Defusion

Embracing Experience: Understanding and Moving Beyond Avoidance

by John Nolan
30th March 2025

Experiential avoidance, the attempt to evade unwanted inner experiences, plays a significant role in various mental health challenges, including anxiety, depression, stress, and trauma, leading to restricted lives and intensified distress. Overcoming this pattern involves cultivating awareness, acceptance, willingness, cognitive defusion, present moment contact, value clarification, gradual exposure, and self-compassion, enabling individuals to engage with a full range of experiences and move towards a more fulfilling life.

Steps to Overcoming Dread: Calming Your Mind and Building Resilience with Self-Help Techniques

by John Nolan
29th March 2025

Feelings of dread often involve activation of the brain’s threat system (amygdala) and an overwhelmed cortex, accompanied by negative thinking patterns, anticipation of threat, and negative self-talk. To overcome dread, techniques such as CPR for the Amygdala (combining self-havening and brain games), self-havening alone, challenging negative self-talk, practising mindfulness and acceptance, focusing on solutions, ACT-based defusion, applied relaxation (breathing), cultivating self-compassion, and the LLAMP approach can be effective. These methods work by calming the nervous system, redirecting attention, creating psychological distance from negative thoughts, promoting self-acceptance, and shifting focus towards positive possibilities and values. Consistent practice and patience are key to building resilience and reducing the impact of dread.

Uncoupling from Thoughts: The Power of Defusion

by John Nolan
21st January 202514th March 2025

Defusion techniques involve a shift in how we relate to our thoughts, so that we see them as mental events, not facts. This process can reduce reactivity, increase flexibility, and support general well-being. Defusion may seem strange but it can allow more freedom in life and less intense reactions to thinking.

The role of client values in ACT therapy for anxiety23rd April 2025
Client values play a central and fundamental role in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for anxiety disorders. Unlike traditional approaches that primarily focus on reducing or controlling anxiety, ACT emphasises living a life that is rich, full, and meaningful, guided by what is truly important to… Read More »The role of client values in ACT therapy for anxiety
ACT’s primary goals in treating anxiety disorders23rd April 2025
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has two major primary goals when treating anxiety disorders: (1) fostering acceptance of unwanted thoughts and feelings whose occurrence or disappearance clients cannot control, and (2) commitment and action toward living a life that they value. This means that ACT aims… Read More »ACT’s primary goals in treating anxiety disorders
The role of neuropathically play in overcoming anxiety22nd April 2025
Neuroplasticity plays a fundamental role in overcoming anxiety. It refers to the brain’s remarkable ability to change its structure and function throughout life by forming new neural connections. This means that the neural pathways underlying anxious thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are not fixed and can be… Read More »The role of neuropathically play in overcoming anxiety
An outline of the brain’s dual pathways to generating anxiety.22nd April 2025
The brain has two main pathways that can lead to the generation of anxiety. These pathways, although distinct, can also work together. The cortex pathway begins with the sense organs and travels through the thalamus to the cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain. The… Read More »An outline of the brain’s dual pathways to generating anxiety.
How might avoidance perpetuate anxiety symptoms?21st April 2025
Avoidance can perpetuate anxiety symptoms in several ways. Firstly, avoidance is negatively reinforced because it leads to a temporary reduction in anxiety. When you avoid a situation, person, or thought that triggers anxiety, the immediate feeling of relief reinforces the avoidance behaviour, making it more likely… Read More »How might avoidance perpetuate anxiety symptoms?