Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet
Help your client better understand their challenges with a Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet. Read on for more information on the ACT and the resource.
Fact Checked by Nate Lacson.
What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy?
In the 1980s, psychologist Steven Hayes developed a new type of psychotherapy called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or . It’s more action-oriented than other types of therapy and has roots in traditional behavior therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy. The primary purpose of ACT is to:
- Teach the client to accept their feelings, which are normal and appropriate responses to situations, experiences, thoughts, etc., instead of denying, avoiding, or struggling with them.
- Provide clients with the information and tools to care for their well-being moving forward.
Aside from the purpose, ACT differs from other types of therapy because it aims to have the client develop the following core processes:
- Acceptance: The client must be able to allow and accept instead of deny or change any negative thoughts or feelings that happen or will happen.
- Cognitive Defusion: The client must learn techniques they’ll be equipped with to change how they react to their thoughts/feelings. It must change from negative and harmful to more positive and beneficial to their well-being.
- Mindfulness or Being Present: The client must be able to be present in the moment and observe any events or thoughts without judging or having the desire to change them.
- Self as Context: The client must understand and accept that they are more than their thoughts, experiences, and emotions and are not defined by the things that happen or have happened to them.
- Values: The client must be able to identify the values they will strive to live for.
- Committed Action: The client must be able to take the steps needed, using the tools provided by the practitioner, to change their life for the better amidst thoughts, situations, and experiences.
Accepting and Commitment Therapy or ACT sessions are conducted by mental health professionals with ACT training, like licensed and experienced therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and counselors. These practitioners use them to treat mental and physical conditions and disorders like chronic pain/stress, eating/substance use disorders, psychosis, OCD, anxiety, and depression.
Printable Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet
Download this Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet to help clients understand their challenges.
How to use the Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet
Access and Download the Template
To access and download a digital and printable version of the Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet by doing either of the following:
- Click the “Download Template” or “Use the Template” button
- Search “Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet” in the search bar on Carepatron’s template library in the website or app
Explain the Template
Though the template has simple and straightforward instructions, you should discuss the different sections with your clients so they can understand better how to complete the worksheet. You may use the sample template as a guide to give them an idea of what they can write down.
Fill the Template
When they’ve understood what to do, provide them with a copy of the worksheet. Don’t forget to remind them that they can take as long as they need; there’s no need to write in sentence/paragraph form, and they may contact you with any further clarifications.
Discuss with the Patient
After the client is finished, you may discuss the answers with the client if they are comfortable doing so.
Securely Store
Since the worksheet carries sensitive information, we recommend you ask your client to store the physical copy in a secure location or the digital copy on Carepatron where only they, you, and other relevant parties can access the worksheet when needed.
Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet Example
Here’s a sample of a filled-out Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet that you can download as a PDF file and use as a guide or educational resource so your client can better understand how to complete their blank worksheet. Note that the answers in the example are considered fictional content.
Grab an offline sample copy by viewing it below or clicking the “Download Example PDF” button.
Download this Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet Example:
When would you use this Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet?
Mental health practitioners with ACT training, like licensed and experienced therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and counselors, may use and incorporate the Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet in their treatment plan with patients with mental/physical conditions/disorders or problems. Some of them are physical illness, work situation, financial crisis, performance issues, loss of a loved one, clinical disorder, etc.
Ultimately, we’ll leave it up to you, the referring physician, to decide when you’ll ask your client to answer the Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet in their healing journey. This is because you know the client best and can tell if they have a problem they can’t handle and need dissecting to clear their mind and develop doable solutions that will benefit their physical, mental, and emotional well-being. In addition to that, you will also most likely know if the patient is capable of doing the activity and if it has the potential to be effective.
What are the benefits of using this Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet?
Establish Baselines for Comparison Later On
Practitioners and their clients can use the worksheet as a baseline to see if having the client answer this worksheet when they have problems will help them accept and come up with solutions in the long run. This document is also helpful to the practitioner because they’ll know if their current treatment plan is effective or needs tweaking based on their answers over time.
Provides Insight
The worksheet can provide insight into who the client is, their thought patterns, environment, and the usual problems they may face that affect them. Knowing these may help form a trusting client-physician relationship and help the referring physician develop or tweak a treatment plan for the client.
Improved Self Awareness
Since the client will answer the worksheet independently, they will learn more about themselves and be encouraged to face their problems and their thoughts, actions, feelings, and coping mechanisms as a response to their problems. Knowing these will hopefully improve their self-awareness, which is a step towards developing the core processes of ACT.
Entirely Digital and Easily Accessible
Our Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet is free to download by the referring physician and can be completed by the client on a local PDF editor on any device they have. Furthermore, suppose the physician decides to store the completed worksheet on Carepatron. In that case, they and the client can easily access it whenever they need it on the Carepatron desktop software or mobile app.
Commonly asked questions
It usually takes an hour to complete the Dissecting Your Problem ACT Worksheet.
It can help a person dissect their problem into the thoughts, actions, feelings, and coping mechanisms they have in relation to the problem. By doing this, they may have clarity and can better come up with a solution or coping strategy that’ll help improve their well-being.
It’s best used when the client is facing a problem and feels like they’re at a standstill or the problem feels like a wall that’s getting in the way of them coming up with a solution.
