the cars are labeled “troubling thoughts,” “unhelpful and outdated personal scripts,” “scary pictures,” and “painful emotions.” 3. Imagine that you see the train on the horizon and race toward the railroad crossing to try to beat the train so you can get home from work on time. 4. As you near the crossing, the lights start flashing, bells start clanging, and a barrier descends, warning you of the approaching train and imminent danger. You can still outrun the train and cross the tracks before the barrier completely descends, but you slow down and stop before getting to the tracks. The barrier descends, leaving you stuck so that you can’t meet your goal of getting home at the designated hour. 5. As you sit there, your mind starts analyzing why you got stuck and what things you could have done to avoid arriving at the railroad crossing at the same time as the train. Your mind says you could have left your meeting at work earlier, driven faster on the ride home, averted a couple of traffic lights that held you up, and so on. Your mind also starts racing ahead, for example rehearsing the argument you assume you will have with your wife because of your lateness for dinner. She’ll say, “You never get home on time when I’m preparing a nice dinner. You never take my feelings into consideration. You know I like to serve the food hot, right out of the oven. You are so inconsiderate.” Your son chimes in, “You know that I have a game tonight, Dad, and that you and Mom need to drive me. Do you want me to be late and have the coach get all pissed off? You never think of anyone except yourself.” You try to eliminate these thoughts, images, and feelings, and work on getting them out of your head, but the more you think about them, the more vivid they become. 6. Now shift gears and imagine that the railroad crossing is a protective barrier that provides a safe way for you to stop and pay attention to what’s going on in your mind and 126

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life. You stop, take notice, and feel protected by the distance your mind’s own personal railroad crossing establishes between you and your troubling thoughts, unhelpful scripts, scary pictures, and painful emotions. 7. Instead of trying to avoid the train by outrunning it, your decision to stop and observe it creates some helpful space between you and your runaway-train brain. Instead of analyzing and judging what your mind tells you about being late for dinner, imagine that each differently painted railroad car represents a painful thought, unhelpful personal script, scary picture, or painful emotion that’s flying by and trying to sweep you along with it. 8. Protected by the distance of your mind’s railroad crossing, you begin to accept your thoughts and feelings as temporary, as fleeting as the cars that make up the train. As you continue to watch your train roar by, you accept that you cannot control this powerful force. You tell yourself that the train will soon pass, the blinking lights and clanging bells going off in your mind will cease, and your personal barrier will rise, allowing you to continue on home to your family and dinner.

After your clients have completed this exercise, explain to them that with practice, they can use this and other defusion activities found throughout this book to distance themselves from their stressful thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions.

MANAGING VS. AVOIDING, ELIMINATING, OR CONTROLLING While clients can’t control, eliminate, or avoid your troubling thoughts, outdated personal scripts, scary mental images, and painful emotions, they can learn how to manage them. Most clients get stuck because they confuse avoiding, eliminating, or controlling thoughts, scripts, images, and feelings with managing them. Let’s look at the differences among the terms. To avoid something is to limit exposure to it. People usually try to avoid things because exposure to them causes discomfort or distress. When someone tries to avoid something, we assume he knows what he wants to avoid, can anticipate it, and understands its relationship to his discomfort and distress. For example, imagine a client named John, who knows that going to the bank on Saturday morning causes him stress because it’s usually very crowded, it takes four times as 127

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long to do his business, and it’s often difficult to speak to one of the managers if he needs to. John can avoid his exposure to all of this simply by going to the bank during the day in the middle of the week, when it’s less crowded, managers are usually available, and he can get his business done in a few minutes. To eliminate something means to cause it to disappear, or to permanently get rid of it. There are many things in life that people can eliminate. If someone doesn’t like her computer, she can throw it out and replace it, or she can live without a computer. If someone’s unhappy with his career, he can go back to school for some retraining and start a new career. If someone doesn’t like her neighbors, she can move away from them. While none of these things is necessarily easy to do, people can do it and eliminate the discomfort and distress associated with it. I’m not pretending they will be completely happy or satisfied after making such a move; I’m simply illustrating the fact that people can eliminate these environmental stressors. To control something is to regulate it. Think about controlling the volume on a television set. When the television set is turned on and it’s too loud, we can turn down the volume. If the volume is too low when the set is turned on, we can dial up the volume and make it louder. The sound can even be muted when we want to temporarily prevent any sound from coming from it. Speed, sound, temperature, and taste are common things in life that people are used to controlling without even thinking about it. What all the examples I’ve given so far of things that can be avoided, eliminated, or controlled have in common is that they are part of the physical environment. They exist in the outside world and are subject to prediction and manipulation. Clients don’t have to accept them for what they are if they don’t want to. They can change physical environmental factors at will. Unfortunately, because they have a lifetime of experience avoiding, eliminating, and controlling things in their physical environments, clients assume they can do the same with things in their internal environments. They use the same model for controlling the volume on the television to try to control the volume of the thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions their minds crank out. As discussed throughout this book, this isn’t a very good idea. As you saw in chapter 2, when people focus their attention and efforts on controlling troubling thoughts, outdated personal scripts, scary pictures, and painful emotions, they only make them worse. These internal factors are beyond our control. If your clients can’t avoid, eliminate, or control their troubling thoughts, outdated personal scripts, scary pictures, and painful emotions, what can they do to get relief from them? What they can do is learn how to manage them. Managing troubling thoughts, outdated personal scripts, scary pictures, and painful emotions is the only reasonable way to deal with them.

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Managing Unhelpful Thoughts, Personal Scripts, Mental Images, and Emotions To manage is to guide, direct, handle, or cope with something. All of these terms have one thing in common: they don’t try to control. When someone manages something, she understands and accepts that she is unable to control all the variables involved with it. This is why so many of your clients get stressed out by having to manage others. For example, imagine that one of your clients, named Sharon, has just been offered a promotion to a position as middle manager in a large corporation. This is a very stressful place to be, because it involves pressure from above and below. The corporate executives make policy decisions that Sharon will be forced to implement. She will rarely have input on these decisions yet will be expected to carry them out. She will get pressure from below, because the employees who will report to her resist implementing new procedures and policies. Caught in the middle, Sharon can’t control either of these forces, so she must manage them. She will have to handle and cope with the pressures from her superiors while guiding and directing those who report to her. As Sharon ponders whether to accept this management position, she realizes that if she accepts it, she will have limited control over most of the variables involved in this job. She also realizes that there are things she can do to manage her employees effectively. She can use all of her considerable interpersonal skills to communicate clearly, keep the lines of communication open, treat everyone with respect and dignity, and so forth. She can run effective meetings, post policies, and be as transparent in her decision making as possible and as unambiguous as possible in her orders. On the other hand she realizes there are other things that are totally beyond her ability to control. She can’t control the board of trustees and their decisions. She can’t control policy shifts that come from her superiors. She can’t control the market and macroeconomic forces that affect the demand for her company’s products and services. She realizes that some employees are less motivated, talented, and interested than others. She also realizes that despite her best efforts, some employees will not like her or her management style. Furthermore, Sharon accepts that some of her employees work because they need a paycheck and do not share her value of hard work and her passion for what she does. Given all these elements that make it impossible to control everything involved in this management position, Sharon accepts it. In essence, when she does this, she also agrees to accept what she can’t avoid, eliminate, or control. The same can be said for managing our thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions. Managing these things revolves around accepting what we can’t control and being willing to move forward while embracing this. 129

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The Relationship Between Control and Willingness The desire to control thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions directly opposes acceptance of them and willingness to act. Think of this as two different scales that come into play whenever someone is faced with taking any kind of action. One of the scales is a control scale and the other is a willingness scale. Unfortunately, these scales work in opposition to each other. As one scale is increased, the other decreases. In other words, the control scale works in opposition to the willingness scale. When people “turn up the volume” on their control scales, their level of willingness automatically decreases. When they increase their willingness, the amount of control they exert decreases. The more clients try to control, avoid, or eliminate painful thoughts, scripts, mental images, and emotions, the less willing they are to accept them and take valued action. Willingness involves both components: being willing to accept and being willing to act. In “The Willingness Scale,” Hayes (2005) uses the analogy of dials on a radio as a metaphor for understanding this. In the following defusion exercise, I’ve built on this notion of dialing up control and dialing down willingness (and vice versa) by connecting it to a portable MP3 player for music listening. Instead of using dials on a radio to illustrate the relationship between willingness and control, this exercise uses arrows on an MP3 player.

WILLINGNESS EXERCISE: The MP3 Player Give these instructions to your clients: 1. Imagine you are going out for a run. You are all ready to go, so you put your portable MP3 player in your arm holder and insert your earbuds, and you’re ready to rock and roll. 2. This compact player has earbud speakers, selection and volume controls, and a button with an up-and-down arrow to regulate the bass and treble functions. When you want to increase the treble, you press and hold the up arrow and the treble increases. When you want to increase the bass, you press and hold the down arrow, and the bass increases. These functions work in opposition to each other. As you increase the treble, the bass decreases and vice versa.

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3. Now imagine that instead of the up-and-down arrow regulating the treble and bass, it regulates willingness and control. The up arrow regulates willingness and the down one regulates control. 4. The next time you have an unhelpful thought, personal script, mental image, or emotion you’re trying to control or eliminate, imagine that you’re hooked up to your MP3 player and have your thumb on this up-and-down arrow. 5. Press and hold the down arrow (the control function) and notice how you increase your desire to control, avoid, or eliminate your unhelpful thoughts, scripts, mental images, and emotions. As you continue to press and hold the down arrow, you are less and less willing to take valued action. 6. Now press and hold the up arrow (the willingness function), and notice how this begins to reverse. As your willingness increases, you begin to accept your discomfort and become more and more willing to take actions while living with your unhelpful thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions. Notice how your need to control your pain and suffering decreases as your acceptance and willingness to take valued action despite it increases. (Adapted from “The Willingness Scale,” Hayes, 2005.)

After clients have completed this exercise, tell them that whenever they get stuck and realize they’re trying to control their unwanted thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions, they can close their eyes and imagine the MP3 player. If they visualize putting their finger on the willingness arrow, they should feel the desire to control start to fade as their willingness increases. Tell them they might want to say to themselves, I’m having those old urges to control things again. It’s time to get out my MP3 player and go for a run.

BUILDING ACCEPTANCE AND WILLINGNESS In his book Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Steven Hayes (2005) points out that acceptance and willingness deal with conditions we can’t easily change. Most clients have carried around troubling thoughts, unhelpful personal scripts, scary pictures, and painful emotions for years and have found it very 131

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­ ifficult to get rid of them. They’ve probably tried to avoid, eliminate, or control not only the d thoughts and emotions but also the situations that trigger them. As I’ve discussed throughout this book, the problem with doing this is that it keeps clients stuck in unhelpful or destructive behavior patterns and limits their growth. Your job as their coach is to show them that instead of trying to avoid, eliminate, and control their unhelpful thoughts and emotions, they need to start accepting them and become more willing to act.

Acceptance Accepting pain and suffering, and being willing to move forward while living with these distressful feelings, doesn’t necessarily mean clients want to suffer. It just means they understand that trying to avoid, eliminate, or control their mental pain and suffering will not help it dissipate and will only make things worse. For instance, imagine having a client, named Ann, who wants to become a writer. Ann wants to slowly transition out of her present career and into writing over the next five years. She has a manuscript in the works and wants to work with a literary agent. Unfortunately Ann has had a very hard time hiring an agent. She has followed all the guidelines for soliciting an agent and has put together a strong proposal for the manuscript she wants to publish, but despite these efforts, all of her query letters to agents have not met with interest (she has received over a hundred rejections). Ann is terribly disappointed and very tired, and the thought of sending out another query letter to an agent makes her anxious and fills her head with troubling thoughts, negative personal scripts, scary pictures, and painful emotions like fear and anxiety. She has tried to avoid thinking about the prospect of receiving another rejection and has even tried to eliminate all of her negative thinking about getting rejected, but the more she tries to control her thoughts and feelings, the worse they seem to get. Your job as her coach is to explain to Ann that what she’s experiencing is normal for writers, especially in the beginning. Rejection is a part of the territory. You also need to reinforce exactly what she already told you, that the net results of her efforts to avoid, eliminate, and control her troubling thoughts, negative personal scripts, scary pictures, and fear and anxiety have only made them worse. Once Ann understands that doing what she is so accustomed to doing to get rid of her troubling thoughts and painful emotions doesn’t work, you can help her start developing acceptance. Accepting her troubling thoughts and painful emotions doesn’t mean she wants to feel bad; it just means, rather than try to fight what her mind tells her, she needs to accept it and keep moving forward. She needs to learn that she can continue to refine her proposal and query letters to agents and keep submitting them, 132

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despite her troubling thoughts and painful emotions. If she stops trying to fight what she’s thinking and feeling, her thoughts and feelings will start to fade on their own. The sure way for Ann to keep them alive is to try to work on them. Acknowledging the imperfection of being human is part of the practice of acceptance. Being human means being imperfect, making mistakes, contradicting ourselves occasionally, losing patience, and thinking or doing a thousand other things that, over the course of a lifetime, we wish we hadn’t thought, felt, or done. Acceptance allows us to acknowledge all of this and to keep moving forward while living with the trappings of being human. Accepting is not about judging or evaluating; it’s about being real and acknowledging our lives for what they are and our minds for their thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions. It takes courage to do this. The good news is that, even if your clients do not feel very courageous now, they can develop courage at any point in their lives. People of all ages do courageous things. Your clients can start today to develop the courage they need to accept their lives for what they are and move toward their goals.

Willingness Acceptance and willingness go hand in hand. Acceptance is more related to thoughts, while willingness is directly linked to taking action. Acceptance involves telling ourselves it’s okay to have troubling thoughts, outdated personal scripts, scary pictures, and painful emotions related to a goal. Willingness is our commitment to taking valued action while living with troubling thoughts, outdated personal scripts, scary pictures, and painful emotions. An interesting metaphor that I use in my book Stress Less, Live More is choosing to go out in a rainstorm (Blonna, 2010). Approaching rainstorms often give some advance notice; the weather report advises us about them; dark clouds start to approach; changes occur in temperature, wind conditions, moisture, and so on; and we feel the first light drops of rain as they begin to fall. In most cases, when people hear that it’s going to rain, they don’t let the impending storm put an end to their daily activities, especially if the activities are related to an important goal they have set for the day. Instead, they accept the imminent rainstorm and are willing to continue on with their plans while dealing with it. They can’t avoid, eliminate, or control the rainstorm. They can change how they act in relation to the rain. In other words, they can’t control the rain, but they can control their own rain-related behavior. There are several things your clients already do to deal with rainstorms: they wear special rain gear (such as a poncho or boots), give themselves more time to get to their destinations, and use umbrellas 133

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to shield themselves from the rain. Adapted from my book, Stress Less, Live More (Blonna, 2010), the following exercise is a fun way to defuse from internal potential stressors.

WILLINGNESS EXERCISE: I’d Better Use My Umbrella Give these instructions to your clients: 1. The next time you feel stuck and unable to move toward a goal because you can’t cope with your troubling thoughts, outdated personal scripts, scary pictures, and painful emotions, identify the exact messages you’re telling yourself about the situation. 2. Next, close your eyes and visualize the sky darkening, the wind picking up, and rain clouds swirling all around you. Now imagine that the messages your mind is telling you and any other painful thoughts you have about the situation are raindrops just beginning to fall on your head. You feel the drops and say to yourself, I’d better use my umbrella. 3. Imagine you have an umbrella. You open it and feel instant relief from your troubling thoughts, outdated personal scripts, scary pictures, and painful emotions. Like raindrops, they bounce off your umbrella and don’t interfere with your doing what you need to do. As you continue “walking in the rain” with your umbrella, tell yourself, Just as I can use an umbrella to help me manage experiencing real rain, I can use my acceptance and willingness umbrella to help me live my life while experiencing unhelpful thoughts and feelings. 4. Anytime you see the storm clouds of your troubling thoughts, outdated personal scripts, scary pictures, and painful emotions on the horizon, tell yourself, I’d better get my umbrella, and begin to view them as raindrops bouncing off your umbrella as you go about doing what needs to be done.

After your clients have completed this exercise, tell them that most of us would prefer to go about our business without having to walk in rainstorms. Unfortunately our lives will be full of a lot of rain, snow, sleet, and other bad weather that comes our way when there are things we need to do. We cannot avoid, eliminate, or control this bad weather. We can only accept it and be willing to live our lives in the midst of it. Bad weather doesn’t have to 134

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stop us from doing what needs to be done. The bad weather also helps us appreciate those beautiful, warm, sunny summer days or the crisp, clear winter days when it feels so good just to be alive and to breathe in the clean air. Adapted from my first ACT book, Stress Less, Live More (Blonna, 2010), the following exercise combines acceptance and willingness. You can use it to help clients get unstuck when working toward any goal.

ACCEPTANCE AND WILLINGNESS EXERCISE: I Am Willing to Accept Have your clients complete the statements: 1. I am stuck regarding the following goal: 2. My mind is giving me the following unhelpful thoughts and personal scripts about this goal: 3. My mind is creating the following unhelpful mental images about this goal: 4. My mind is creating the following unhelpful emotions about this goal: 5. Trying to control, eliminate, or avoid these unhelpful thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions has resulted in the following consequences: 6. I am willing to accept and live with the following unhelpful thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions as I take action toward my goal:

Ask your clients to think about all the unhelpful thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions their minds tell them about the goals they get stuck on. Now tell them to think about all the things they’ve tried in the past (psychotherapy, drugs, alcohol, and so on) to control, eliminate, or avoid their pain and suffering, and how ineffective these things have been. Instead of trying to control, eliminate, or avoid the unhelpful thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions their minds tell them, remind them that they can start accepting them as they take action toward their goals. 135

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ACCEPTING AND EMBRACING CHANGE A big reason your clients can’t avoid, eliminate, and control all of their troubling thoughts and painful emotions is because of change. Just when they think they have everything in their lives under control, it changes. Their lives and their very active minds are constantly changing. If your clients are like mine, most of them find change very threatening and difficult to cope with. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you view it as I do), the only constant in life is change. The only thing you can guarantee your clients about their lives is that they will change. Change is fundamental to all aspects of nature and life. The seasons change as Earth tilts on its axis. The weather changes, bringing with it rain that fills our reservoirs, sun that warms our faces, and breezes that refresh us. The landscape constantly changes as waves erode one beach and build another; raging rivers carve new banks and tributaries; and snow and ice expand and contract, cracking roads, rocks, and cliffs. Companies change in response to demands from consumers and the marketplace. Innovations are made in science and technology, and new advances in production and distribution cause new businesses to sprout up and old ones to tumble down. We change as we adapt to the ever-changing world around us. Change then is the norm, not the exception. Accepting change and being willing to move forward while knowing that change is inevitable is a healthy and growth-enhancing process for your clients. If your clients embrace change and don’t view all of it as threatening, they will begin to develop greater psychological flexibility. Believing that change is the only constant in life isn’t the same as believing in determinism; that is, believing in the inevitability of change isn’t the same as believing that everything is predetermined and will change regardless of your actions. Believing that life will frequently change doesn’t mean people shouldn’t set goals and objectives, leaving their lives to fate. It means people need to understand that because their lives are sure to change and they can’t control this process, they need to be more accepting and willing to change with it. Unfortunately many of your clients view change as a threat and something they can’t cope with because they can’t control or eliminate it. Because they can’t avoid, eliminate, or control change, they fear it. They want to know what to expect so they can plan for the worst. Accepting change and being willing to take valued action while living with change is a key step to developing greater psychological flexibility. Adapted from a similar exercise in my other ACT book, Stress Less, Live More (Blonna, 2010), the following exercise provides a framework for helping your clients become more accepting of change and willing to move forward despite it. 136

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ACCEPTANCE EXERCISE: Embracing Change Give these instructions to your clients: 1. Think about a pending change in your life that has left you feeling stuck and unable to progress toward a goal, or think of a past change that left you stuck. 2. What is about to change, or what changed in the past? 3. What is it about the change that has you stuck, or what was it about the past change that left you feeling stuck? 4. What troubling thoughts is your mind telling you about this change, or what thoughts did it tell you in the past? 5. What outdated personal scripts has your mind created about this change and your ability to handle it, or what did it create about the past change? 6. What’s the scariest picture your mind has created about this change or about the past change? 7. What painful emotions does this change arouse, or what emotions did a past change arouse? 8. On a scale of 1 to 10, how threatening is, or was, this change? 9. How have you dealt with similar changes in the past? 10. What can you do to prepare for this change, or what could you have done to prepare for a past change? 11. How much time do you have to prepare for this change, or how much time did you have to prepare for a past change? 12. What are you willing to accept about this change, or what would you have been willing to accept about a past change? 13. How can you grow by adapting to this change, or how could you have grown by adapting to a past change?

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After your clients have completed this exercise, tell them to use what they learned from answering the questions to help defuse from their outdated thoughts and scripts regarding the role of change in their lives. As they become more successful at taking valued action while living with their painful change-related thoughts and feelings, they will begin to defuse from the mind-set that change is always negative and threatening. Explain to clients that gradually they will come to realize that change is not only an inevitable, but also a valuable and enriching, part of their lives. As they begin to embrace change, it will start to become their friend, a renewing force they can look forward to with eager anticipation.

EXPERIENTIAL AVOIDANCE Your clients have tried all kinds of things to avoid pain and suffering. Jason Luoma and his colleagues (2007) discuss three major types of experiential avoidance behavior your clients will engage in: internal avoidance behavior, overt emotional-control behavior, and narrowing or constricting behavior. Let’s take a quick look at each of these.

Internal Avoidance Behaviors Internal avoidance behaviors are attempts to avoid an experience by trying to control or eliminate the thoughts and feelings associated with it. Daydreaming, worrying excessively, and telling ourselves to think or feel differently are examples of internal avoidance behaviors. As I’ve discussed throughout the book, ACT research shows that internal avoidance behaviors just make the problem worse.

Overt Emotional-Control Behaviors Overt emotional-control behaviors are attempts to avoid an experience by trying to distract ourselves from it. Drinking, using psychoactive drugs, overeating, gambling, and engaging in thrill seeking are examples of overt emotional-control behaviors. While your clients might find that these behaviors temporarily relieve their pain and suffering, once the distracting activity is over, their troubling thoughts and painful emotions return. In addition, many of these overt emotional-control behaviors are problematic themselves and often make it even more difficult for your clients to progress toward their goals. Take the example of Ann, the 138

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writer. Trying to write when she is sober and clearheaded is difficult enough, but if she tried to write when hungover or spaced out on drugs, it would be almost impossible. Sticking to a disciplined writing schedule is very difficult to do, even if the writer is in the best of health. Doing it when alcohol and drugs deplete our bodies of the energy and rest they need is next to impossible.

Narrowing or Constricting Behavior Narrowing or constricting behavior is the intentional shutting off of direct experience. This could involve dropping out of activities that are difficult, painful, or threatening, even though there are aspects of them that are enjoyable or rewarding. Another example would be limiting our opportunities to engage in new activities and meet new people because we perceive this as threatening. When clients intentionally narrow or constrict their opportunities to do new things and meet new people, they adhere to rigid (but comfortable and known) patterns of behavior. Let’s use Ann as an example again. She might benefit from joining a writers’ group. In such a group, Ann could meet other struggling and successful writers and learn how they acquired their agents. Often these groups invite agents to attend and talk to the members about their services. If Ann shuts herself off from such a group because it’s too painful for her to admit that she is struggling and has been rejected a hundred times, she will miss out on the benefits of the group. Additionally, attending the group could be just the experience she needs for her mind to start developing new relational frames about herself as a writer. There’s a fine line between healthy avoidance and unhealthy or unhelpful avoidance. It’s unhealthy and unhelpful to avoid things we need to do to reach our goals and live in concert with our values. It’s also unhealthy and unhelpful to be held prisoner to a rigid way of behaving when we realize it isn’t in our best interests and it keeps us from realizing our full potential. On the other hand, avoidance can be useful when we avoid people, places, and situations we know would stand in the way of meeting our goals or would conflict with what we value. For example, imagine that one of your clients, named Omar, is against using illegal psychoactive drugs like marijuana and cocaine. Omar has heard all the arguments for and against illegal psychoactive drugs and feels they are no more unhealthful than using alcohol or tobacco. Unlike alcohol and tobacco, however, psychoactive drugs like marijuana and cocaine are not legal. While Omar doesn’t necessarily view the drugs as dangerous to his health, he refuses to get involved with illegal activity. 139

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One night he gets a call from his brother, who just flew into town and wants to see him. The brother leaves a message on Omar’s voice mail with his flight time and number. He is arriving later that evening and expects Omar to pick him up at the airport. Omar’s brother hasn’t been home in over ten years and wants to spend some time with him. Omar instantly gets upset. His mind starts racing as it cranks out troubling thoughts, outdated and unhelpful scripts, scary pictures, and painful emotions about his brother. Omar doesn’t like his brother very much and was ecstatic when he moved to California over a decade ago. Omar’s brother was always in trouble with the police and caused Omar and his parents many a sleepless night. His brother was always trying to get Omar involved in his drugtaking behavior and dangerous escapades. As Omar ponders this call and his brother’s expectation that he pick him up at the airport, his mind just keeps racing. Omar decides he does not want to see his brother that night and definitely does not want to pick him up at the airport. Omar calls his father, who seems glad to pick up his other son at the airport. Omar gives his father his brother’s telephone number and flight information and tells his dad to please leave him alone that night, because he needs to get up early for work the next day. He tells his dad he will get in touch with his brother after work the next day. While an extreme example, this scenario illustrates that avoiding experiences that are painful and unhelpful to meeting our goals is sometimes a good idea. ACT will help your clients become more mindful of when they are engaging in experiential avoidance. The best way for them to assess whether or not their avoidance behavior is harmful is to apply the same helpfulness question used throughout this book: Is avoiding this experience helpful in meeting my goals and staying true to my values? If the answer is yes, then chances are good that your clients are not engaging in harmful experiential avoidance.

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Chapter 8

Integrating ACT into Your Coaching Practice

Over the years I have integrated certain aspects of technology into my approach to teaching and working with clients. I have worked with clients virtually for a few years and have taught online for over a decade. My three-part model for working with clients has evolved out of this framework and integrates technology into both the content and the process.

A THREE-PART MODEL FOR WORKING WITH CLIENTS Content, the things clients need to know about acceptance and commitment therapy, is very important in an ACT-based approach to coaching. Your clients need to understand certain concepts related to acceptance, commitment, willingness, and an ACT-based view of the mind and how it works in order to apply this material to their lives. Your job as a coach is to make sure that this information is available to your clients as part of their contract with you. As mentioned in the introduction, to make your job easier, I’ve posted all the forms and

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exercises you’ll need to do this on New Harbinger’s website for this book at www.new harbingeronline.com/maximize-your-coaching-effectiveness-with-act.html, which is why the computer mouse appears next to certain forms and exercises. You can download this material and deliver it virtually to your clients from your website, attached to an e-mail, or in a fax. The process of coaching involves helping clients integrate this new knowledge with specific ACT-based skills. This will help them take purposeful action and build lifestyles that reflect their values and goals. The process of coaching can occur face to face or virtually. I coach all of my private clients virtually, using different combinations of telephone, webcam, and e-mail. I do my pro bono coaching work face to face with students in my office on campus, because it’s more convenient to work with them there. Of course, you can combine the two methods by working with your clients using both virtual and face-to-face coaching techniques. An ACT-based approach to coaching works with both processes. Next, I’ll cover the components of my three-part model.

Part 1: Giving Virtual Homework Assignments As you’ve probably noticed if you’ve read the entire book to this point, I’ve used a lot of exercises to engage you and help you teach new material and concepts to your clients. As a coach, you are as much a teacher as you are a motivator and helper. Give your coaching clients reading assignments and exercises, and tell them that these materials will form the basis of your work with them. Don’t be afraid to tell them that you expect them to complete their reading assignments and exercises, and that you will hold them accountable for this. Explain that all future sessions will revolve around the material covered in the reading assignments and exercises assigned as homework. Make it as easy as possible for clients to obtain and submit the required reading assignments and exercises that constitute their homework assignments. The simplest way to do this is to download the material from the aforementioned website and pass it along to clients as e-mail attachments or virtual faxes. Virtual faxes, or e-faxes, are sent and received by computer, rather than being tied to a telephone landline. You can check out e-fax services online by entering “e-fax” into your preferred search engine.

Part 2: Developing Hardy Health Habits The second part of my three-part model for being an ACT coach is helping clients develop more emotionally and intellectually hardy health habits. Clients who have done 142

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their homework are ready to learn how to apply what they’ve just read about and learned into their daily routines. Using ACT skills on a daily basis helps them develop hardy health habits. Most people think of health habits as being limited to physical activities, such as eating healthy foods, exercising every day, and getting adequate rest. In addition to practicing hardy physical health habits, I believe you can teach your clients to practice hardy intellectual (thinking) and emotional (feeling) health habits. When your clients integrate hardy thinking and feeling health habits into their daily routines, these habits become part of their lifestyles. I see this as one of the major goals of coaching: to help clients develop hardier and healthier lifestyles, which will help them meet their goals and live the lives they dream about. I’m sure you have worked with your fair share of emotionally fragile clients whose plans are easily derailed by their illogical thinking and emotional ups and downs. You can use ACT principles and practices to help them build hardy thinking and feeling health habits, and become more psychologically flexible and less emotionally fragile.

Part 3: Meeting Goals and Living a Purposeful Life Helping clients meet their goals and live a purposeful life is really what you have been trained to do as a coach. The only difference is that now you will be doing it with a new twist, integrating ACT principles and practices into your approach. It doesn’t really matter if your sessions with clients are face to face or virtual, synchronous (in real time) or asynchronous (time delayed). I have had success with students and clients using ACT principles and practices whether I sat across the desk from them or across the country, talking on the telephone or exchanging e-mails. In the rest of this chapter, I will take you through a step-by-step process for how to integrate ACT into your coaching practice. Obviously, there’s no exact template for how things will go with specific clients, and you undoubtedly will modify some of the material in this chapter to fit their needs and style. Yet having a step-by-step guidebook to refer to will be extremely helpful, especially when you first start transitioning to a more ACT-based practice.

BECOMING AN ACT-BASED COACH: A SIX-STEP PROCESS As I mentioned in the first chapter of this book, I strongly advise you to do all of the exercises in the book and practice the ACT techniques and skills on yourself before using 143

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them with your clients. This is in keeping with the ACT tradition and will help you in two ways: you will understand how all the processes work, and you will be able to convey the importance of doing the exercises to your clients because of your own experience of having completed them. I like the idea of steps when learning something new. They remind me of stepping-stones in a secret garden. The carefully laid-out steps guide you down a path that ultimately takes you to your destination. In my garden the stepping-stones lead to a small pond with an intimate deck and a comfortable chair under a large, shady locust tree. When I reach my destination, I am rewarded with a quiet, cool place to sit, where I can reflect on my day. Your steps will guide you down the path of figuring out how to integrate this ACT material into your work with your clients. When you finally reach your destination, you will be rewarded with clients who can get unstuck, meet their goals, and live meaningful lives. While steps are obviously sequential, feel free to determine how you spread them over your sessions with individual clients. With some clients, you might be able to cover more than one step in a single session. With others you might need multiple sessions to cover one step. It’s up to you to determine this. You know your clients better than I ever will.

Step 1: Conduct the Assessment and Help Clients Set Goals The best place to begin to integrate ACT principles and practices into your coaching is in your new client intake interview. Explain that you use ACT principles and practices when you discuss informed consent. I suggest including this first step in a free session and letting it become a key part of your marketing. I recommend advertising that your initial assessment is free and that it’s devoted to helping potential clients understand how your ACT-based practice differs from other coaching approaches they may have used in the past. I suggest breaking this session into two parts: filling out and submitting forms virtually, and discussing the forms in real time (face to face or on the telephone). I have provided sample forms for intake assessment, informed consent, and other issues (see appendixes A and B) at the back of this book. You can also download them from the website (http://9318.nhpubs.com). Lyn Kelley, president of Grow Training Institute and my coaching mentor, has graciously allowed me to modify and replicate these forms. For a complete list of services at Grow Training Institute, visit www.growpublications.com and check out Lyn’s work (Kelley, 2008). She is a master motivator and an expert in how to grow your coaching practice. 144

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In appendix B is a section titled “Background and Approach to Coaching,” where I specifically mention that my coaching practice uses an eclectic mix of techniques drawn from the fields of coaching (coaching principles and practices), educational psychology (motivational theory, values clarification), mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) (mindfulness training), psychotherapy (acceptance and commitment therapy), and health education (relaxation training, wellness). In this section I mention that while some of these techniques are adapted from psychotherapy, I am not a therapist and I am not practicing psychotherapy using these techniques. All of the techniques I employ are used in a classroom, and in corporate and other settings with students and clients to help them identify their values, set goals and objectives, and work through obstacles that are in the way of reaching their dreams. I suggest spending sufficient time in your initial assessment using appendix A to ensure that your clients need coaching, not psychotherapy, and that their initial goals fall within the parameters of your training, credentials, and expertise. One section of the “Informed Consent” form (appendix B) relates to sending and receiving information and assignments. I ask clients to specify how they want to send and receive material from me. They can opt to do this by fax or using e-mail attachments. It’s entirely up to them, and I provide them with my e-mail address and e-fax number, so they know where to send material to me. Download the forms and have your clients complete them and send them to you by mail or fax, or have clients bring them in if you have a face-to-face practice. As I mentioned, I have a virtual practice, so all of my form management is done by e-fax. It’s not the purpose of this book to discuss the pros and cons of a virtual practice compared to a face-to-face one and the myriad issues involved in this. There are countless books on the market that can help you decide which way to go on this issue. Once you have the completed assessment and informed consent forms with your potential client, I suggest providing a free session to introduce yourself, go over the forms, clarify the person’s goals, and decide if the two of you will work together. At that point you can also reinforce your methods and set the stage for your client to understand what it means to work with an ACT coach and how that distinguishes you from the rest of the coaching field. Explain to clients that you will teach them the key ACT information they need to know through a combination of homework assignments and directed readings that you will supply to them. Explain to them that mastering these skills will help them integrate them into their lifestyles as hardy emotional and intellectual health habits. Explain to them that your approach does not require them to buy any books or read anything other than the homework

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assignments you give them, which are available on the website (http://9318.nhpubs.com). Last, let clients know that while your primary task is to help them achieve their goals, to do this you will devote some of your time to teaching them ACT-related material that will help ensure their success.

Step 2: Provide a Quick Overview of ACT In this step you want to introduce your clients to the basic principles and practices of ACT. It’s especially important for them to understand how the mind works in processing thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions. The best way to accomplish this is to give clients the following exercise as homework.

EXERCISE: Homework—What Is ACT? The purpose of this exercise is to help you understand what ACT is, so our work together can progress efficiently. ACT research has uncovered exciting information about how your mind works in relation to your thinking about your goals. Since I use an ACT-based approach to my coaching, it’s important for you to understand some basic information about ACT. This will also help you understand how developing hardy emotional and intellectual health habits will help you realize your goals and live the life you dream of. 1. Read the material about ACT that I sent to you. 2. After reading the ACT material, write down your answers to these questions: a. What are the four aspects of acceptance? b. How does ACT view commitment? c. What does ACT mean by the statement “Your brain is a 24/7 thinking and feeling machine”? d. How do your past frames of reference influence your current thinking and your future plans? e. Why are words and self-talk so important in ACT? f. How do the common thinking and feeling traps contribute to your getting stuck? 146

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3. Send this material to me, per our contract, by          , so I can read it prior to our next session together. 4. Be prepared to discuss these things during our next session together. 5. I expect you to take this step seriously and give this activity your best effort. To help you move forward and meet your goals, you need to understand this basic information about ACT.

You can go through the information covered in this homework activity with your clients in different ways, depending on how you structure your practice. As mentioned, I have a virtual practice and have been teaching college classes online for a decade, so I am very comfortable going through this information with the client online. I like to have clients submit their assignments to me, so that I can read them, make comments, and return them before we meet in person for the next session. You might prefer to go through the client’s responses to the assignment with the client at the beginning of your next session. In that case you would download the client’s work, read it, and prepare written comments to discuss during the session. You can talk about your impressions of clients’ work without giving them written feedback, or you can give them written comments. If you are working face to face, you can hand clients their answers with your added comments. If you are working virtually, you can e-mail your comments once you are in session. I think it’s important to give clients written feedback. I feel that written comments can be extremely helpful down the line, after your formal work with the client is over. Clients can refer to the work they did with you without having to rely on memory. I think this is a values-added component of your work with them you can use to help market your practice. Regardless of how you process this information, remember, the key aspect of step 2 is to make sure clients have a clear understanding of what ACT is and how you plan to use ACT principles and practices to help them meet their goals and live the lives they dream of. I am a firm believer in setting high expectations for students and clients and having them rise to these levels. I like to state actual expectations (see the fifth step), because it lets clients know I will follow through in reviewing their work. Using expectations has been proven empirically to increase adherence to instructions (Blonna, Loschiavo, & Watter, 2010). When you give homework assignments and do not cite them as expectations, clients often blow them off, viewing them as optional instead of required components of their 147

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c­ oaching plans. When this happens, they are unprepared for the work you want to do in your next session and are unable to move forward without wasting valuable session time covering content that could have been handled virtually. This can be frustrating for coaches and clients, and it can become very expensive for clients because more session time will be devoted to learning content instead of applying it to reaching their goals.

Step 3: Assess Values As you’ve seen from reading this book, having clients clarify their values is a key step in using an ACT approach to coaching. Everything in ACT revolves around the client’s values. In most cases, clients get stuck because something’s going on in their lives revolving around a values conflict. For example, if Mary comes to you because she wants to change careers and is not sure how to proceed, her career shift is more than likely rooted in some value she holds about work or one of the other areas discussed in chapter 4. It might have to do with her feeling that her current job does not give her the earning potential she seeks, the creative outlet she craves, or the intellectual growth potential she requires for career satisfaction. All three of these issues—earning potential, creativity, and intellectual growth—are things she values. Once again I recommend teaching this material to clients by giving them homework exercises and reading assignments. As you saw in chapter 4, there’s a lot of material to cover, so explain to your clients that since values clarification is a four-step process, you will give them exercises that are progressive and build on each other. I recommend having your clients read the material I’ve posted on the website (http://9318.nhpubs.com) related to values clarification. When they finish reading that material, have them do the three values exercises described in chapter 4: “Mindfulness Exercise: Sorting the Mail,” “Values Ranking and Defusion Exercise: Core vs. Satellite Values,” and “ACT-Based Values Clarification Exercise: Developing a Plan for Acting on Your Values.” Have them submit all three exercises and be ready to discuss them with you in the next live session. After your clients have completed these three exercises, in your live sessions explain to them that you will help them examine how the values they just clarified relate to the goals they want to work on with you. Explain to them how they are much more likely to meet their goals if their goals truly reflect their values. If you remember from chapter 4, people often get stuck because they have a conflict between their goals and their values.

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Step 4: Set Clear Goals and Measurable Objectives Now that you’ve laid the foundation for understanding ACT and how it ties into your client’s values, you can get back the goals your client originally stated in your initial session and examine how your client’s values and goals mesh. If there’s a mismatch between clients’ values and goals, they might have to reformulate their goals, which is something you need to discuss with them, since values mismatches almost always result in conflict and getting stuck. Past relational frames play a big part in values clarification. Your clients want to cling to things they value from the past, even if they no longer work for them in the present. Clients usually do not realize they are doing this until they work on values clarification. One of your jobs as a coach is to tell clients it’s normal to want to cling to things that are familiar and comfortable, but real growth often means giving up things that no longer work and no longer represent who you are as a person. This is why ACT, a values-based approach to helping, works so well for coaches. In addition to going over this material, you now want to tighten up clients’ goals and craft measurable objectives that will act as their stepping-stones to success. While goals can be lofty and hard to measure, objectives must be concrete and answer the question Who will do how much of what, by when? Have your clients complete the exercise from chapter 5, titled “Setting Values-Based Goals and Objectives.” After your clients have completed this exercise, in the next live session explain to them that you will periodically review their progress in meeting the objectives they set for reaching their goals. If they’ve written them correctly, all of their objectives should include a time frame. Explain to them that it’s okay if they decide to change the time frames or to add or delete objectives. While goals and objectives help give people’s lives structure and help them clarify their values, they should also be flexible enough to adapt to changes. Explain to clients that as their coach, you will help keep them motivated to do the work involved in meeting their goals and objectives, and help them readjust them when necessary.

Step 5: Give Up Control and Take Committed Action If you remember from chapter 7, in addition to getting hooked by the six factors of psychological inflexibility and the ten common thinking and feeling traps, clients often

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get hooked by attempts to control things that can’t be controlled. Step 5 revolves around ­teaching clients what they can and cannot control. In addition, it is devoted to showing clients how their efforts to avoid, control, or eliminate things that can’t be controlled keep them stuck and unable to meet their goals and live the lives they dream about. Step 5 teaches them the nuts and bolts of acceptance and willingness, and it teaches them how to take committed action toward achieving their goals while bringing their troubling thoughts and painful emotions along for the ride. This step involves a lot of new ideas and concepts, so it’s important to stress to your clients the significance of reading the material you give them and having you clarify anything they do not understand. Tell them you expect them to do the reading assignments and come prepared to discuss them at your next session together. Clients need to buy into the notion that giving up trying to control the things that are beyond their control is the key to getting unstuck and moving forward. To this end, I recommend having clients complete the following two exercises from chapter 7: “Willingness Exercise: The MP3 Player” and “Acceptance and Willingness Exercise: I Am Willing to Accept          .” Taken together, these two exercises illustrate the relationships among control, acceptance, and willingness, and they teach clients valuable skills they can use to get unstuck and move toward their goals. After your clients have completed these exercises and their readings, describe to them the relationship between giving up control and becoming more accepting and how this will help them get unstuck and move in the right direction to meet their goals. Explain to them that this will be difficult to put into practice, especially if they are like a lot of highly motivated and successful people who like to be in control of as many things as possible. Explain to them that as an ACT-based coach, you will help them realize when they are reverting to their old unaccepting, controlling ways, and you will help them get back on track.

Step 6: Use Defusion to Get Unstuck The last thing you need to do as an ACT-based coach is help your clients learn how to use defusion techniques to get unstuck when their overactive minds take them places that are unhelpful in meeting their goals. This is probably entirely new territory for most of them, so be patient and make sure they understand the concepts covered in the reading assignments.

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Start by assigning reading about attachment to the conceptualized self and defusion, from this book or from Stress Less, Live More (Blonna, 2010). Have clients pay particular attention to the common thinking and feeling traps, because they represent the active mind at work and how it directly contributes to getting stuck. Focusing on these traps really crystallizes for clients how the mind works in real situations and how it can cause psychological inflexibility. I recommend assigning the following defusion exercises as homework assignments: “The Whiteboard” (chapter 2), “Take Off Those Asthma-Colored Glasses” (chapter 3), “My Lineup Photo” (chapter 3), “Rethinking Permanence” (chapter 5), and “A New Me” (chapter 5). These exercises capture the essence of how clients get hooked by unhelpful things their minds tell them about themselves. After clients have completed all of these exercises, explain to them that in time and with practice, they can learn how to defuse from the unhelpful thoughts, personal scripts, mental images, and emotions that stand in the way of meeting their goals and living a purposeful life.

SOME FINAL WORDS The six steps outlined in this chapter are not set in stone. I’ve tried to provide a simple framework to help you jump-start your transition into ACT-based coaching. There are many other ways you can integrate ACT principles and practices into your coaching. Feel free to eliminate any of the steps or add new ones, change their order, or substitute other activities or reading assignments. I think your clients would benefit tremendously from reading my book Stress Less, Live More (Blonna, 2010). Most of the material therein mirrors what we’ve gone over in this book but is written for a lay audience. Plus, a slew of ACT books targeting practitioners is available from New Harbinger Publications at www.newharbinger.com. I hope this chapter has provided enough of a beginning for you to get started offering your coaching clients the powerful ACT tools that can help them meet their goals and live the lives they dream about.

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Appendix A

Client Initial Interview Form

Life Coach:              Date:        Name:       Sex: Male           Female          Age:           Phone: (work)           (home)          (cell)          E-mail:             Address:                     City:              State:                      Zip:              Employer:                 Occupation:               How long have you worked there?         How long in this occupation?           Education: (highest level attained)            

Maximize Your Coaching Effectiveness with ACT

How would you prefer to be contacted if I have to reach you in an emergency? (work phone) yes     no     (home phone) yes     no     (cell phone) yes     no     (e-mail) yes     no     List any major health problems:      List any medications you are taking and for what purpose:     Describe the issue you’d like to work with me on:    

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Have you seen a coach (yes     no     ) or therapist (yes     no     ) for help with your current issue? If yes, give a brief description of the treatment or help you received:     How were you referred to my practice?     Whom may I thank for referring you?    

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Appendix B

Sample Informed Consent Form

Following is a sample form using my personal coaching information as an example. You must determine what and how much information about your background you wish to include. Clients must be given enough information to be able to make an informed choice regarding whether or not you seem like a good fit for them.

INFORMED CONSENT Background and Approach to Coaching: Thank you for choosing me, Dr. Richard Blonna, as your coach. I realize that working with me is a major decision, and you may have many questions. This document is intended to inform you of my policies, state and federal laws, and your rights. If you have other questions or concerns, please ask and I will try my best to provide all the information you need. I have a bachelor of science in psychology from William Paterson University, a master’s degree in education (specialization in counseling and special services) from Seton Hall University, and a doctoral degree in health education (specialization in health counseling) from Temple University.

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I am a certified professional coach (CPC), national certified counselor (NCC), and certified health education specialist (CHES) with over twenty-five years of experience in teaching and coaching adults using individual and group methods. My work is limited to coaching adults in the following areas: life coaching, stress management, and writer’s block. My eclectic background and training has enabled me to develop an approach to coaching that incorporates principles and practices  drawn from  coaching, health education, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), naikan self-reflection, and classic relaxation training (diaphragmatic breathing, meditation, visualization, and so on). I combine all of these methods in an effort to help you get unstuck, stay motivated, and meet your goals. While my approach uses some techniques drawn from ACT, I am not a therapist and I am not trying to practice psychotherapy using these techniques. Many different therapeutic techniques can be adapted for coaches and coaching clients.

Nature of My Distance-Coaching Practice: Prior to beginning coaching, you will have a free consultation with me by telephone to assess your needs and discuss my approach, so you can make an informed decision regarding working with me. During this consultation I will explain how we will work together, discussing confidentiality, your rights as a client, and other nuances of working at a distance. If you agree to work with me, you will then fill out and return (by fax or regular mail) some basic forms (informed consent, client data, and so on). Additionally, you will be required to purchase my two self-help books and relaxation CD ($16.99 each) before beginning our work together. I use a lot of directed readings and skill-building exercises contained in the books and relaxation CD, so you’ll need them to work with me. After sending the forms and purchasing the books and CD, you can purchase your first online session. When you purchase an online session, I am automatically notified by e-mail. At this point I will send you an e-mail to schedule our first session together.

Structure of Coaching Sessions: During our sessions together, you will be a very active participant in the  coaching process. In addition to talking with me, you will be given reading assignments and be asked to practice techniques from the books and relaxation CD. Your commitment to doing this work outside our live distance sessions is crucial to your success. I expect that you will do all of the reading and exercises prior to our live sessions together. 158

Sample Informed Consent Form

Each session is divided into two parts: a live session where we communicate by telephone, webcam, or both and an asynchronous session where we communicate by e-mail. During the asynchronous session, you submit your assignments (ongoing journals, completed exercises, and so on) using e-mail attachments or fax, and I will review your work prior to our live session. This will help me structure our live session and provide feedback regarding your progress. For our live sessions to be effective, I must receive your work prior to your appointment so I can review it in advance. Please indicate how you prefer to send and receive those assignments and information. I prefer to send and receive information and assignments by e-mail     fax    both    . Signature                      Date          

Financial Agreement: The fee per session is $150.00. You may pay for sessions using your credit or debit card or PayPal account. You can sign up for a session by visiting my website: healthystress doctor.com/signup.html. If you prefer to pay by check, you can send it to: Dr. Richard Blonna 50 Wallace Blvd. Hillsborough, NJ 08844 All checks must be received in advance of your appointment. If you need to cancel or reschedule an appointment, please notify me at least twenty-four hours in advance; otherwise you will be billed for the missed session. Signature                      Date          

Insurance Issues: I do not accept third-party reimbursement from health insurance carriers. I do not accept assignment of benefits, nor do I participate in managed care insurance plans (HMO’s and PPO’s). If you have insurance that provides coverage for my services, I will gladly discuss the coaching services you receive from me if your insurance company calls me and you provide me with a release granting me the right to talk with them. I do not call to request

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a­ uthorizations. You are responsible for contacting your carrier, securing necessary forms, filling them out, and sending them back at your expense. You are responsible for paying for all coaching services in full prior to submitting any insurance claims. Signature                      Date          

Coordination of Care: It is important that all health care providers work together. As such, if you would like me to share information about your coaching sessions, I will need your permission to communicate with your primary care physician, therapist, or both. In the event that you grant me this permission, please be advised that I will not initiate contact with them. They must request information directly from me. Your consent is valid for one year. Please understand that you have the right to revoke this authorization, in writing, at any time by sending notice. If you prefer to decline consent, no information will be shared.     You may inform my physician, counselor, and so on.     You may not inform my physician, counselor, and so on. Physician name:        Address:        Telephone:        E-mail:        Therapist name:        Address:        Telephone:        E-mail:        Signature                      Date          

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Sample Informed Consent Form

Confidentiality and Emergency Situations: Your verbal communication and coaching records are strictly confidential except for (1) information shared with your insurance company to process your claims (if my services are covered by your insurance), (2) information you report to me about physical or sexual abuse (I am obligated to report this to the Division of Youth and Family Services), (3) when you sign a release of information to have specific information shared with your physician or therapist, and (4) when you provide information that informs me that you are in danger of harming yourself or others. If an emergency situation occurs for which you feel immediate attention is necessary, you understand that you are to contact the emergency services in your community (911). I will follow up those emergency services with coaching service and support. Signature                      Date          

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References

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Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (1999). Acceptance and commitment therapy: An experiential approach to behavior change. New York: Guilford Press. Kabat-Zinn, J. (Author). (1995). Mindfulness meditation [Audiotape]. Niles, IL: Nightingale-­ Conant. Kelley, L. (2008). Samples handbook: Letters, forms, and ads. Custom course materials for homestudy course, Promote Your Practice Exclusively to a Well-Pay, Fee-for-Service Clientele. San Diego, CA: GROW Publications. http://www.growpublications.com Krech, G. (2002). Naikan: Gratitude, grace, and the Japanese art of self-reflection. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press. Krech, G., & Anderson Krech, L. (2005). Working with your attention: Exercises and daily journal. Custom course materials in Resource materials binder for participants in residential certification program, Japanese Psychology: Morita and Naikan Therapies, July 9–17. Monkton, VT: The ToDo Institute. Lee, D., & Hatesohl, D. (1993). Listening: Our most used communication skill. Community and Leadership, 150. St. Louis, MO: University of Missouri Extension and Agricultural Information. http://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=CM150 Luoma, J. B., Hayes, S. C., & Walser, R. D. (2007). Learning ACT: An acceptance and commitment therapy skills-training manual for therapists. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications. Maslow, A. H. (1968). Toward a psychology of being. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand Press. Morita, S. (1998). Morita therapy and the true nature of anxiety-based disorders (shinkeishitsu) (A. Kondo, Trans.). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. National Highway, Transportation, and Safety Administration (NHTSA). (2010). Distraction: Statistics and facts about distracted driving. Washington, DC: National Highway, Transportation, and Safety Administration. http://www.distraction.gov/stats-and-facts/ (retrieved August 24 2010) Reynolds, D. K. (2002). A handbook for constructive living. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Seligman, M. E. P. (1990). Learned optimism: How to change your mind and your life. New York: Free Press. Simon, S. B., Howe, L. W., & Kirschenbaum, H. (1995). Values clarification: A practical, actiondirected workbook. New York: Warner Books. Williams, P. (2007). Border Line: Understanding the relationship between therapy and coaching. Choice, 5(3), 22–26. http://www.choice-online.com/new/digitalissues/choice_Coaching_vs_ Therapy_zBjkMvUO.pdf

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