 Our true home is in the present moment
 Thich Nhat Hanh (1992, p1)
Key Targets
 Help clients discover that life is happening right now,
and to return to now from the conceptualized past or
future
 Help clients make contact with the life that is
happening now, whether it be filled with sorrow or
happiness
Present moment living
 Life is always lived in the present moment, there is
nothing else that can be experienced but the present
moment
 Everything else is a picture that we have drawn based
on past and future experiences
 Although these refer to a past or future constructed by
our minds, they can be experienced in the here. This is
sometimes very helpful
 For example, the ability to problem solve relies on being
able to draw from past experience and predict future
outcomes
However
 Problems arise because people tend to get wrapped up in the
past or the future and thus lose contact with the present moment
 People tend to fuse with these pictures we have built
(conceptualisations) and interact with them as if they were really
happening or really ‘true’, thus spending little time in the now
 ACT suggests that we don’t need to eliminate past and future
thinking as they often work very well for us, but that we need to
develop the flexibility to engage in the present moment when we
need to
 A focus on the present moment is important because it is there
that new learning occurs and where opportunities afforded by
the environment are discovered
 ACT aims to help clients let go of the struggle with
personal histories, thoughts and feelings and show up
to the life that is being lived in the moment
 Contact with the present moment helps people step
out of the world as restructured by our minds and to
more directly, fully and mindfully contact the here and
now
What is contact with the present moment
 Bringing our awareness to internal and external experiences as
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they occur in the moment
Each experience is simply noticed as it occurs
We do not cling to the experience, it rises and it falls away
The idea is sit back and watch what the mind does, each time it
gets caught up in a thought, gently bring the mind back to your
direct experiences
The goal of this process is to give people the ability to notice
getting caught in their thoughts, and then experience bringing
their mind back to the present moment
In short, mindfulness training aims to increase our self
observation and awareness skills, but also to recognise that its
impossible to stay mindful all of the time
With clients, we train mindfulness not so they can always be in
the present moment, but so they are able to do this when it
works (or when an aversive experience constricts behaviour)
 Lets give a mindfulness exercise a go!
 The body scan exercise
 What did you find?
 Mind kept wandering?
 And now lets give another one a go
 The walking mindfulness exercise
Why contact with the present moment?
 We often get invested in exploring our past so we can understand
it and figure out how to eliminate those thoughts that cause us
discomfort
 This is a principle reason for thought suppression – we look in our
past and see that it has worked for us in the short term, and so
engage in it again, not knowing the costs of our avoidance
 We also spend lots of time in our future, thinking and worrying
about what will happen
 When we are caught up in the past and future we tend to miss
some opportunities in the present moment
 Being in contact with present moment allows us to contact our
values without the pull of the past and the future in the way
 Importantly, whilst mindful, we are able to receive
what occurs in life without attempts at changing the
experience
 We know through experience that any difficult
emotion that may be present in the moment can be
felt and it is not destructive
 No-one has ever died from a painful thought!
 It is when we fight against a feeling that harm can
occur i.e. avoidance begins
Developing mindfulness skills in therapy
 A number of exercises can be used to develop mindfulness skills
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Leaves on a stream
Mindfulness of breath
Clouds in the sky
Body scan
Walking mindfulness (generalisation of mindfulness to every day
activities)
Eating mindfulness
 The aim of each mindfulness technique is to allow the person to
notice when their mind has got caught up with a thought and to
bring their awareness back to the present moment
 Importantly, after the client becomes comfortable with general
mindfulness exercises, the therapist will then progress to more
exposure like mindfulness exercises in which they are asked to
invite in their distressing content
 The point of mindfulness is not to develop present
moment awareness during the periods of the exercises
themselves, but so that it is available when it is needed
or helpful in everyday life
 As such ACT therapists will constantly weave
mindfulness into their sessions when it is appropriate
 Importantly, contacting the present moment is an
essential skill for fostering acceptance, Defusion and
values work in session – the clients needs to be
mindful to develop each of these other ACT processes
 Lets take a look at the video