Great if it works, but also be aware of the criticism against ACT for being promoted as "the proverbial holy grail of psychological therapies".
More on wikipedia:
In 2012, ACT appeared to be about as effective as standard CBT, with some meta-analyses showing small differences in favor of ACT and others not. For example, a meta-analysis published by Francisco Ruiz in 2012 looked at 16 studies comparing ACT to standard CBT.
I question efficacy as a valid measure for something that relies on the patient actually getting off their ass and doing something (as opposed to a pill, which is comparatively passive).
I think the more useful measure is: what results does a patient achieve if they fully apply themselves to a particular methodology. Of course we can also look at: what % of people that are introduced to a particular methodology fully apply themselves, but this measure is inherently secondary to the prior measure.
How do you see that measure as more useful? I see it as very narrowly useful. You’ve conditioned the input to the desired output.
Let’s say my gas tank is empty. One way of treating this is to drive to the gas station. This will fail often (remember, I’m out of gas). We could compare this to other treatments like using a gas can.
Driving to the gas station normally is the better treatment, because normally the gas tank isn’t really empty. But if we’re at the point of getting professional help, it’s actually the other way. We probably have a real problem. If I call up a tow truck company and their suggestion is to drive to the nearest gas station, I wouldn’t say that’s very helpful.
So your conditioning makes sense if the goal is to turn stars into superstars. It is not a good measure for treatment of people in need.
The first half of your first sentence alone should set off alarms “I question efficacy as a valid measure…”
> ACT appeared to be about as effective as standard CBT
I'm no expert but I don't think it has be dramatically better to be very useful, does it? CBT is effective and if some people gel with ACT more than CBT, then great. It might even be useful at lesser efficacy if it's effective for people CBT wasn't effective for.
Definitely worth pointing out, but I would imagine most people reading about this are deciding between ACT and nothing at all, as opposed to ACT vs another therapy, and that's a very different evaluation.
More on wikipedia:
In 2012, ACT appeared to be about as effective as standard CBT, with some meta-analyses showing small differences in favor of ACT and others not. For example, a meta-analysis published by Francisco Ruiz in 2012 looked at 16 studies comparing ACT to standard CBT.