One of my goals as your therapist is to help you develop Psychological Flexibility.

Psychological Flexibility is a concept that comes from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy literature. Psychological Flexibility is the ability to adapt to the realities of the daily ups and downs we have as human beings. My shorthand way of describing Psychological Flexibility is “Accepting that on the very, very best day of your life, you still have to stop and go to the bathroom.” Maybe you can remember being a kid and having a really fun exciting day. For me, I think of going to Bell’s Amusement Park on the day my dad’s company had a family picnic day which include all you could ride at Bell’s. I could ride my favorite rides over and over. I didn’t have to worry about wasting my tickets on a ride that wasn’t worth, so I could try a new ride. I wanted to go from ride to ride and ride again. I didn’t want to stop to go the bathroom or walk over to the Expo Center to eat lunch. But I had to go to the bathroom a few times and I had to go eat lunch after all it was included! I really didn’t want to have to stop and wait for my parents to talk to some adults that my dad knew from work. We weren’t at Bell’s to talk! We were at Bell’s to ride! That’s a long way of saying, “everyday isn’t a day at Bell’s with a free ride pass.” Some days you have to go to school. Some days you have to go to a family reunion. Some days you have to watch your sister’s softball game. Those days were not as fun. Some Saturdays you had to run errands with your parents. I didn’t jump out of bed for those days. As a boy, I didn’t have much Psychological Flexibility. I was more likely to wine and complain. I was more likely to miss out on any fun at a softball game because I didn’t want to be there.

As an adult, I’ve learned that some days you find out your best friend has cancer and you have to have Psychological Flexibility so that you can support your friend and deal with your own feelings too. As an adult and parent, I’ve learned that your child can be amazing and awesome and super helpful one minute and the next minute - not so much. As a parent I need Psychological Flexibility to understand that is normal child development, a child isn’t a little adult, and I need to be able to handle moments with best practice parenting skills.

As human being we are have good days and bad days, but mostly we have days that are a mix of pretty good and nothing that bad. Can we handle that reality without over or under reacting? Can we be late and not have it ruin our day? Can we face the reality that sometimes every road has construction, my partner just got upset about something at work, the kids are fidgety, and I need to be able to not just “handle it” but be the best me I can be?

As I mentioned, Psychological Flexibility is a concept from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

Here are a few books that help develop Psychological Flexibility.

The Happiness Trap (Second Edition): How to Stop Struggling and Start Living by Russ Harris (Author) is a great book to start. Russ Harris one of the people who developed Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and he wrote this in an easy to read and understand style. In other words, it doesn’t have all that therapy lingo.

The Illustrated Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living by Russ Harris (Author), Bev Aisbett (Illustrator) is the same text as the book above but illustrated to make the concepts easier to understand and a little fun.

ACT Daily Journal: Get Unstuck and Live Fully with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy by Diana Hill PhD (Author), Debbie Sorensen PhD (Author) is an excellent journal that provides ways to learn and develop the skills for Psychological Flexibility a little bit everyday. It is a great resource.