As you use this glossary, please keep in mind that the definitions are mostly stated in common language, rather than technical terminology. Many of these terms, particularly those from behavior analysis and RFT, have technical definitions that are more accurate than these but that are difficult to understand without a history of training in behavior analysis.
Acceptance. The active and aware embrace of private events that are occasioned by one’s history, without unnecessary attempts to change their frequency or form, especially when doing so causes psychological harm. (Also see Willingness.)
Appetitive (behavior). Refers to behavior that is reinforced by achieving something or moving toward something, as contrasted with aversively controlled behavior, which is behavior controlled by avoiding or escaping an aversive stimulus.
Arbitrarily applicable. Refers to contexts in which a response can be modified solely on the basis of social whim or convention.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). A family of psychotherapies that share core cognitive and behavioral strategies as well as a commitment to scientific empiricism, of which ACT is one member. ACT is most clearly distinguished from CBT models that assert a central causal role for cognition, such as cognitive therapy, and those that emphasize the modification of dysfunctional beliefs through processes such as cognitive disputation or testing and challenging irrational cognitions.
Cognitive defusion. The process of creating nonliteral contexts in which language can be seen as an active, ongoing, relational process that is historical in nature and present in the current moment. “Defusion” is an invented word meaning to undo fusion.
Cognitive fusion. The tendency of human beings to get caught up in the content of what they are thinking so that it dominates over other useful sources of behavioral regulation.
Committed action. Ongoing actions that move a person in the direction of chosen values, regardless of internally experienced barriers (e.g., thoughts).
Conceptualized self. The descriptive and evaluative thoughts and stories we tell about ourselves; the same as self-as-content.
Contingency. A consequence that only occurs regularly in certain contexts. Its appearance depends upon the behavior of the organism in that context.
Creative hopelessness. The process of explicating and validating clients’ experience of the unworkability of their behavior. Creative hopelessness is often seen in a client’s behavior as a posture of giving up previous strategies that are part of the person’s current verbal system of problem solving, thus allowing for the creativity of truly new forms of behavior.
Deictic frames. Relational frames that control the verbal perspective of the speaker, such as I/you, here/there, now/then, and left/right. According to RFT, these frames are thought to be critical to the human ability for perspective taking and the development of a sense of self.
Deliteralization. The original ACT term for cognitive defusion, which was replaced because it is unwieldy.
Experiential avoidance or control. Attempts to control or alter the form, frequency, or situational sensitivity of internal experiences (e.g., thoughts, feelings, sensations, or memories), even when doing so could cause behavioral harm.
Experiential exercise. An activity or exercise in which the participant learns through practice or direct contact with events, rather than through conceptual learning or instruction.
Experiential knowledge. Ways of knowing based on practice or direct experience (e.g., knowing how to play the guitar), as distinct from knowledge gained through conceptual understanding (e.g., knowing the notes of a scale).
Function (of a behavior). The purpose of a behavior analyzed in terms of its history and current setting, as understood through the principles of operant conditioning, classical conditioning, and relational frame theory.
Functional analysis. The process of developing an understanding of a client’s difficulties in terms of behavioral principles in order to identify important relationships between variables that could be changed or influenced.
Functional contextualism. A pragmatic philosophy underlying ACT and RFT in which truth is defined on the basis of workability in achieving chosen goals; a scientific philosophy with the goals of predicting and influencing behavior with precision, scope, and depth.
Language. A socially conventional term for behavior that is at least in part influenced by relational framing.
Literality (context of). Contexts in which symbols (e.g., thoughts) and their referents (i.e., what they seem to refer to or mean) are fused together, thereby lessening the distinction between the world as directly experienced and the world as structured through language.
Mind. The collection of verbal abilities we call thinking. In ACT, the mind is not considered to literally exist as an entity; however, sometimes it’s useful to refer to the mind as if it were an entity because this can help create separation between thought and thinker.
Mindfulness. The combination of the four processes on the left side of the ACT hexagon model. In mindfulness, one willingly and directly contacts the present moment without getting caught up in the content of thoughts and while maintaining a sense of being a conscious observer of experience.
Operant. Classes of behavior defined by their functional effects in particular contexts. Behaviors that occur in similar contexts and result in similar effects would be considered part of the same operant.
Perspective taking. A learned behavior that includes the act of viewing events from a location defined in terms of time, place, and person. Perspective is not defined by the content of what is experienced from that perspective, but by the place from which events are experienced.
Pliance. The habit of following a verbal rule based on a history of being socially reinforced for rule following, whether or not the rule following is otherwise successful.
Private events. Thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, memories, and images. In ACT, these are considered to be forms of private behavior, and in the tradition of which ACT is a part, public and private behavior are both considered to be behavior, with neither being, in principle, privileged over the other.
Psychological flexibility. The process of contacting the present moment fully as a conscious human being and persisting in or changing behavior in the service of chosen values.
Psychological inflexibility. The inability to persist in or change behavior in the service of chosen values, usually due to the domination of verbal regulatory processes.
Reason giving. Verbal explanations for behavior.
Relational frame. The most basic unit of language in RFT. More technically, it refers to a type of arbitrarily applicable relational responding that in some contexts has the defining features of mutual entailment, combinatorial entailment, and the transformation of stimulus functions. Although used as a noun, it is always an action and thus can be restated as “relational framing” or “framing events relationally.”
Relational frame theory (RFT). A modern behavior analytic theory of language and cognition that underlies ACT. RFT has a much broader research program than ACT and illuminates any action involving human language and cognition.
Rules. Verbal formulae that guide behavior based on the role they play in relational frames.
Self-as-content. Viewing oneself from a literal perspective in which the thoughts, emotions, sensations, and memories that have been experienced are considered the self; the same as conceptualized self.
Self-as-context. Experiencing events from the perspective of I-here-now, so that the self is not an object of reflection, but the location from which observations are made.
Self-as-process. Defused, nonjudgmental, ongoing awareness of and description of thoughts, feelings, and other private events in the moment.
Thinking and thoughts. Anything that is symbolic or relational in an arbitrarily applicable sense. This includes words, gestures, thoughts, signs or symbols, images, and some properties of emotions.
Topography of a behavior. The form or appearance of a behavior.
Values. Chosen qualities of actions that are personally important ways of living and that can never be obtained as an object, but rather are instantiated moment by moment. Although used as a noun, the term “valuing” would be more fitting because values can’t be divorced from human action.
Verbal abilities. Actions by a speaker or listener that depend upon relational framing.
Willingness. Another term for acceptance. No technically important distinction can be made between the two terms; however, therapists sometimes use “willingness” to convey an active stance of acceptance because acceptance can carry a passive connotation in lay usage. For example, exposure exercises are often called willingness exercises in ACT.