Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in New York, NY

Acceptance and commitment therapy can be an especially helpful form of treatment for anyone struggling with anxiety, depression, negative thoughts, The goal is to minimize and/or diffuse the negative thinking and allow feelings and thoughts to happen without allowing them to dictate choices

Our therapists at Steady NYC practice acceptance and commitment therapy in a nonjudgmental space where we guide clients on a journey of healing, growth, and change based on their specific objectives and goals with therapy.

The key aspect of acceptance and commitment therapy is mindfulness, or, learning how to stay in the present moment as much as possible. We teach you how to practice mindfulness in a way that allows you to adapt it in your life. Mindfulness, when practiced with self-kindness and self-acceptance, can help mitigate the effects of anxiety and depression.

Mindfulness is the practice of becoming tuned into the feelings, emotions, and sensations occurring in the mind or body. It is being laser-focused on what’s happening and what your body and mind are experiencing right now, in this moment. Some people incorporate mindfulness into a yoga or meditation practice as a way to quiet mental chatter. and focus on the breath and the movements of the body. Our highly trained team of therapists can guide you in how to become more mindful as part of acceptance and commitment therapy.

When led by one of our trained therapists, acceptance and commitment therapy encourages the acceptance of emotions, thoughts, and feelings as they come up. It encourages the observance and acknowledgement of what you’re feeling. And, with the help of a therapist, this therapy invites you to identify what your next steps will be in order to fully process and work through what has been felt and experienced.

Imagine your thoughts as waves coming into the shore. You can see the wave from a distance, watch it move closer to shore, then crest and break, eventually dissolving into the ocean and washing up on the sand. No sooner does that wave seem to disappear when another wave comes into view. And so on and so on. This can be an analogy to how our thoughts and emotions — both positive and negative — flow through our mind. They are a continual flow. And, depending on our awareness and acceptance of these thoughts and emotions, we can either find ourselves in a circular, repetitive pattern of reliving negative thoughts and feelings. Or, we can observe them as a neutral third party, process them, and decide on a course of action.

When we observe these thoughts and emotions mindfully, as if they were waves coming to shore, we can allow them to flow freely, naturally. And we can allow them to just be. Then, with the help of one our therapists at Kathryn Grooms & Associates Psychotherapy, we can work together to process the thoughts and emotions and feelings that may have come up during therapy.