137: Psychological Flexibility through ACT with Dr. Diana Hill
58 min•23 maj 2021
"Psychological Flexibility" sounds amazing. Shouldn't we all want that? After all, psychological flexibility has been significantly positively associated with wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic, and negatively associated with anxiety, depression, and COVID-29-related distress and worry. (But what is it, anyway?!) Psychological Flexibility is about being fully in touch with the present moment and, based on the situation, either continuing or changing your behavior to live in better alignment with your values. Let's break that down a bit: Being fully in touch with the present moment: We spend a good chunk of our lives not fully present. And there are times when it makes sense - we don't necessarily need to be fully present for every moment of a long drive. As long as we're present enough to drive safely, we don't need to observe the exact quality of red in the tail light of the driver in front of you. But when we spend most of our lives zoned out on our phones, or rushing from one activity to the next (probably partly so we don't have to sit down and just be), we aren't truly present. Better alignment with your values: We all have values, although perhaps some of us haven't fully articulated them. We might value raising an independent child, but then step in every time they struggle. We might value emotional closeness but struggle to actually do it because our parents didn't model it for us. When we articulate our values, we define what we're working toward. Based on the situation, either continuing or changing your behavior: One of my favorite parts of ACT is the Choice Point: the point at which something doesn't feel right to you. At this point you get to decide: Am I going to keep doing the same thing I've always done? Or am I going to do something that brings me into better alignment with my values? Want to know more? Dr. Diana Hill, co-author with Dr. Debbie Sorensen, joins me on this episode to discuss their new book ACT Daily Journal: Get Unstuck and Live Fully with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (this is an affiliate link, so I will earn a small commission through your purchase which does not affect the price you pay). The book walks readers through a series of exercises to help them become more psychologically flexible, through the practice of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The concepts in ACT are ones that I've found to be enormously useful both personally and in working with clients, so I'm excited to tell you about them here! Dr. Diana Hill's Book:
[accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Jen Lumanlan 00:03 Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We all want our children to lead fulfilling lives. But it can be so hard to keep up with the latest scientific research on child development and figure out whether and how to incorporate it into our own approach to parenting. Here at Your Parenting Mojo, I do the work for you by critically examining strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research on principles of respectful parenting. If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released, and get a FREE Guide called 13 Reasons Why Your Child Won't listen To You and What To Do About Each One, just head on over to your YourParentingMojo.com/SUBSCRIBE. You can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you'll join us Jen Lumanlan 00:48 Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We have a guest here today to talk with us about a tool that I actually discovered through her show and I found it to be incredibly helpful both personally and professionally. So our guest is Dr. Diana Hill, and she's co host with three of her colleagues of the Psychologists Off The Clock podcast, and one of her co hosts is Dr. Yael Schonbrun, who we had on the show to discuss work life balance. And then Dr. Hill actually hosted me on Psychologists Off the Clock and we talked about homeschooling and social justice and parenting and stuff like that. And now she's here with us today to discuss one of her favorite topics, which is acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is shortened to act. So Dr. Hill has just published a book with her colleague and Psychologists Off the Clock at co-host Debbie Sorensen, called Acts Daily Journal: Get unstuck and live fully with acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which isn't geared specifically toward parents, but there's so much in it that's going to help parents. So welcome Dr. Hill. It's great to have you here. Diana Hill 01:45 Thank you, Jen, it's so good to be here with you and my interview with you is one of my favorites. So it's time to have the table's turned here and talk about ACT and and specifically around parenting because it turns out if you're more psychologically flexible as a person, it rubs off on to your parenting, and then that rubs off on to your kids too. So I love to talk more about it. Jen Lumanlan 02:05 Yeah, awesome. So maybe we can start there with Firstly, what is this thing psychological flexibility? And why does it matter? Why does it make a difference? How does it make a difference in our lives? Diana Hill 02:14 Well, a psychological flexibility is a construct that's been researched for decades now. And some of the research is actually starting to get into the general public. And what it is, is, it's your ability to stay present, open up to your full life experience, not get hooked by your thoughts, and orient your actions towards your values towards what really matters to you, even when life gets difficult. So you can see how even just that term could be helpful as a parent, right? And Jen Lumanlan 02:43 keep going. I'm not saying it. Diana Hill 02:47 And what the research has shown is that there's really these Six Core Processes, ways in which you engage with the world that help you become more psychologically flexible. And when you're psychologically flexible. Not only do you have less chances of developing things like anxiety and depression, but specifically with parenting, some of the meta analyses that are showing up with parenting is that psychologically flexible parents engage in more positive parenting practices, they're less harsh, as well as not super overly permissive, you see less spillover effects of stress onto kids. So they did some studies looking at psychological flexibility during COVID with parents and parents that were more psychologically flexible during COVID. Not only did they have less conflict in their relationship with their partners, there was less impact of the stress of COVID on their kids. This set of processes is turning out to be in the research one of the key factors in human flourishing and functioning in lots of different domains of our lives. Jen Lumanlan 03:47 Okay, I'm convinced. So what are the components of psychological flexibility? Diana Hill 03:52 Well, there's six of them and you can kind of think of them Steven Hayes, who's one of the cofounders of ACT or Acceptance a Commitment Therapy talks about like sides of a box. So six sides of the box, that together build your psychological flexibility. And some of them are fairly familiar to folks we've all heard about being present. That's one of them, being able to stay present in the moment sort of mindfulness, but it's a little different in ACT being present has more to do with being present where it matters, because you can't be mindful all of the time. But in that moment, when your kid is showing, like pulling out stuff from the backpack, and they're showing you a piece of artwork and you're on your phone, this is a time to be present because they're bidding for attention. They're bidding for connection, right? So being present when it matters to you as a parent. A second process is about acceptance. And in Act, acceptance isn't...
ACT Daily Journal: Get Unstuck and Live Fully with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Affiliate link).
Jump to highlights:- (01:26) What is ACT or acceptance and Commitment Therapy
- (02:07) What is this thing psychological flexibility?
- (03:48) What are the components of psychological flexibility?
- (08:07) Cognitive diffusion
- (11:38) The idea that we could believe that our thoughts are not true is mind boggling to a lot of people
- (16:36) Values and parenting in particular is such a good one to discuss
- (18:20) Values are something that are deep within you, that you can pull upon, when you've got nothing left
- (19:10:) The idea of the choice point
- (23:36) Perspective taking is probably one of the most important skills we can do for ourselves
- (27:01) How do we live out committed action
- (33:55) Our children are naturally beginner's mind
- (35:18:) One of the things that actually sets humans apart from robots, is our ability to think outside the box
- (39:58) We can start to teach our children, that it's not about the answer. That there's many ways to solve problems
- (41:51) The IKEA effect
- (45:33) Another thing that's really important with embodiment is modeling
[accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Jen Lumanlan 00:03 Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We all want our children to lead fulfilling lives. But it can be so hard to keep up with the latest scientific research on child development and figure out whether and how to incorporate it into our own approach to parenting. Here at Your Parenting Mojo, I do the work for you by critically examining strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research on principles of respectful parenting. If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released, and get a FREE Guide called 13 Reasons Why Your Child Won't listen To You and What To Do About Each One, just head on over to your YourParentingMojo.com/SUBSCRIBE. You can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you'll join us Jen Lumanlan 00:48 Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We have a guest here today to talk with us about a tool that I actually discovered through her show and I found it to be incredibly helpful both personally and professionally. So our guest is Dr. Diana Hill, and she's co host with three of her colleagues of the Psychologists Off The Clock podcast, and one of her co hosts is Dr. Yael Schonbrun, who we had on the show to discuss work life balance. And then Dr. Hill actually hosted me on Psychologists Off the Clock and we talked about homeschooling and social justice and parenting and stuff like that. And now she's here with us today to discuss one of her favorite topics, which is acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is shortened to act. So Dr. Hill has just published a book with her colleague and Psychologists Off the Clock at co-host Debbie Sorensen, called Acts Daily Journal: Get unstuck and live fully with acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which isn't geared specifically toward parents, but there's so much in it that's going to help parents. So welcome Dr. Hill. It's great to have you here. Diana Hill 01:45 Thank you, Jen, it's so good to be here with you and my interview with you is one of my favorites. So it's time to have the table's turned here and talk about ACT and and specifically around parenting because it turns out if you're more psychologically flexible as a person, it rubs off on to your parenting, and then that rubs off on to your kids too. So I love to talk more about it. Jen Lumanlan 02:05 Yeah, awesome. So maybe we can start there with Firstly, what is this thing psychological flexibility? And why does it matter? Why does it make a difference? How does it make a difference in our lives? Diana Hill 02:14 Well, a psychological flexibility is a construct that's been researched for decades now. And some of the research is actually starting to get into the general public. And what it is, is, it's your ability to stay present, open up to your full life experience, not get hooked by your thoughts, and orient your actions towards your values towards what really matters to you, even when life gets difficult. So you can see how even just that term could be helpful as a parent, right? And Jen Lumanlan 02:43 keep going. I'm not saying it. Diana Hill 02:47 And what the research has shown is that there's really these Six Core Processes, ways in which you engage with the world that help you become more psychologically flexible. And when you're psychologically flexible. Not only do you have less chances of developing things like anxiety and depression, but specifically with parenting, some of the meta analyses that are showing up with parenting is that psychologically flexible parents engage in more positive parenting practices, they're less harsh, as well as not super overly permissive, you see less spillover effects of stress onto kids. So they did some studies looking at psychological flexibility during COVID with parents and parents that were more psychologically flexible during COVID. Not only did they have less conflict in their relationship with their partners, there was less impact of the stress of COVID on their kids. This set of processes is turning out to be in the research one of the key factors in human flourishing and functioning in lots of different domains of our lives. Jen Lumanlan 03:47 Okay, I'm convinced. So what are the components of psychological flexibility? Diana Hill 03:52 Well, there's six of them and you can kind of think of them Steven Hayes, who's one of the cofounders of ACT or Acceptance a Commitment Therapy talks about like sides of a box. So six sides of the box, that together build your psychological flexibility. And some of them are fairly familiar to folks we've all heard about being present. That's one of them, being able to stay present in the moment sort of mindfulness, but it's a little different in ACT being present has more to do with being present where it matters, because you can't be mindful all of the time. But in that moment, when your kid is showing, like pulling out stuff from the backpack, and they're showing you a piece of artwork and you're on your phone, this is a time to be present because they're bidding for attention. They're bidding for connection, right? So being present when it matters to you as a parent. A second process is about acceptance. And in Act, acceptance isn't...
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