General Guide to the ACT Therapeutic Context

This chapter provides an introduction to the worldview underlying the therapeutic context in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and how this worldview influences what ACT sessions typically look like. In ACT, the therapeutic relationship is seen as a context in which clients learn to become more psychologically flexible or to interact with their thoughts and feelings in new ways that may be more beneficial to their own well-being. The chapter provides tips for how to stay consistent with ACT principles in the areas of therapeutic stance, the therapeutic relationship, therapist behavior in session, and word choices, among other things.

Child-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions Designed to Reduce Aggression

This chapter describes issues related to cognitive-behavioral group-based interventions for children with aggressive behavior problems. It describes beneficial aspects of group formats and notes the longer-term effects of the Coping Power program. It discusses potential problems in group-based interventions with aggressive children, including the potential for deviant peer effects and deviancy training. It then describes a study of Coping Power that randomly assigned schools to either group or individual formats for aggressive children. Results indicated significant reduction in behavioral problems for children in both conditions. However, teacher ratings indicated significantly stronger effects apparent by a 1-year follow-up for children in the individual sessions compared to the group format. The chapter discusses why these differences may have emerged and how group therapist behavior may be important in protecting against longer term follow-up deviant peer effects.