Life Compass

Session 1. In the first session, the therapist learned about the patient’s experience with pain thus far, and gained an understanding of the current situation that has lead to physical therapy. The therapist and the patient went over the VLQ done prior to the intervention and created a life compass from the responses on the VLQ (See Appendix F for an example of a life compass). The life compass described the values dimensions in the patient’s life and how consistently the patient lived according to their values. Issues such as barriers and discrepancies between values and behavior were discussed. Next, creative hopelessness was explored with the patient. The participant was asked to evaluate their current coping strategies and methods of reducing pain or discomfort, which tied into the idea of exposure. The therapist described the purpose of willingness to feel discomfort in order to achieve valued living. Lastly, the patient identified which values they wanted to focus on for the remainder of the therapy and a summary of the first session was reviewed.
Session 2. The second session began with a review of the values compass done in the first session, and the patient was reminded the purpose of this intervention. Cognitive defusion techniques were then explored as a means of …show more content…
The final session reviewed everything that had been previously taught, paying special attention to values clarity and willingness to feel discomfort. The session centered on the idea of acceptance and how to live a life with physical pain or discomfort and still act in ways that are consistent with the individual’s values. Lastly, participants were asked to make a commitment to live according to their values and specific behaviors were identified to demonstrate some of the actions that could be taken to fulfill this commitment. Patients were presented with ACT specific resources that they could refer to should they wish to continue to explore ACT concepts and