Finding Freedom by Changing Your Relationship with Your Thoughts
Welcome to Next Step Counselling Group. When we experience emotional pain, intrusive thoughts, or overwhelming anxiety, our most natural human instinct is to try and get rid of it. We often spend immense amounts of energy fighting our own minds, trying to suppress negative thoughts, or desperately attempting to control how we feel. However, you have likely noticed that the harder you try not to think about something, the louder and more persistent that thought becomes.
What if the goal of therapy wasn’t to completely eliminate your difficult thoughts, but to fundamentally change your relationship with them so they no longer control your life?
At our Kelowna clinic, we offer Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a highly effective, action-oriented, and evidence-based psychological intervention. Fully immersed in providing the highest quality of psychotherapy, we strive to go above and beyond to make proper, effective counselling accessible to everyone in the Kelowna area. ACT is designed to help you drop the rope in the tug-of-war with your mind, allowing you to direct your energy toward building a rich, meaningful, and fulfilling life.
What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)?
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a unique and deeply transformative branch of behavioral therapy. While traditional modalities like standard Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) often focus on actively challenging and changing the content of your negative thoughts, ACT takes a different approach. It operates on the premise that pain and distress are inevitable parts of the human experience, and that our attempts to avoid or control this pain are actually the root cause of our long-term suffering.
Instead of teaching you how to “fix” your thoughts, ACT teaches you how to safely observe them, make room for them, and let them come and go without getting tangled up in them. The ultimate goal of ACT is to increase your “psychological flexibility”, the ability to stay grounded in the present moment and make conscious choices that align with your deepest personal values, even when difficult emotions are present.
The “Struggle Switch” Metaphor
To understand ACT, it is helpful to think of a metaphor often used by clinicians: “The Struggle Switch.”
Imagine a switch at the back of your mind. When you experience anxiety and your struggle switch is ON, you view that anxiety as a dangerous threat. You might think, “I can’t handle this,” or “I need this to stop immediately.” This creates panic about your panic, anger about your anxiety, and sadness about your sadness, effectively amplifying your emotional distress.
When you learn to turn the struggle switch OFF through ACT, the initial anxiety still shows up, because you are human, but you no longer fight it. You acknowledge it, allow it to exist, and continue moving forward. Without the added layer of struggle, the anxiety naturally rises and falls on its own, utilizing far less of your internal energy.
The Six Core Principles of ACT (The Hexaflex)
Therapy using the ACT framework is highly active, experiential, and skills-based. Our clinicians will guide you through six interconnected core processes to help you build psychological flexibility:
1. Cognitive Defusion: This involves learning how to step back and detach from unhelpful thoughts, worries, and memories. Instead of believing “I am a failure,” you learn to observe, “I am having the thought that I am a piece of failure.” This simple shift creates emotional distance, robbing the thought of its power.
2. Acceptance: Also known as “expansion,” this means making room for unpleasant feelings, sensations, and urges without trying to suppress them or push them away. You learn to open up to your emotions safely.
3. Contact with the Present Moment: Through mindfulness and grounding practices, ACT helps you pull your attention away from the regrets of the past or the fears of the future, anchoring you firmly in the “here and now.”
4. The Observing Self (Self-as-Context): ACT helps you recognize that you are not your thoughts, your feelings, or your physical sensations. You are the resilient, unchanging awareness that observes these passing experiences.
5. Values: Values are the compass that guides your life. They are distinct from goals. A goal is getting married; a value is being a loving, responsive partner. ACT helps you clarify what truly matters to you in your heart.
6. Committed Action: This is the behavioral step. Once your values are clear, your therapist will help you set realistic goals and take effective action toward them, even if it means bringing your anxiety or self-doubt along for the ride.
What Can ACT Therapy Help With?
Because ACT focuses on the fundamental mechanics of how we relate to our inner experiences, it is incredibly versatile. It is widely recognized as a highly effective treatment for a broad spectrum of challenges. At Next Step Counselling Group, our clinical counsellors frequently utilize ACT to support clients navigating:
- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Anxiety: By teaching clients how to tolerate the presence of intrusive thoughts without engaging in exhausting compulsions or avoidance behaviors.
- High-Achieving Anxiety and Perfectionism: Helping individuals soften their inner critic, step away from people-pleasing patterns, and break free from the pressure to constantly perform.
- Perinatal Mental Health and Life Transitions: Providing grounded support for maternal mental health, postpartum anxiety, shifting identities, and major life changes.
- Trauma and Chronic Pain: Supporting survivors of complex trauma and individuals dealing with chronic illness or tinnitus by fostering a new, compassionate relationship with their physical and emotional sensations.
- Burnout: Assisting clients in realigning their daily actions with their core values to restore energy and establish healthy boundaries.
A Holistic, Integrative Approach
At Next Step Counselling Group, we recognize that no single therapeutic approach fits every unique individual perfectly. Our skilled therapists often weave the principles of ACT together with other evidence-based frameworks to provide comprehensive, wrap-around care.
For example, ACT pairs exceptionally well with Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) for the treatment of OCD, as it provides the psychological flexibility needed to tolerate exposure exercises. We may also integrate ACT with Somatic Experiencing to help regulate your nervous system, or blend it with modalities like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) to ensure deep, unresolved trauma is safely reprocessed.
Counsellors That Provide This Service
Our Kelowna clinic is proud to host a diverse team of Registered Clinical Counsellors (RCCs), Registered Social Workers (RSWs), and Pre-Licensed Therapists who have specialized, rigorous training in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT):
- Laura Austin – Registered Clinical Counsellor: Integrates ACT to help children, youth, and adults struggling with intrusive thoughts, OCD, and people-pleasing patterns build a meaningful life.
- Katie Harling – Registered Social Worker & Registered Clinical Counsellor: Specializes in perinatal mental health, life transitions, and relationships, utilizing ACT to foster emotional resilience and practical change.
- Sophia Mazza – Registered Clinical Counsellor: Uses ACT alongside ERP and CBT to support individuals navigating anxiety, OCD, and trauma at a pace that feels realistic and supportive.
- Maddy Laranjo – Clinical Counsellor & Registered Social Worker: Supports high-achievers navigating perfectionism, disordered eating, and burnout using ACT and somatic-based therapies.
- Danielle Austin – Pre-Licensed Therapist: Blends ACT with Internal Family Systems (IFS) to help clients navigate complex trauma and create greater internal safety.
- Bianca McGann – Registered Clinical Counsellor: Provides ACT within a warm, non-judgmental space to help clients uncover the roots of what’s happening and move toward meaningful change.
- Jocelyn Watson – Registered Social Worker & Registered Clinical Counsellor: Utilizes ACT to support individuals with trauma, OCD, chronic illness, and chronic pain.
- Katelyn Kohlen – Registered Clinical Counsellor: Draws from ACT to help adults and teens navigate anxiety, ADHD, and trauma, building practical tools for sustainable change.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Absolutely not. In ACT, “acceptance” does not mean resignation, defeat, or tolerating a toxic situation. It simply means dropping the useless struggle against your own internal thoughts and feelings. By accepting what is happening inside your mind, you free up the energy needed to take powerful, committed action to change your external life.
While ACT utilizes mindfulness techniques (like grounding and staying present), mindfulness is only one component of the hexaflex. ACT goes further by explicitly focusing on identifying your core values and actively committing to behavior changes that align with those values, even when it is difficult.
Yes. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is highly effective for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, especially when used in conjunction with Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). It helps individuals defuse from their intrusive thoughts and tolerate the discomfort of anxiety without needing to perform a compulsion.
In most cases, yes. Our services are provided by Registered Clinical Counsellors (RCCs) and Registered Social Workers (RSWs), meaning our specialized therapy is widely recognized and covered by most extended health benefit plans in British Columbia. We are also approved providers for ICBC, the Crime Victim Assistance Program (CVAP), and the First Nations Health Authority (FNHA).
Contact Us Today
You do not have to spend the rest of your life at war with your own mind. It is entirely possible to step out of the cycle of overthinking, drop the struggle, and start living a life that truly matters to you. Healing is our passion and purpose, and your path to a healthier, happier life is only a phone call away.
If you are ready to explore how Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) can help you build psychological flexibility and reclaim your freedom, our dedicated team is here to support you. Please contact us today to book a consultation and take the next step toward authentic, values-based living.
