Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Houston for anxiety, depression, trauma, and substance use. ACT builds psychological flexibility so your values, not your symptoms, set the direction; at Heights it is woven through individual and group work at every level of care.
01Values-Based Treatment
02Psychological Flexibility
03Works Across Diagnoses
04Private Pay · Superbills
What It Is
Most of us respond to painful thoughts and feelings by fighting them: suppressing, arguing, avoiding, numbing. ACT begins from an observation backed by a large body of research: the fight itself often costs more than the feeling, and what you spend your life avoiding quietly ends up organizing it.
ACT, developed by Dr. Steven Hayes and colleagues, trains psychological flexibility. You learn to unhook from thoughts rather than obey or argue with them, a skill ACT calls defusion. You practice making room for uncomfortable feelings instead of arranging your life to avoid them. You get clear, sometimes for the first time, about what you actually value. Then you commit to small, concrete actions in that direction, whether or not the anxiety happens to be quiet that day.
The name is the method: accept what is genuinely outside your control, and commit to what is not.
The Evidence
ACT is supported by hundreds of randomized controlled trials across anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and substance use, and it is recognized as an evidence-based treatment within mainstream clinical psychology, including by the American Psychological Association clinical division. Psychological flexibility, the capacity ACT trains, is one of the better-studied predictors of functioning in the modern clinical literature.
What the evidence does not do is put a fixed number on your course of treatment. ACT can be brief and focused or woven through a longer program. We will not quote a session count before an assessment.
Who It Helps
When avoiding the feared thing has quietly become the organizing principle of your week.
ACT targets the withdrawal spiral directly: less action, less life, more time alone with the mind.
Learning to have an urge without becoming it is a core recovery skill, and ACT trains it directly.
Some of the strongest ACT evidence: building a full life alongside what cannot simply be removed.
If you have argued with your own mind for years and lost, defusion offers a different move entirely.
Waiting to feel ready, confident, or calm before living. ACT reverses the order.
The Framework
01
Coming back from the past and the feared future to the only place choices exist.
02
Unhooking from thoughts and urges so they inform you without commanding you.
03
Naming what you want your life to be about, specifically and honestly.
04
Small, repeated moves toward those values, even while symptoms are present.
What To Expect
ACT sessions are practical and often surprisingly lively. Expect exercises, metaphors, and real practice, not just conversation about the week.
You might practice watching thoughts arrive and pass without grabbing them, or take a feeling you have been avoiding and find out where it actually lives in the body. Values work is concrete rather than sentimental: what matters to you, what you would do this week if it mattered more than the discomfort, and what got in the way last time you tried.
Between sessions there are experiments to run in real life, because flexibility is built in exactly the situations that used to shrink you. Your clinician tracks what the practice produces and adjusts the plan with you.
Where It Fits
ACT runs through our levels of care. In Individualized Intensive Programming, it can be a daily thread rather than a weekly hour. In PHP and IOP, ACT concepts and skills appear in both individual sessions and group programming.
ACT pairs especially well with DBT, which supplies crisis-tested skills while ACT supplies values and direction, and with ERP, where willingness is what makes exposure work possible. This page sits alongside our mental health treatment program and our substance use treatment.
Who Delivers It
ACT at Heights Behavioral Health is delivered by licensed clinicians, all at the master level or above, who integrate it with the rest of your plan, including trauma work and, when useful, evaluation and medication support from the Medical Director and psychiatrists on staff.
Clinical care is led by Joni Ogle, LCSW, CSAT, who has been licensed for more than 37 years and specializes in trauma and co-occurring conditions.
Guides and Resources
Plain-language articles from our clinical team on acceptance, values, and moving forward when difficult thoughts and feelings show up.
Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy: What Actually Happens at the Ranch Internal Family Systems: Why Therapists Keep Talking About Parts Somatic Experiencing: Trauma Treatment That Starts in the Body Ready When You Are
A confidential conversation about ACT at Heights and the level of care that fits where you are.
Start Confidentially
Tell us a little about what is going on and the best way to reach you. A member of our admissions team will follow up personally and walk you through next steps. Please do not include sensitive medical details in the form.
Common Questions
If you do not see your question here, call our admissions team at (877) 549-5102 and we will walk you through it.
Heights Behavioral Health is a private-pay, out-of-network practice. We provide superbills so you can pursue out-of-network reimbursement if your plan offers it, and we can verify your benefits before you commit. See our admissions page.
No. Acceptance in ACT is precise: stop spending your life fighting internal experiences you do not control, so that energy is available for the actions you do control. It is closer to courage than resignation, and it is measured in what you do next, not in how you feel about it.
Traditional CBT works to change the content of thoughts. ACT changes your relationship to them: a thought can be present, loud, and unobeyed. In practice the approaches overlap and borrow from each other, and your clinician will use what your situation actually calls for.
Yes. Hundreds of randomized controlled trials support ACT across anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and substance use, and psychological flexibility is one of the better-studied constructs in modern clinical psychology.
ACT can be brief and targeted or run as a thread through a longer program. The honest answer depends on what you are carrying and what you want your life to look like, which is what assessment is for. We will not quote a session count before one.
Yes. Urges and cravings are exactly the kind of internal event ACT trains you to experience without obeying, and values work rebuilds the life that makes recovery worth protecting. Here it runs alongside structured addiction treatment, not instead of it.
ACT has research support across anxiety, depression, trauma, and co-occurring substance use. Rather than fighting to eliminate symptoms before life can resume, it builds psychological flexibility so symptoms lose their grip on your choices. Explore the conditions we treat to see how it fits your situation.
Our admissions team answers seven days a week, from 8:00 am to 7:30 pm Central Time. Call (877) 549-5102 to talk with a real person about what is going on, your schedule, and whether our programs are the right fit. If you reach out after hours, leave a message or send the consultation form and we will return your call as soon as we open. If this is an emergency, call 911. If you or someone you love is in a mental health crisis, call or text 988.
Clinical Review
Written by Joni Ogle, LCSW, CSAT, CEO of Heights Behavioral Health, and clinically reviewed by Deborah Darnell-Drake, LCSW-S, ACSW, LMFT, Chief Clinical Officer. Heights Behavioral Health provides licensed outpatient behavioral health care for adults in Houston, Texas, delivered by master’s-level clinicians and licensed professionals. This page is intended to explain HBH services and does not replace an individualized clinical assessment. Last reviewed October 2026.
Explore Heights
Every program, condition, and specialty at Heights connects to one coordinated outpatient team in the Houston Heights. Start wherever fits your situation, or call admissions and we will point you to the right place.
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“From my very first interaction, I felt welcomed, respected, and genuinely cared for. The staff took the time to listen, answer my questions, and create a treatment plan that fit my needs.”
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“Our family was scared and unsure where to turn. From the first conversation with Jeff and Beckie to walking through the doors, we felt genuinely cared for.”
Contact Admissions
One confidential call, an honest assessment, and a clear answer about whether ACT belongs in your plan.
Crisis Notice: Heights Behavioral Health is not an emergency service. If you or someone you love is in immediate danger, call 911. If you are in a mental health crisis, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7.
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