What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)?

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a modern evidence-based psychological therapy developed by Steven Hayes. Rather than challenging the content of anxious thoughts (as CBT does), ACT teaches you to change your relationship with thoughts — to step back from them, accept difficult feelings without struggling against them, and direct your energy towards what genuinely matters to you. ACT builds psychological flexibility, the ability to hold uncomfortable thoughts and feelings while still moving towards your values.

What is psychological flexibility?

Psychological flexibility is the core concept in ACT — the ability to hold uncomfortable thoughts and feelings without letting them control your behaviour, and to take action guided by your values rather than your anxiety. It is the opposite of experiential avoidance, which is the tendency to avoid or suppress difficult internal experiences. Research consistently shows that psychological flexibility is a strong predictor of psychological wellbeing and resilience.

Can ACT help with anxiety?

Yes. Multiple randomised controlled trials have demonstrated ACT's effectiveness for anxiety disorders. A meta-analysis of 39 studies found ACT significantly outperforms control conditions and produces comparable results to CBT for anxiety. ACT is particularly effective for chronic anxiety, health anxiety, and cases where CBT's thought-challenging approach has not produced lasting results.

AI-Guided ACT Therapy

Stop fighting your thoughts.
Start living your values.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for anxiety, overthinking and avoidance

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy does not try to silence anxiety. It teaches you to hold it, unhook from it, and move towards what genuinely matters anyway. AI-guided ACT sessions that adapt to what you bring — defusion, acceptance, values clarification, and committed action in one live session.

Based on Steven Hayes' ACT model — the most rapidly growing evidence-based therapy in the world

Start free → The six processes What is ACT? →

6ACT processes

5Session types

39RCT studies

NICEGuideline aligned

What is ACT?

The more you fight anxiety,
the stronger it gets.

Why ACT is different

Most approaches to anxiety — and most people's instinct — is to fight it. Challenge the thought. Push down the feeling. Distract yourself. Reassure yourself. These strategies work in the short term and make things worse in the long term. The technical term is experiential avoidance — and it is the engine that keeps anxiety running. Learn more about ACT.

ACT takes a completely different position. The goal is not to have fewer anxious thoughts. The goal is to change your relationship with those thoughts so they no longer control your behaviour. You can be anxious and still do what matters. You can have the thought "I am going to fail" and still show up. That is psychological flexibility — the core outcome ACT builds.

The central metaphor in ACT is the sky and the weather. You are the sky. Anxiety, fear, painful thoughts — these are weather. The weather changes. The sky does not. ACT teaches you to be the sky rather than be the storm.

Stop The Loop delivers ACT through guided sessions that move through the six core processes — defusion, acceptance, present moment, observing self, values, and committed action — adapted in real time to what you bring to the session.

ACT vs CBT — how they differ

CBT approach

ACT approach

Challenge the thought — is it actually true?

Step back from the thought — you are not your thoughts

Reduce the intensity of the emotion

Make room for the emotion without fighting it

Build more realistic beliefs

Unhook from beliefs so they stop driving behaviour

The thought may be wrong

The thought does not have to control you either way

Symptom reduction is the goal

Values-based living is the goal

Stop The Loop uses both. Your assessor chooses the right approach for each moment — sometimes CBT, sometimes ACT, sometimes both in the same session.

The ACT hexaflex

Six processes. One goal: psychological flexibility.

ACT works through six interconnected processes. Every session touches on one or more of these. Together they build the psychological flexibility that makes anxiety manageable rather than overwhelming.

Cognitive defusion

Step back from thoughts rather than being absorbed by them. Treat thoughts as mental events — words and images produced by the mind — not instructions to obey or facts about reality.

"I am having the thought that I might fail." Not: "I am going to fail."

Acceptance

Make room for difficult feelings rather than fighting, suppressing, or avoiding them. Acceptance is not resignation — it is choosing to stop spending energy on the internal struggle that keeps anxiety fed.

"I notice anxiety is here. I will let it be here and still do what matters."

Present moment

Bring attention to the here and now rather than the catastrophic future or regretted past. Anxiety lives in time — in what might happen or what has happened. The present moment is almost always manageable.

"Right now, in this moment, what is actually happening?"

The observing self

Discover the part of you that watches thoughts and feelings without being them. You have always had anxious thoughts. But there is a part of you that has been noticing them — and that part is not the anxiety.

"I am not my anxiety. I am the one who is aware of the anxiety."

Values

Clarify what genuinely matters — your chosen life directions. Values are not goals you achieve; they are directions you move towards. They give you a reason to act even when anxiety says do not.

"What kind of person do I want to be? What matters most to me right now?"

Committed action

Take values-based action even in the presence of anxiety. Not action when the anxiety has gone — action now, with the anxiety, alongside it. This is where ACT becomes a practice rather than a theory.

"What is one thing I can do today that moves me towards what matters?"

The evidence

ACT is one of the fastest-growing evidence-based therapies in the world.

Over 300 randomised controlled trials. Effective for anxiety, depression, chronic pain, OCD, and more.

RCTs included in the most comprehensive ACT meta-analysis, demonstrating significant superiority over control conditions for anxiety and depression

A-Tjak et al., 2015 — Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics

Equal

ACT produces outcomes equivalent to CBT for anxiety disorders in head-to-head comparison trials, with particularly strong results for chronic anxiety

Arch et al., Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

300+

Randomised controlled trials published as of 2024 examining ACT across anxiety, depression, OCD, chronic pain, and work stress

ACBS Research Tracker — Association for Contextual Behavioural Science

Stop The Loop is a self-guided ACT and CBT tool. It is not a replacement for professional therapy. If you are experiencing severe anxiety or a mental health crisis, please speak to your GP or a qualified therapist. Read our full disclaimer.

Session types

Five session types. The ACT processes woven through every one.

ACT principles run through every session type. Whether you are doing a thought record or a values check-in, your assessor brings defusion, acceptance, and values-based thinking to the work.

ACT — Core technique

Values Check-in

The most distinctly ACT session. Reconnect with what genuinely matters across your life domains and identify where you feel most out of alignment. Build one committed action to close the gap this week.

1
Identify which life domains matter most right now
2
Clarify what living well looks like in each one
3
Rate current alignment honestly
4
Name what is pulling you away from what matters
5
Choose one small committed action this week

Approx. 15 minutes

ACT / CBT — Pattern awareness

Pattern Review

Explore what your recent mood data is telling you. ACT uses pattern awareness to identify where avoidance is running the show — the places where anxiety is quietly making decisions on your behalf.

1
Describe the emotional tone of your recent days
2
What was different about the better days?
3
Where was avoidance showing up?
4
What is the pattern telling you about your values?
5
What would moving towards your values look like?

Approx. 15 minutes

ACT / CBT — Thought work

Thought Record

The classic CBT thought record with an ACT lens. Rather than just challenging whether the thought is true, your assessor also helps you defuse from it — so even if it might be true, it no longer controls your behaviour.

1
Identify the situation and automatic thought
2
Name and rate the emotion
3
Examine evidence and practise defusion
4
Build a balanced response
5
Identify what values-based action looks like

Approx. 10–15 minutes

CBT — Anxiety containment

Worry Time

Contain a specific worry and decide whether to engage with it or set it aside. ACT's acceptance work makes worry time more effective — you are not suppressing the worry, you are making a conscious choice about when to engage with it.

1
Name the specific worry
2
Is it actionable right now or not?
3
If actionable: identify one step, then move on
4
If not: practise acceptance — hold it without engaging
5
Close the container with intention

Approx. 10 minutes

ACT / CBT — Open

Free Session

Open conversation with your assessor. No agenda. Bring whatever is on your mind. Your assessor draws on ACT and CBT as appropriate to what you bring — defusion when you are fused with a thought, acceptance when you are fighting a feeling, values work when you feel lost. A genuine conversation that goes where it needs to.

Any length

In the app

ACT in practice — how your assessor delivers it.

Choose your session type

Values Check-in, Pattern Review, Thought Record, Worry Time, or Free Session. Each type has ACT principles woven through the structure. See also CBT session types.

Pick your assessor

Lisa, Rowan, and Callum are the most ACT-native assessors. Lisa is gentle and creates space. Rowan grounds everything in values. Callum works somatically and mindfully. Ellis and Claire bring CBT-ACT integration.

The session adapts to you

Your assessor reads what you bring and chooses the ACT process that fits. If you are fused with a thought, they use defusion. If you are avoiding, they bring acceptance and values into focus.

Homework: committed action

Every session ends with one committed action — not a goal, a step towards what matters. Small, specific, achievable. Saved to your timeline so you can track whether you did it.

Track your flexibility over time

Your mood timeline shows the pattern. Over sessions you can see where avoidance was running the show and where values-based action is taking over.

What your assessors say

Different assessors bring different ACT flavours. Here are the kinds of things they say when working through the six processes.

"You do not have to fight this feeling. Just notice it is here. It is allowed to be here while you do what matters anyway."

— Lisa, Acceptance work

"Feel your feet on the floor. What does your body know right now that your mind keeps running past?"

— Rowan, Present moment & values

"Try this: say the thought out loud and put 'I notice I am having the thought that...' in front of it. How does that change it?"

— Callum, Defusion

Core techniques

ACT techniques used in every session.

Your assessor weaves these throughout the session based on what you bring. You do not need to know the technique names to benefit from them.

Cognitive defusion

Adding "I am having the thought that..." before anxious thoughts. Naming the story your mind is telling. Singing the thought. Seeing thoughts as words, not commands. Creates distance between you and the content of your mind.

ACT

Acceptance and willingness

Making room for difficult feelings rather than pushing them away. Acceptance is a stance — "I am willing to have this experience" — not a resignation. It removes the secondary suffering of fighting the feeling on top of the feeling itself.

ACT

The observing self

Connecting with the part of you that is aware of your thoughts and feelings without being them. "I am the sky, not the weather." This perspective is always stable, even when everything else is turbulent. ACT calls this self-as-context.

ACT

Values clarification

Identifying what genuinely matters across life domains — relationships, work, health, growth. Values are directions, not destinations. They give you a compass when anxiety has turned off all the lights. The most important ACT process for lasting change. Try it in a Values Check-in session.

ACT

Committed action

Taking one small step towards what matters, even with anxiety present. Not waiting until the anxiety has gone. This is the process that turns insight into life change. ACT's committed action is always specific, concrete, and achievable today.

ACT

Present moment awareness

Bringing gentle attention to the here and now rather than the catastrophic future. Anxiety lives in "what if." The present moment is almost always survivable. Present moment awareness interrupts the worry loop without requiring the worry to stop first.

ACT

Common questions

Everything you need to know about ACT.

What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy?

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a modern evidence-based psychological therapy developed by Steven Hayes. Rather than challenging the content of anxious thoughts, ACT teaches you to change your relationship with them — to step back from thoughts, accept difficult feelings without struggling, and direct energy towards what genuinely matters. The goal is psychological flexibility: the ability to have uncomfortable thoughts and feelings while still moving in a valued direction.

What is cognitive defusion?

Cognitive defusion creates distance between you and your thoughts. When you are "fused" with a thought you treat it as reality — if your mind says "I am going to fail", it feels like a fact. Defusion techniques — like adding "I am having the thought that..." — help you see the thought as a mental event rather than a command or a fact. Defusion does not challenge whether the thought is true. It changes your relationship with it regardless of whether it is.

What is the difference between ACT and CBT?

CBT primarily works by challenging automatic thoughts — examining whether they are accurate and building more realistic beliefs. ACT changes your relationship with thoughts rather than their content. CBT says the thought may be factually wrong. ACT says the thought does not have to control your behaviour regardless of its truth value. Both are effective and complementary. Stop The Loop uses both, with your assessor choosing the right approach for each moment in the session.

What does ACT mean by values?

In ACT, values are your chosen life directions — what genuinely matters across domains like relationships, work, health, and personal growth. Values are different from goals: a goal can be achieved and ticked off; a value is an ongoing direction of travel. "Being a present parent" is a value. "Going to my child's school play" is a goal aligned with that value. Values give you a compass when anxiety is making all the decisions, and a reason to act even when acting feels difficult.

Is ACT better than CBT for anxiety?

Research shows ACT and CBT produce equivalent outcomes for anxiety disorders overall. ACT tends to be particularly effective for chronic anxiety, situations where CBT thought-challenging has not produced lasting results, and cases where avoidance is deeply entrenched. Some people find the non-fighting stance of ACT more intuitive; others prefer CBT's direct thought-challenging. Stop The Loop uses both, letting your assessor choose the right approach for your situation.

Is this a replacement for professional therapy?

No. Stop The Loop is a powerful self-guided tool built on evidence-based ACT and CBT principles, but it is not a replacement for professional mental health care. If you are experiencing severe anxiety, trauma, or any mental health crisis, please speak to your GP or a qualified therapist. Stop The Loop works best as a daily practice tool and in-the-moment support — a complement to professional treatment rather than a replacement for it.

Stop fighting your thoughts.
Start living your values.

How does ACT therapy work for anxiety?