For the past three years the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Pain Management Cente has run multidisciplinary pain management programmes based on ACT. There are two programmes; three week fulltime and eight weeks part time. Our data shows large, clinically significant gains that are maintained at up to six months follow-up. We will soon have enough data to comment on twelve months follow-up and hope to run an RCT in the next year or so. If you would like more information feel free to email me on Tony.Merritt@sswahs.nsw.gov.au.

We have a thriving research community at the University of Wollongong. Here are some of our current projects related to ACT.

Evaluating the efficacy of ACT with the NSW police. A wait-list control trial (Bilich, Bayliss, and Ciarrochi).

Developing and validating the Survey of Life Principles, a new measure meant to support the values component of ACT (Ciarrochi & Bailey). We have collected substantial data already with adults (Stefanic & Ciarrochi; Frearson & Ciarrochi). We will be collecting a large amount of data with older adolescents (aged 17 or so) by November 2008.

Evaluating a web-based ACT intervention for people diagnosed with cancer (Ciarrochi, Lane, and Blackledge)

Evaluating the personal values questionnaire (Blackledge & Ciarrochi)

An ongoing longitudinal study of the role of mindfulness, experiential avoidance, thought suppression, alexithymia, and other ACT-related variables in predicting social and emotional well-being amongst adolescents. This project is now in its sixth year. It involves many researchers , including Ciarrochi, Heaven, Leason, Jordan, Supavadeeprasit

We have a variety of projects involving couples, and another involving kids in foster care. We do our best to get ACT-relevant variables into the studies

EXPERIENTIAL AVOIDANCE AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ACCEPTANCE PROCESSES IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL RECOVERY FROM ENDURING MENTAL ILLNESS

AUTHORS: • VINICIUS R. SIQUEIRA, BA (UNIPAR – BR), Specialist (Lato Sensu) in Behavior Analysis and Functional Analytic Therapy (UNIPAR – BR). University of Wollongong, Psychology Masters Research Student.
• LINDSAY G. OADES, B.A.(Hons) Adel, PhD (Woll), MBA with Distinction (Wollongong) - Senior Lecturer (Clinical Psychology). University of Wollongong.

INSTITUTION: School of Psychology & Illawarra Institute for Mental Health, University of Wollongong - AU.

ABSTRACT of Research:
• Objective: The concept of Recovery has been generating significant interest in mental health contexts, as has the new behavioral change approach of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) within psychotherapy contexts. This study examines the role of psychological acceptance (PA) and experiential avoidance (EA), two core concepts of ACT, in the psychological recovery process of people with enduring mental illness.
• Methods: Forty-five published recovery narratives were analyzed seeking to investigate the frequency and role of EA and PA given by those narrating their recovery journey. Two case studies were used to illustrate how EA and PA occur within narratives and how their use may vary across different stages of psychological recovery.
• Results: Observing the frequency and role of PA in self-reported successful recovery in the publish narratives and its appearance in higher stages of recovery in the case studies, it can be seen a possible corroboration of data that lead to the idea that the prevalence of PA in a person’s recovery seemly correlates with positive developments in ones journey of recovery. Conversely EA is seen through its frequency and role in the publish narratives and case studies as possibly associated with failures when dealing with aspects of mental illness.
• Conclusions: This study showed preliminary data on PA and EA in the recovery process, however further quantitative research is required to support and validate the initial findings of this study.

(For more information on the research please be free to contact: Vinicius Siqueira at ssnezao@yahoo.com.br)