The role of logical reasoning in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Abstract

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is part of the third wave of CognitiveBehavioral Therapies (CBT), and it is considered a part of Contextual Behavioral Science (CBS), which focuses its research on psychological processes related to language and human cognition. T herefore, ACT emphasizes interventions that focus on the functions of language and cognition to diminish human suffering and promote psychological flexibility. In this context, this paper (1) presents logical reasoning as specific type of Arbitrarily Applicable Relational Responding (AARR), namely Deductive Inference Frames (MIDs), (2) points out its features according to the Hyper Dimensional Multi Level (HDML) framework and (3) discusses what could be its place and role in ACT based interventions – which is a therapeutical approach that focuses on the function of thoughts, rather than on the correctness of its contents.