Rethinking “Capital T” Truth

We touched on Functional Contextualism, the philosophy of science that underpins

ACT, in the homework for Module 1. Now let’s look at what it means in your ACT
work with clients.

VIDEO: (1) Rethinking Capital T Truth

Functional Contextualism and ACT

 Functional contextualism is a form of pragmatic thinking that focuses on predicting and
influencing events using general concepts and rules that have an empirical basis.
 For functional contextualists, the truth of an idea lies in its function or usefulness.
 This “truth criterion” is called successful working. Something is considered true or valid if it
leads to action that works toward achieving a clearly stated goal.
 This goal distinguishes functional contextualism from other kinds of contextualism (e.g.,
narrative psychology, hermeneutics, social constructivism, and so on), but we see these
other approaches as friends.
 In ACT work, we encourage the letting go of “capital T” truth (a correspondence idea) and
continually bring clients back to the question of “What do you really want out of life?” Truth
lies in whether a thought or plan is helpful to the client in accomplishing their stated goals.
 The ACT approach is to invite the client to look at their thoughts as just one way of thinking.
 We encourage the client to focus on what they’re trying to accomplish and be open to the
fact that there may be different ways of thinking about their situation.

Recommended reading
In a way, you could say that part of what we’re doing in ACT is training our clients to
adopt a pragmatic philosophical perspective on their own lives. You cannot do so if
you model a contradictory perspective in your interaction with clients. And if you’re a
behavioral scientist, you can’t serve contextualistic practitioners if you are cranking
out research that is based on formism, organicism, or mechanism, the world views
you learned about in the Module 1 homework.

Those are the primary reasons why I want you to read the following loose précis. It
relates to an article I co-wrote about contextualism, and how we can use goal setting
to empower a pragmatic approach. The one-two punch of workability linked to clear
purposes helps therapists, researchers, and clients stay on the same page. That in
turn helps people work with their values in such a way that it can really make a
difference in their lives.

To be honest, this is the geekiest part of the whole course because it is the most
abstract. (And you thought it would be RFT!) All I can say is, “Trust me for now.”

I’ve recorded a 6-minute audio introduction to this work, which is followed by a link to
the précis. At the end of the précis, you’ll find a short exercise.
Analytic goals and the varieties of scientific
contextualism
AUDIO: Module 2, Lesson 1.mp3

Loose précis: Analytic goals and the varieties of

scientific contextualism
Module 2, Lesson 1 PDF.pdf

References
“I read some data just last night that just kind of horrified me. There’s a part of
our brain that’s close to the sense of self, especially the stories we tell of the
kind of ego-based self. Now here’s what horrified me. The sensory and
sensory-motor input that’s coming up goes through that area as a hub, and if
the inputs don’t fit the story, it cuts it off right there. In other words, your clients
literally are living in a world in which they don’t know what’s going on because
they’re living inside a concept. There isn’t even a way neurobiologically to get
some of the information that’s right in front of them.”
I summarize some of these studies in a paper coming out in 2020 in the Journal of
Contextual Behavioral Science entitled “The Centrality of Sense of Self in
Psychological Flexibility Processes: What the Neurobiological and Psychological
Correlates of Psychedelics Suggest.” The authors are myself, Stu Law, Mark
Malady, Zhuohong Zhu, and Xiaoyu Bai.