Cognitive Defusion and Willingness

How Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Can

Help With Your Career Decision

By Rob Archer C.PsycholThe Career Psychologist

What is Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT)?

1. ACT is a so-called ‘3rd wave’ cognitive behavioural therapyACT is a branch of cognitive-behavioral therapy, an empirically based psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies together with commitment and behavior change strategies to increase psychological flexibility.

2. User-friendly way of dealing with negative emotionsACT has a reliance on practical techniques and metaphors to ensure it is easy to use and understand. I use it with clients who are considering a change in career. Often a stressful time, ACT is a way not so much of ‘tackling’ negative thoughts and emotions but rather renegotiating someone’s relationship with them.

3. Evidence-based therapyAs a psychologist, I’m always concerned to know that the exercises and techniques I use have solid evidence behind them. ACT has fantastic evidence base across a wide range of treatment interventions – anxiety, stress, depression. However, to my knowledge Bloom Psychology is pioneering its use within the career psychology area.

What is Cognitive Defusion?Most cognitive behavioural approaches to negative thinking seek to eliminate negative thoughts and replace them with positive. However, some negative thoughts simply will not go away. Indeed, the more you push them away the more they return.

Instead, we prefer to practice cognitive defusion which encourages clients to detect their thoughts, and to see them as hypotheses rather than objective facts about the world.

The aim of defusion is to try to catch our minds at work telling us stories that are not objective or helpful. We should look at our thoughts, rather than through our thoughts. In other words, treat them like passengers on a bus, chattering away in the background. Some thoughts may be helpful, but most have no real consequence to the direction of our lives. The exercises in the following pages have been modified for use with career decisions, but the original versions are from the following books. We can highly recommend both!

Pick a thought that your mind often tells you in relation to your career change.

‘I am X’ (for example ‘I’m incompetent’ or ‘I’m not good enough’).

Is this thought helpful? Does it motivate you?

If not, take this thought and in front of it place the words:

‘I’m having the thought that I’m X’

For example, ‘I’m having the thought that I’m incompetent’.

Say this to yourself now.

Then, go further and say:

‘I notice I’m having the thought that X’

You can use this process with any unpleasant thought. This process is known as defusion. In a state of fusion, thoughts seem like the absolute truth; in a state of defusion they are merely bits of language.

An Exercise in Defusion

Summarise the thought / typical pattern

Nickname for this story Is this thought helpful?

For example: ‘I’m such a loser’ ‘The loser story’ No. It doesn’t help me advance towards my values or objectives. Buying this thought only makes me go into my shell or feel apologetic for trying to make progress in my life.

Can you identify the stories that your mind often tells you about yourself and your career change? Think again of any of those ‘snakes’ you identified previously.

Identifying Your ‘Usual Suspects’

Who’s driving your bus?

The temptation is to argue with them – I’m not a terrible driver! – or to try wrestling them off the bus. Trouble is, this stops you from driving. Or you could try negotiating with them, try a different route, and go off on a detour. But how many times has this actually worked?

We have news for you; your mind’s battle with itself is an unwinnable war.

Imagine that you’re driving a bus. On the front of the bus is an important destination - let’s take one of your key values – let’s say ‘freedom’. As you drive, passengers climb aboard. They represent your experiences, memories, thoughts and feelings. Some of the passengers are nice, but others are nasty and keep telling you that you’re going the wrong way, you’re a terrible driver, you’re driving too fast etc. Do you recognise them already?

This is often a major shift in thinking. But think of the times when you’ve said that you’ll just wait to feel motivated and more confident before you change your life. Have you ever actually been in this perfect position? Or are the fears you have the same ones they’ve had for years and years, and yet still you put your life on hold?

Ultimately the question you must ask yourself is who’s in charge of your bus? Is it your passengers or is it you?

But there is an alternative. You can choose to accept the presence of the passengers – even though you don’t like all of them - and be willing to have them so long as you are making progress towards your values. After all, if you think about it, are your fears really more important than your values?

A VideoThis is a short film by Joe Oliver which brings the ‘bus’ metaphor further to life. Except it uses a boat. Don’t be confused, the boat is a lot like the bus.

My vision is to.... (summarise briefly)

The values underlying my goal are....

What negative thoughts, emotions and sensations do I expect to experience in pursuit of my vision?

An Exercise In Willingness

An Exercise In WillingnessThe thoughts, emotions and sensations I’m willing to have in order to achieve this goal are....

At difficult times, it would be useful to remind myself that....

Imagine you’re climbing a mountain and you’re halfway up. Suddenly, the clouds roll in and it starts to rain. You have two choices. You can either head back down or you can carry on. If you carry on, it is not because you like the feeling of being cold and wet. It is because you value the idea of reaching the top. In other words, you are willing to experience some difficulties to do what you really value.

If you are contemplating a big change, you will experience some emotional discomfort. You can face this challenge by asking yourself what your goal is, what the values underlying the goal are and what thoughts, feelings and urges you are willing to have in order to complete this goal.

A Metaphor for Willingness

I often talk about my own levels of willingness with clients. When I was thinking about my own career change I remember a pattern I repeated.•I want to do something different.•I don’t know what.•It could be X (insert job idea), but Y (insert reason).•I’ll think about it some more.•Pause for a few days. And repeat. I did this for....ooh let me see...5 long years. I could have approach it differently.•What’s my goal? To find a career I love.•What values underlie my goal? To do meaningful but well-paid work.•What actions could I take to follow these values? Firstly, define what I mean by ‘meaningful and well-paid’ and generate some real-life options.•What feelings and thoughts am I willing to have to reach this goal? Virtually anything! None of the thoughts can harm me or stop me unless I let them.The difference was immense. Suddenly I was into action and I felt some distance between my thoughts and me. It was as if I saw my mind as a part of me but not the whole of me. This was the most liberating feeling because I was suddenly willing to experience negative thoughts and emotions but not necessarily to act on them.I was steering my ship.

My Willingness: a story

The Career Psychologist is an independent occupational psychology consultancy based

in London.We offer coaching, consultancy,

training, measurement and assessment to individuals and businesses looking to make a

change for the better.

www.thecareerpsychologist.com www.linkedin.com/robarcher