Fledderus, M. (2012). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Public Mental Health Promotion. Thesis. University of Twente.
The main aim of this thesis was to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for adults with mild to moderate depressive symptomatology. The intervention, called ―Living to the full‖, has been developed as both a group and as a self-help course. With this chapter elaborating on the epidemiology of depression and the need for prevention thereof, the following chapter will introduce a new approach to public mental health promotion and explain what the benefits of ACT are. A short introduction to the theoretical background of ACT and processes that ACT targets will be described, as well the aims and structure of the ―Living to the full‖ programme. The chapter ends with an overview of the studies performed. These studies will be described in subsequent chapters.