Building a Bridge Between Spirituality/Religion with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Author/s: Oğuzhan Yavuz

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.37898/spc.2022.7.2.174 

Year: 2022 Vol: 7 Number: 2

Abstract

This study provides a framework for acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and draws attention to the points that ACT shares with spiritual/ religious traditions. The paper first presents the history of the theory, its view of human nature, its basic concepts, and the emergence of ACT while ACT’s theoretical foundations, functional analysis of behavior theory, relational framework theory, and functional contextualism theory are presented as tables. The paper then explains the shared points between ACT and spiritual/religious approaches and discusses how basic processes of the two can be combined. It then considers the spiritual/religious-oriented methods and techniques that can be used in ACT. The conclusion highlights the differences between ACT and other therapy approaches and the themes it shares with spiritual/religious approaches. Drawing on this study and ACT philosophy, new models could be developed that take into account the Islamic belief system specific to Turkish culture.

Keywords
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy • Spiritually-Oriented Psychological Counseling/Therapy • Integrative Approach • Spirituality

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