Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Brooklyn & NYC with Flourish Psychology

ACT-Trained Therapists Available for Adults Throughout New York City

Many people come to therapy hoping to get rid of anxiety, eliminate negative thoughts, or finally stop feeling depressed. These are understandable goals – discomfort is, well, uncomfortable. But what if the constant effort to push away difficult emotions is actually part of what’s keeping you stuck?

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) offers a fundamentally different framework. Instead of battling your internal experiences, ACT teaches you how to coexist with them while building a life guided by what genuinely matters to you. It’s about creating space for the full range of human emotion while still showing up for the people, pursuits, and principles that give your life meaning.

At Flourish Psychology, our therapists use ACT to help clients across Brooklyn and New York City develop greater psychological flexibility and live more authentically – not by eliminating struggle, but by learning to carry it differently. Ready to explore whether ACT might be right for you? Contact Flourish Psychology at (917) 737-9475 or fill out our online form to schedule a consultation.

An Introduction to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

ACT is grounded in the idea that trying to avoid or control painful thoughts and emotions often backfires. The more energy you spend pushing feelings away, the more they tend to dominate your attention and dictate your choices.

The approach centers on six interconnected skills:

Acceptance – Opening up to uncomfortable thoughts and feelings rather than wrestling with them or pretending they don’t exist.

Defusion – Learning to observe thoughts as passing mental events rather than absolute truths that must be obeyed or argued with.

Contact with the Present Moment – Cultivating awareness of what’s actually happening right now instead of getting lost in rumination or worry.

Self-as-Context – Trying to understand yourself as the space in which thoughts and feelings occur, not as the content of those thoughts and feelings.

Values Clarification – Getting clear on what you want your life to stand for and what kind of person you want to be.

Committed Action – Making behavioral choices that align with your values, even when doing so brings up discomfort.

These skills work together to help you become more flexible in how you respond to life’s challenges, making room for difficulty without letting it derail you.

Why Avoidance Keeps You Stuck

One of the key components of ACT is overcoming “avoidance.” Most people develop sophisticated strategies for avoiding emotional discomfort. For example, you might:

Turn down invitations because being around people makes you anxious

Distract yourself with work, screens, or substances when feelings get intense

Overthink decisions to avoid the possibility of making a mistake

Stay silent in relationships to prevent conflict

Abandon projects or goals at the first sign of difficulty

These strategies provide temporary relief, which is why they persist. But they also tend to narrow your world. The social connections you crave remain out of reach. The career moves you want to make never happen. The relationships you value stay surface-level.

ACT helps you see these patterns clearly and offers an alternative: what if you could feel anxious and go to the party? What if you could notice self-doubt and pursue the project anyway? The goal isn’t to become fearless – it’s to stop waiting for fear to disappear before you take action.

What Conditions Respond Well to ACT?

ACT is one of many therapies we may use here at Flourish Psychology, but when it is the right choice, research demonstrates ACT’s effectiveness across a broad spectrum of psychological challenges:

Generalized Anxiety and Social Anxiety – ACT helps you engage with life despite anxiety rather than organizing your days around avoiding it.

Depression and Low Motivation – Instead of waiting to feel motivated before acting, ACT teaches you to act first and let motivation follow.

Chronic Pain and Health Conditions – ACT is widely used in medical settings to help people maintain quality of life even when physical symptoms persist.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder – ACT supports letting intrusive thoughts exist without engaging in compulsions to neutralize them.

Substance Use and Behavioral Addictions – ACT addresses the underlying avoidance patterns that fuel addictive behaviors.

Workplace Stress and Burnout – ACT helps you clarify what matters professionally and set boundaries that protect your wellbeing.

Identity and Purpose Questions – When you’re unsure who you are or what you want, ACT provides a framework for exploration and decision-making.

ACT also benefits people who don’t have a diagnosable condition but feel like they’re not quite living the life they intended – those going through the motions without genuine engagement or satisfaction.

The Experience of ACT Therapy

ACT sessions tend to be interactive and creative. Your therapist might use metaphors, guided imagery, or brief experiential exercises to illustrate concepts in ways that feel immediate and relevant.
You might work on:

Identifying Your Values – Not what you think you should value, but what actually resonates when you imagine yourself at your best. This often involves reflecting on moments when you’ve felt most alive or aligned.

Noticing Your Thoughts – Practicing simple techniques to create distance from unhelpful thinking patterns. For example, singing a worried thought to the tune of “Happy Birthday” to highlight how arbitrary thought content can be.

Building Present Moment Skills – Brief mindfulness exercises that don’t require formal meditation practice. These might involve paying attention to your breath, noticing sensations in your body, or simply observing what you can see and hear.

Planning Values-Based Actions – Choosing specific behaviors that express your values and troubleshooting the thoughts and feelings that might get in the way.

Practicing Willingness – Gradually exposing yourself to avoided situations or emotions in a supportive environment, learning through experience that discomfort is tolerable.

Your therapist won’t impose their own values or tell you what you “should” do. The work is collaborative, with you driving the direction based on what you discover matters most.

ACT Compared to Other Therapeutic Approaches

ACT is only one option, and many times it is combined with other therapeutic approaches. It is different enough from other modalities that it can be integrated into a treatment program, or used before/after other approaches. For example:

Different from Traditional CBT – Cognitive Behavioral Therapy often involves identifying and challenging distorted thoughts. ACT, by contrast, doesn’t treat thoughts as problems to be solved but as mental content you can choose to engage with or not.

Different from Talk Therapy – While insight and understanding have value, ACT emphasizes behavioral change. The question isn’t just “why do I feel this way?” but “what am I going to do about it?”

Different from Positive Thinking – ACT doesn’t ask you to replace negative thoughts with positive ones or “look on the bright side.” It acknowledges that life includes genuine difficulty and focuses on how you navigate that difficulty.

ACT integrates well with other approaches. Many therapists combine ACT with elements of psychodynamic work, attachment theory, or trauma-focused interventions depending on what serves the client best. The right therapeutic approach depends on your needs, preferences, and what you’re trying to achieve. ACT tends to resonate with people who are tired of fighting themselves and ready to try something different.

Why Work with Flourish Psychology?

Our practice is built around helping people move beyond symptom management toward genuine flourishing – living with vitality, purpose, and authenticity.

Our therapists have completed specialized training in ACT and integrate it thoughtfully into their work rather than using it superficially. While ACT provides structure, we adapt the approach to fit your personality, culture, and circumstances. There’s no one-size-fits-all version of this work.

We are based in the Brooklyn and NYC area, and offer Telehealth for clients across the entirety of New York State. We understand that psychological wellbeing intersects with relationships, work, identity, and larger systems. Your therapy reflects that complexity.

The promise of ACT isn’t that life will become easy or that painful emotions will disappear. It’s that you can learn to hold both the difficulty and the beauty of being human – and that you don’t have to wait for the difficult parts to resolve before you start building the life you want.

Call Flourish Psychology Today

If you’re exhausted from trying to think your way out of anxiety, if you’re tired of putting your life on hold until you feel “ready,” or if you’re simply curious about what it might look like to live more intentionally – ACT could offer the shift in perspective you’ve been looking for.
Reach out to Flourish Psychology to learn more about how Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can support your growth. Call (917) 737-9475 or reach out to us via our online form to get started.