Self-Management of Depression

Clarifying one’s values and having value-based actions is one of the core tenets of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), an evidence-based treatment for depression. Values are our heart’s deepest desires for the way we want to interact with the world, other people, and ourselves. They are what we want to stand for in life, how we want to behave, what sort of person we want to be, and what sort of strengths and qualities we want to develop (Harris, 2009). Values are subjective; what one may consider as a value (e.g., being famous) may be considered as being cocky by another person. Compared to thoughts and behaviors, values provide a far more stable compass to motivate you to achieve your goals, even when faced with personal adversity (Hayes et al., 2012). An exercise that may help you clarify your values and find meaning in life is to imagine that you are eighty years old, and you are looking back on your life. Then finish the following sentences (Harris, 2008): I spent too much ti...

The word "acceptance" has been thrown around as a coping style, especially in situations one cannot control. However, what needs to be clarified is that acceptance comes in all sizes and shapes, ranging from radical acceptance to practical acceptance. This is where mindful acceptance , as propounded in the evidence-based  Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) , offers a more structured way of putting acceptance into practice. Mindful acceptance is a self-management style that helps you accept your thoughts and emotions at face value without doing one of these six things that your idle mind is programmed to do during downtime: Dwelling on your thoughts or emotions Analyzing or overanalyzing your thoughts and emotions Judging yourself or others Avoiding situations that remind you of specific thoughts and emotions Suppressing your unhelpful thoughts and emotions by forcefully trying to push them out Trying to get rid of negative thoughts and emotions by distraction or other in...