How This Came About
In February 2004 several beginners, interested but little experienced with ACT, found themselves on the ACT listserve. The idea arose for launching an on-line study group for beginners. Very soon 30 or more folks signed in, and the “ACT study group for beginners” was born.
We began reading the book chapter by chapter, and discussing it on the listserve. The first, theoretical part was tough. Kate Partridge raised the idea of starting each discussion with a summary of a section of the book. The summarizing began on 04/13/04, when we reached the clinical part of the book.
What you find below is a uncensured, uncorrected collection of the summaries. They’re meant for discussion, not for teaching purposes per se, but we are allowing them to become part of this website simply because we hope they might be useful to other beginners. People from 7 countries did parts of it: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom, and the USA. (More countries participated in the discussion: Germany, Israel, Sweden, …) It was fun to participate, and very inspiring, … but sometimes hard too: we chose a fixed schedule of weekly reading, discussing, and sometimes summarizing … but we were willing and committed.
Part of the value in doing this probably cannot be achieved just by reading these products. This way we structured it beginners, hesitatant to take part in discussions between more experienced ACT-ors, had unique learning opportunities by taking part in the beginners’ discussion. The “masters” could watch us and interfered when helpful, which also was stimulating. I can recommend the formula to other beginners and hesitating “lurkers”. It might be worth while to start a second round. But that’s up to others. Meanwhile, here are our written products.
Thanks to all beginners who participated, and to the listserve for the opportunity!