ACT and RFT in Relationships Helping Clients Deepen
Intimacy and Maintain Healthy Commitments Using
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Relational Frame
Theory
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ACT & RFT in
relationships
Helping Clients Deepen Intimacy and
Maintain Healthy Commitments Using
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
and Relational Frame Theory
JoAnne Dahl, PhD
Ian Stewart, PhD
Christopher Martell, PhD
Jonathan S. Kaplan, PhD
CONTEXT PRESS
An Imprint of New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the
subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in
rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or
counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Copyright © 2013 by J oAnne Dahl, Ian Stewart,
Jonathan Kaplan, & Christopher Martell
New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
www.newharbinger.com
Cover design by Amy Shoup
Acquired by Melissa Kirk
Edited by Will DeRooy
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data on file
Printed in the United States of America
15 14 13
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 First printing
Contents
Forewordv
Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction to Romantic Love 1
2 The Roots of Our Approach 21
3 Relational Frame Theory 41
4 Acceptance and Commitment Therapy 73
5 Language Traps and Self-as-Content 103
6 Psychological Rigidity 131
7 Valuing Intimate Relationships 153
8 Self-Compassion183
9 Couples Therapy 217
10 Summary and Conclusions 245
References255
Index269
Foreword
Dear reader,
About twice a year, my husband and I take a long road trip to
visit my brothers and their families. They always take the time
to spruce up the guest room and light a candle for our arrival.
After the fun of greeting everyone, my husband and I move our
suitcases into the guest room. Each time, as I swing the door
open, I am greeted with a warm and welcoming sign that hangs
right above the bed: “If there is anything better than to be loved,
it is to be loving.” The sign is plain and unpretentious—simple
white letters on a dark background, signed by no one. Yet its
message settles in easily, like gentle snow falling on the winter
ground. Creating the stuff of this message in your clinical
work—to be loving is what this book is about.
As coauthor of The Mindful Couple: How Acceptance and
Mindfulness Can Lead You to the Love You Want, as well as a
longtime practitioner and trainer of acceptance and commit-
ment therapy (ACT) and a participant in the ACT and rela-
tional frame theory (RFT) community, I am delighted to
introduce this coherent and thoughtful book that marries
behavior analytic science and love. The authors provide the
ACT and RFT in Relationships
reader with a way forward in the challenging yet fulfilling enter-
prise of couples and relationship counseling.
I first met JoAnne Dahl in mid-2004 at an Association for
Contextual and Behavioral Science conference. She immedi-
ately struck me as someone whose work was grounded in com-
passion and primarily concerned with the “ways” of love and
relationship. But she also struck me as a person interested in
science’s role in these matters, working seriously to develop rel-
evant clinical knowledge through her position as associate pro-
fessor in the department of psychology at the University of
Uppsala in Sweden.
And she has joined others of similar character to write this
book. One of them is Ian Stewart, a faculty member in the psy-
chology department at the National University of Ireland,
Galway and a longtime associate and friend, as well as a bril-
liant researcher who has brought his talents in understanding
relational frame theory to this endeavor. There are many times
when I have been truly grateful for his diligence in helping
others to understand the RFT analysis of human language.
Christopher R. Martell, a professor at the University of
Washington in Seattle, brings fundamental knowledge to this
book with his expertise in behavioral activation. He is an expert
in this intervention, training people to embolden themselves by
taking action linked to values.
And last but surely not least is author Jonathan S. Kaplan, a
clinician and adjunct professor who writes and shares his impor-
tant work on television and radio, and has been featured in O,
The Oprah Magazine as well as on BBC News and MSNBC.
He is invested in cultivating peace, purpose, and presence
through his work—a fitting way to round out the contributions
to and development of this book.
vi
Foreword
While reading ACT and RFT in Relationships, I regularly
returned to and considered the notion of intimacy. The word
itself is related to the word familiar, meaning “well-known.”
Finding a way to be well-known in a relationship, with all of the
fear, dread, and secrets that can accompany this—as well as the
promise—is a unique challenge for human beings. It is often
difficult for us to be fully present to our own emotional experi-
ence, let alone to open ourselves up and share that experience
with another. Indeed, the prospect of being well-known is, for
some, the very barrier to love.
However, Drs. Dahl, Stewart, Martell, and Kaplan walk the
reader through a set of processes that create just the space in
which intimacy in relationship is possible. The truly notewor-
thy feature of this book—and the basis of its utility—is the
authors’ theoretical understanding of ACT and RFT and their
application to the creation of deep and meaningful relation-
ships. The authors do not take the conventional path, which
generally explores love and intimacy as parts of a plan for self-
improvement leading to a felt positive state. Rather, they provide
a behavior analytic conceptualization of love, linking this very
human issue to a sound theoretical and scientific approach and
a thorough understanding of human language and cognition.
Do not be scared away by this distinctive part of the book. The
behavior analytic approach forms the backbone of a technology
that will guide him or her in the use of the intervention while
promoting maximum flexibility in the therapy room.
In part 1, the authors introduce functional contextualism,
basics in behavior analysis, the origins of love, and the problem
of language as it relates to human relationship. Each concept is
presented in a digestible fashion and linked to the exploration
of love and intimacy in human connection. The reader will find
vii
ACT and RFT in Relationships
this part of the book particularly useful in developing an inter-
vention that’s tailored to the personal histories, current context,
and individual behavioral complexity of the couple presently in
the therapy room.
Part 2 explores the moment of truth in intimate and healthy
relationships. Relationships—as we know through experience
but aren’t necessarily taught—are not simply romantic in nature,
or the stuff of fairy tales. They are about letting go of ideals and
right and wrong; they are about occasionally suffering through
lowered expectations and demands; they are about forgiveness,
and self-compassion and -examination—and, yes, they are also
about kindness, laughter, happiness, shared experience, and
enhanced connection.
The authors of this book both capture this reality and, using
ACT and RFT, provide readers with a way to instigate engaged
and healthy relationships. The authors’ focus in describing
ACT and RFT as they apply to healthy human connection is
on fostering personal flexibility in the service of committing to
and honoring deeply held values—the true earth of long-lasting
and deep relationships. The reader is invited to explore the pro-
cesses of ACT that generate openness to experience, including
mindfulness and acceptance, self- as-
experiencer, and self-
compassion. Each of these processes is designed to disentangle
the client from the fear, dread, and secret-keeping that seem to
prevent intimacy in relationships, freeing him or her to actively
engage in behaviors centered on being loving.
The significance of this approach to intimacy is that it liber-
ates the individual to act on building a way for personal “known-
ness” that can be shared with another as a matter of choice,
rather than of feeling. This is not to say that feelings are not
important; they surely are, as the authors of this book will also
viii
Foreword
tell you. The difficulty arises when feelings become the arbiter
of our life direction; they can, if followed blindly, leave us in fear
and alone. Values-based choice is the antidote to this.
In ACT and RFT in Relationships, Drs. Dahl, Stewart,
Martell, and Kaplan have lit a candle for your arrival; read the
book and apply its knowledge. Helping clients to fully engage
their values in efforts to define and grow intimate and healthy
relationships, as these authors have done, is wonderful. Again,
if there is anything better than to be loved, it is to be loving—
and to do so as a chosen and fully lived value.
—Robyn D. Walser, PhD
Assistant Clinical Professor,
University of California, Berkeley
Associate Director, National Center for PTSD,
Dissemination and Training Division
ix
Acknowledgments
To Dan, with appreciation for your persistency, patience, and
passion in helping me open up a closed door and, in so doing,
boost my exposure to and exploration and experience of the
pain and the ecstasy of an intimate relationship.
—J.D.
To all those lovely people with whom I’ve shared some lovely
moments.
—I.S.
ACT and RFT in Relationships
Of the four authors of this book, I came to the project with the
least knowledge of ACT and RFT. I am thankful, therefore, to
have worked with such a brilliant team of fellow authors. I wish
first to thank JoAnne Dahl for inviting me to join the project as
an author. Though when we met we lived on different conti-
nents, we quickly learned that we each share the experience of
childhoods growing up in the Green Mountains of Vermont.
Working with Ian Stewart has given me the privilege of a prac-
tically private tutorial in RFT and the experience has been
enlightening and fun, so I express my gratitude to Ian. Jonathan
Kaplan came to the project at a time when we needed new
energy, and he added just that. I’ve enjoyed working with this
great team immensely!
My background is in behavioral treatments for individuals
and couples. Andrew Christensen, PhD, and the late Neil S.
Jacobson, PhD, invited me to be a research therapist on their
multi-site couples therapy research program in the late 1990s,
and that work changed my career and my life. I am particularly
thankful to Andy for continuing to invite me to write with him
on Integrative Behavioral Couples Therapy.
Finally I need to acknowledge my partner, Mark Williams,
for his gentle and generous spirit and his ongoing support
through the years.
— C.M.
xii
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my wife, Doris, and two sons, Eli and
Reed, for helping me learn about love in a myriad of ways. They
give me many opportunities to express love as a value and a
behavior, while being able to experience it as a feeling as well
(most of the time, anyway). A coterie of special people has
guided me in learning how to love, including my parents, sister,
and teachers: Tara Brach, Sharon Salzberg, and Laura
O’Loughlin. Thank you very much for your tutelage and
support. In addition, I’d like to thank my co-authors and intern
Susanna Johansson for their unwavering support and judicious
commentary. Writing this book together has been a real plea-
sure! Finally, I’d like to express my appreciation and gratitude
for all of my past, present, and future patients. You all have
shared your lives with me, in ways that are both touching and
humbling. The gift of connection, aliveness, and presence in our
meetings has been nourishing beyond measure. I feel grateful
for the opportunity to bear witness to the pain you have experi-
enced and to participate in your growth and recovery. Your
efforts to live more mindfully and meaningfully are an
inspiration.
—J.K.
xiii
