Suffering

ACT or CBT for anxiety?

by John Nolan
15th May 2025

ACT and CBT offer distinct approaches to addressing anxiety. CBT often focuses on identifying and challenging maladaptive thoughts and reducing symptoms by altering thought content and structure. It also utilises exposure to counter avoidance. ACT, conversely, views avoidance and control efforts as key problems that paradoxically worsen suffering. Its goal is not symptom reduction but helping clients live a full, valued life by fostering psychological flexibility. ACT employs defusion to change the relationship with thoughts rather than disputing them and promotes acceptance and willingness to experience internal sensations and emotions fully, often using mindfulness and exposure techniques reframed within an acceptance context. While CBT is seen as a traditional behavioural/cognitive approach, ACT is considered a newer wave that integrates some CBT techniques within a broader framework centred on acceptance, mindfulness, values, and committed action.

ACT or CBT for anxiety?15th May 2025
ACT and CBT offer distinct approaches to addressing anxiety. CBT often focuses on identifying and challenging maladaptive thoughts and reducing symptoms by altering thought content and structure. It also utilises exposure to counter avoidance. ACT, conversely, views avoidance and control efforts as key problems that paradoxically worsen suffering. Its goal is not symptom reduction but helping clients live a full, valued life by fostering psychological flexibility. ACT employs defusion to change the relationship with thoughts rather than disputing them and promotes acceptance and willingness to experience internal sensations and emotions fully, often using mindfulness and exposure techniques reframed within an acceptance context. While CBT is seen as a traditional behavioural/cognitive approach, ACT is considered a newer wave that integrates some CBT techniques within a broader framework centred on acceptance, mindfulness, values, and committed action.
Rewiring the Anxious Brain: Techniques and the Role of the Havening Therapist14th May 2025
Rewiring the anxious brain leverages the brain's capacity for neuroplasticity to change its responses to anxiety. Anxiety is understood to involve the amygdala and cortex pathways. Techniques targeting the amygdala, such as exposure therapy, relaxation, exercise, and Havening, aim to modify emotional memories and threat responses through experience and direct neurological intervention. Techniques targeting the cortex, like cognitive restructuring and mindfulness, focus on changing anxious thoughts, interpretations, and awareness. Other approaches such as NLP, SFBT, Hypnotherapy, and Neurofeedback also contribute to this process by addressing subconscious factors, promoting solution-focused thinking, conditioning relaxation responses, or directly altering brainwave patterns. A Havening therapist is particularly integral to this process by facilitating amygdala depotentiation through techniques like Havening and guiding clients in self-practices such as CPR for the Amygdala, enabling effective and controlled healing of trauma and building resilience. The goal is to build new neural pathways that resist anxiety and allow individuals to live more fully according to their values.
Reasons for Professionals and Senior Management Seeking Private Anxiety Treatment13th May 2025
Many professional people and senior management seek anxiety treatment, often in private settings, due to the severe impact anxiety has on their careers, performance, and relationships. They may seek effective and tailored solutions beyond temporary symptom relief, favouring approaches that focus on performance, well-being, and client control. Stigma, embarrassment, and the need for privacy to address what can feel like a secret problem are significant motivators for choosing private treatment. They may also be looking for alternative approaches if previous attempts at managing anxiety, particularly through avoidance, have proven costly and ineffective.
An Exploration of Havening Techniques for Anxiety12th May 2025
Havening Techniques for anxiety are a psychosensory treatment using touch to generate delta waves in the brain, which is understood to depotentiate distress encoded in the amygdala. Practitioners guide clients through Havening Touch or Self-Havening, working with issues like panic attacks, phobias, stress, and trauma. A key benefit is the ability to work content-free, meaning clients do not need to verbally disclose details of distressing events. Havening acts as a valuable addition to existing therapeutic toolkits, potentially enhancing the effectiveness of other modalities. It is seen as surpassing traditional anxiety treatments in its described speed, efficacy, and gentleness, allowing clients to process difficult experiences without re-traumatisation. The real-time results and focus on underlying neurological processes are highlighted as particular strengths. While still gaining wider recognition, practitioners find it transforms their practise and provides a powerful self-care tool.
Coaching for Depression11th May 2025
This report has examined coaching for depression, drawing on principles and techniques found in various therapeutic modalities. Coaching-informed approaches differ from traditional therapy by focusing on solutions and positive emotions rather than problems, viewing the client as the expert rather than the therapist, and emphasising possibilities over impossibilities. Potential advantages include building confidence, fostering hope, and promoting action-oriented strategies. For clients, coaching can be preferable due to feeling more understood, empowered, and less blamed. Practitioners may benefit from a more collaborative role and the fulfillment of helping clients achieve lasting positive change. A critical element in coaching for depression is the constant monitoring of progress, often done through scaling questions, tracking goal achievement, and regular check-ins to identify what is better. Key techniques include using positive focus, finding exceptions, externalising problems, challenging negative thoughts, setting SMART goals, and promoting behavioral activation.