Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
at Harley Street London

Living a meaningful life beyond your struggles

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) offers a refreshingly different approach to psychological wellbeing. Rather than trying to eliminate difficult thoughts and feelings, ACT teaches you how to change your relationship with them. The goal isn’t to feel happy all the time — it’s to live a rich, meaningful life even in the presence of discomfort.

At London Trusted Therapy, we understand that the struggle to control, suppress, or eliminate unwanted thoughts and feelings often becomes the problem itself. This struggle — what we call “experiential avoidance” — can keep you stuck in patterns of anxiety, depression, procrastination, or unfulfilling relationships. ACT helps you step out of this battle and move toward what truly matters to you.

ACT is built on a simple but powerful premise: psychological flexibility. This means being able to stay present with your experience, see your thoughts for what they are (just thoughts, not facts), connect with your values, and take action that moves your life forward — even when it’s uncomfortable. Rather than asking “how do I feel better?”, ACT asks “how can I live better?”

Our ACT approach recognises that pain is an inevitable part of being human, but suffering — the struggle against that pain — is optional. We help you develop new skills to engage with life fully, stop fighting unwinnable battles with your mind, and create genuine meaning and vitality.

What Our Clients Say About Us

4.86 rating based on Google and Trustpilot reviews

J B

2026-05-02

Before seeing Emma, imposter syndrome that undermined every success I had felt completely unmanageable. Drawing on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which brought a steady, practical structure to the work. People close to me have said I seem lighter, and I don't take that for granted.

W R

2025-09-24

I consulted Tina regarding a dependency on substances to keep performing under pressure. Using ACT, which was applied with real skill, not just theory. Bit by bit, the good days properly outnumber the bad ones now.

V W

2025-04-22

The moment I sat down with Emma to talk about burnout after years of overworking, I knew it was different, drawing on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which unpicked things slowly and carefully. Slowly but surely, the panic has quietened right down, and I'm grateful for that every day. I only wish I'd found Emma sooner.

T B

2025-12-18

The emotional toll of chronic pain and illness used to control my days. Working with Karima, using ACT, which gave a completely different way to approach things, that's no longer true. Week by week, I sleep properly for the first time in years, and it's stuck.

K M

2025-05-18

I came in not really knowing how to talk about anxiety that felt constant and exhausting. Emma made that possible, drawing on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which was handled with real patience. The fog has properly lifted, which says more than I can put into words. There aren't enough good things I can say about Emma.

Who Is This Approach For?

For Individuals

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is particularly valuable for individuals who feel stuck in cycles of struggling against their own thoughts and feelings. If you find yourself constantly trying to control, suppress, or eliminate anxiety, unwanted thoughts, or difficult emotions — and this struggle has become exhausting and ineffective — ACT offers a radically different approach.

You might benefit from ACT if you experience persistent worry, rumination, or intrusive thoughts that dominate your attention despite your best efforts to push them away. This approach is especially helpful if you notice that the more you try to not think about something or not feel anxious, the worse it becomes. ACT works well for those dealing with chronic anxiety, depression, OCD, chronic pain, or adjustment to long-term health conditions.

For Couples

ACT helps couples move beyond the exhausting battles that arise when partners try to control each other's thoughts, feelings, or behaviours. If your relationship has become dominated by attempts to change your partner, avoid conflict, or eliminate discomfort — leaving little room for genuine connection and shared values — ACT can help you shift toward psychological flexibility together.

This approach is valuable when life circumstances — infertility, chronic illness, financial stress, parenting challenges — bring unavoidable pain into your relationship. Rather than trying to eliminate the pain or letting it destroy your connection, ACT helps you carry these difficulties whilst staying connected to each other and your shared values.

For Families

ACT helps families move away from exhausting attempts to control each other's internal experiences and toward acceptance, compassion, and values-based action. This is particularly valuable when a family member's anxiety, depression, or neurodivergence creates tension as other family members struggle to "fix" the problem or make difficult feelings go away.

Families benefit when children or adolescents are avoiding school, social situations, or challenges due to anxiety or fear of failure. ACT provides tools for the whole family to support valued action even in the presence of discomfort, teaching that they can have room for all feelings whilst still moving forward together toward what matters most.

The Six Core Processes of ACT

Acceptance

Learning to open up and make room for uncomfortable feelings, sensations, and urges rather than struggling against them. Acceptance doesn't mean liking or wanting these experiences — it means allowing them to be present while you do what matters.

Cognitive defusion

Creating distance from your thoughts so they have less impact and influence. You learn to see thoughts as mental events ("I'm having the thought that I'm not good enough") rather than absolute truths ("I'm not good enough"). This reduces their power over your behaviour.

Present moment awareness

Developing the ability to be psychologically present and engaged with your current experience rather than lost in past regrets or future worries. Being present allows you to respond flexibly to life as it unfolds.

Self-as-context

Recognising that you are not your thoughts, feelings, roles, or experiences — you are the conscious being who notices them. This "observing self" remains constant even as your experiences change, providing a secure foundation.

Values clarification

Getting clear about what truly matters to you — your deepest desires for how you want to be and what you want your life to stand for. Values provide direction and motivation for meaningful action.

Committed action

Taking effective action guided by your values, even in the presence of difficult thoughts and feelings. Building patterns of values-based behaviour through concrete, achievable goals and ongoing commitment.

What Makes Our Approach Different?

Acceptance, not control

Unlike approaches that focus on changing, challenging, or eliminating negative thoughts and feelings, ACT teaches acceptance and willingness. We help you stop struggling with internal experiences and redirect that energy toward living well.

Values at the centre

ACT doesn’t just aim to reduce symptoms — it helps you build a life worth living. We spend significant time exploring your values and ensuring therapy moves you toward what matters most, not just away from discomfort.

Mindfulness-based but action-oriented

ACT combines the benefits of mindfulness and acceptance with concrete behavioural change. You learn to be present AND take committed action. It’s not just about being calm — it’s about living fully.

Metaphor and experience

ACT uses creative metaphors and experiential exercises to help you see your struggles in new ways. These “aha moments” often create shifts that intellectual understanding alone cannot achieve.

Applicable to life, not just "disorders"

While ACT is highly effective for clinical conditions, it’s equally valuable for anyone wanting to live more fully, meaningfully, and flexibly. You don’t need a diagnosis to benefit from greater psychological flexibility.

Integration with other approaches

ACT integrates well with other therapeutic modalities. We can combine ACT principles with trauma work, attachment-focused therapy, or couples therapy for a comprehensive approach tailored to your needs.

Common Areas We Address

For Individuals:

Anxiety disorders and panic attacks
Depression and low mood
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Chronic worry and rumination
Social anxiety and fear of judgment
Health anxiety and illness-related fears
Perfectionism and fear of failure
Chronic pain and physical health conditions
Grief, loss, and major life transitions
Stress, burnout, and overwhelm
Procrastination and avoidance
Lack of meaning or direction
Self-criticism and shame
Anger management
Substance use and behavioural addictions
Insomnia and sleep difficulties
Body image and eating concerns
Work-life balance
Finding purpose and meaning
Building resilience and flexibility

For Couples:

Communication breakdowns and conflict patterns
Emotional disconnection and lack of intimacy
Avoidance of difficult conversations
Defensiveness, criticism, and contempt
Differences in values or life direction
One partner’s anxiety or depression affecting the relationship
Difficulty being vulnerable or authentic
Navigating major life changes together
Rebuilding connection after ruptures
Balancing individual and relationship needs
Accepting differences rather than trying to change each other
Creating shared values and meaning
Breaking repetitive conflict cycles
Building psychological flexibility as a couple

For Families:

Breaking patterns of criticism or conflict
Supporting anxious or depressed family members
Creating authentic family connections
Navigating adolescent challenges
Accepting differences in values or choices
Reducing enabling or rescuing behaviours
Building emotional flexibility across generations
Addressing avoidance patterns in the family
Creating space for difficult emotions
Modelling valued living for children
Improving family communication
Managing family transitions and changes

The Evidence Base: What Research Shows

ACT is a well-researched, evidence-based approach with over 1,000 randomised controlled trials demonstrating its effectiveness. Research shows significant improvements across diverse conditions and contexts. Studies have demonstrated ACT's effectiveness for anxiety disorders including OCD, social anxiety, and generalised anxiety disorder, with effect sizes comparable to or exceeding those of established treatments.
Research on depression and mood difficulties shows that ACT produces lasting changes by targeting underlying psychological inflexibility rather than just symptoms. For chronic pain management, ACT has emerged as one of the most effective psychological approaches, helping people live well despite pain that may not be fully eliminable. Evidence supports its use for substance use disorders, eating disorders and body image issues, work stress and burnout, and even for psychotic symptoms and serious mental illness as an adjunct to other treatment.

Importantly, studies consistently show that ACT improves quality of life and overall wellbeing, not just symptom reduction. Research demonstrates positive impacts on physical health outcomes in chronic illness, workplace performance and satisfaction, relationship functioning, and resilience. Meta-analyses reveal that the mechanisms ACT targets — psychological flexibility and its components — mediate therapeutic change, confirming that the approach works through the processes it claims to target.
Studies consistently show that ACT produces lasting change because it teaches fundamental skills for responding to life's challenges rather than just targeting specific symptoms. Gains from ACT often continue to grow after therapy ends as people apply these skills to new situations, suggesting that psychological flexibility serves as a generalisable capability that continues benefiting you long after formal therapy concludes.

What to Expect in ACT Therapy

Initial sessions: values and assessment

We begin by exploring what brings you to therapy and what you want your life to be about. We’ll assess your current struggles and identify patterns of avoidance or unhelpful struggle. Most importantly, we’ll clarify your values — what you want to stand for and move toward.

Middle sessions: skill building

Through experiential exercises, metaphors, and mindfulness practices, you’ll learn the six ACT processes. You’ll practice acceptance, defusion, and present-moment awareness while taking small steps in valued directions. We’ll work with whatever obstacles arise — fear, self-doubt, discomfort — as opportunities to build flexibility.

Later sessions: integration and consolidation

As you develop flexibility, we’ll focus on committed action — building sustainable patterns of valued living. You’ll learn to catch yourself getting stuck and have tools to get unstuck. We’ll address setbacks with self-compassion and renewed commitment.

Between sessions

ACT requires practice. You’ll have exercises, mindfulness practices, and behavioural experiments between sessions. Change happens through consistent application of skills in daily life, not just in the therapy room.

Common ACT Metaphors We Use

Passengers on the bus

You're the driver of your life's bus, heading toward your values. Difficult thoughts and feelings are passengers making noise, but you don't have to let them grab the wheel.

Tug of war with a monster

Struggling against anxiety or unwanted feelings is like playing tug-of-war with a monster. The solution isn't to win — it's to drop the rope.

Quicksand

The more you struggle in quicksand, the deeper you sink. Sometimes the solution is to stop struggling and float.

Leaves on a stream

Watching your thoughts float by like leaves on a stream rather than getting caught up in them.

Our ACT Therapists

Beginning Your Journey

Starting ACT requires willingness — not willingness to feel comfortable, but willingness to feel whatever shows up as you build a meaningful life. You don’t need to have your values all figured out or be ready to make massive changes. We start where you are.

Many people worry that acceptance means giving up or that they’ll be overwhelmed if they stop fighting their feelings. ACT shows you that acceptance is an active choice that paradoxically gives you more control over your life, not less. You’ll learn that you can feel anxious and still take action, think negative thoughts and still move forward.

Our therapists have specialised training in ACT and bring both clinical expertise and genuine compassion to the work. We understand that developing psychological flexibility isn’t always comfortable — it often means facing what you’ve been avoiding. We’re here to support you as you expand your life in valued directions.

From Stuck to Thriving

ACT isn't about feeling better - it's about living better

It's about moving from a life controlled by fear and avoidance to a life guided by your values. It's about being present for your life as it unfolds, creating meaning even in difficult circumstances, and building the flexibility to handle whatever comes.

You are not broken

You don't need to eliminate anxiety, sadness, or discomfort to live well. You simply need to change your relationship with these experiences and reconnect with what matters. With the right skills, support, and practice, you can build a life of richness, meaning, and vitality — even with the challenges you face.

Psychological flexibility is a learnable skill

Values-based living is available to you. If you're ready to stop struggling and start living, or if you're curious about whether ACT might be right for you, we're here to help.

Have a Query?
We Are Just a Message Away

Our Quality Guarantee

Should you feel that your first session did not meet your expectations or that your therapist wasn’t a good fit, we will provide another session completely free of charge with a different practitioner.

Supported Insurance

We are proud to work in partnership with major UK and global insurers, as an approved mental health provider, supporting various clients in their therapy journey around the globe.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) at Harley Street London