ACT Therapy at Wellness Hills in Chester, New Jersey helps adults reduce avoidance and unhook from anxious thoughts and urges so they can take values-based action.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people reduce avoidance and unhook from anxious thoughts, urges, and perfectionistic rules, so they can take values-based action even when discomfort shows up.
At Wellness Hills in Chester, New Jersey, our clinicians use ACT most often for anxiety, OCD/compulsions, and avoidance-driven depression (including rumination and perfectionism). For a broader view of treatment options, visit our therapies page.
We integrate ACT into our PHP, IOP, and outpatient programs, and track progress with structured symptom and functioning measures to adjust the plan when improvement stalls. Treatment is individualized, clinically guided, and focused on building practical skills that support real-world functioning.
Acceptance of a difficult situation does not mean you have to like the thought or agree with it; it means you stop spending your energy trying to suppress it.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a talk therapy that teaches you to accept difficult thoughts/feelings instead of fighting them, using mindfulness and acceptance to build psychological flexibility, helping you live a meaningful life by taking actions aligned with your core values through six core processes: acceptance, cognitive defusion, being present, self-as-context, values, and committed action.
At Wellness Hills, the initial phase focuses on immediate symptom stabilization to ensure a safe environment for recovery. For example, for OCD, ACT is sequenced after safety stabilization. In PHP, we emphasize defusion before values.
At our center, you will be working with professionals like:
The central goal of ACT is psychological flexibility. This means learning to live a full and meaningful life, even when you have difficult thoughts or feelings.
The focus of the therapy is not to help someone eliminate bad feelings; instead, ACT focuses on teaching someone skills to:
Value-based living doesn’t mean setting one-time goals but making ongoing choices that often matter over time. For example:
ACT can be especially useful for people who feel stuck, because they spend a lot of energy trying to control or avoid their difficult thoughts and feelings.
A clinician may use ACT for people dealing with:
A trained therapist can help examine specific situations to determine whether ACT is a good path for a client.
Some symptoms require immediate clinical attention before ACT or other outpatient therapy can be effective.
These include suicidal thoughts, inability to maintain personal safety, threats or violence, severe self-neglect, signs that may be consistent with psychosis or mania, or severe intoxication or withdrawal risk.
If you are in immediate danger, call 911. If you are having thoughts of self-harm, call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. ACT skills are not a substitute for crisis stabilization.
In a mental health emergency, call 988 for crisis support, contact emergency services, or go to the nearest emergency room. Ensure safety first, which allows therapy to be effective later.
Sometimes, ACT is not the best choice to use on its own. If you are in a crisis, in an unsafe home, or having a very hard time taking care of yourself, you need more support first.
In these cases, a health professional might suggest:
Think of it like building a house: you have to make sure the ground is steady and safe before you start practicing the skills to decorate the rooms.
ACT uses six core interconnected processes (often referred to as the hexaflex) to cultivate psychological flexibility.
Skills practice between sessions is an important part of treatment, especially in PHP and IOP, where structure supports repetition and generalization.
ACT is often integrated with CBT or DBT skills when clinically appropriate. For some individuals, psychiatry services and medication management, provided by a PMHNP, may help stabilize symptoms so therapy skills can be applied more effectively. Medication decisions are coordinated clinically; therapy focuses on skill-building, behavior change, and values-based action rather than medication advice.
Find out your personal coverage & options for treatment with a free verification of benefits from our admissions team. Whether you come to our programs or not we will ensure that you receive personalized recommendations for treatment based on your needs.
In our PHP Acceptance and Commitment Therapy program in Chester, a client spends the day with us and goes home at night.
The IOP allows a client to live at home while attending therapy several days a week in Chester. This level of care focuses on applying ACT skills in a client’s real-world environment.
Weekly outpatient ACT therapy generally focuses on maintaining progress and strengthening a client’s commitment to their values.
Average 5.0 Rating
"I felt supported, understood, and never judged. The therapists here actually listen, and the groups helped me build confidence and skills I didn’t even know I needed. I’m healthier, calmer, and finally hopeful about my future. I’m so grateful for the care I received.”
Client Satisfaction
A trained therapist can help decide which approach is the best fit for the client based on the severity of their struggles, their readiness for therapy, and what they hope to achieve. If motivation or follow-through is the main barrier, Motivational Interviewing (MI) can be used to strengthen readiness before moving into skills-based work like ACT.
CBT is a goal-oriented therapy that treats your thoughts like a habit you can break. It can help you spot unhelpful thoughts (like “I’m going to fail”) and examine the facts to see whether they are actually true. You then work to swap those negative thoughts for more realistic, balanced ones. CBT can be good for people who want a structured, short-term plan to fix specific problems like phobias, social anxiety, or panic attacks.
ACT is a thought acceptor that teaches you to stop fighting your brain, but treat thoughts as just words in your head that don’t have to control what you do. You then focus your energy on taking actions that match your personal values. It can be good for people dealing with chronic worry or perfectionism, or those who find that trying to fix their thoughts just makes them more stressed.
ACT is a thought acceptor, but DBT is an emotion regulator. DBT is a skills-heavy therapy originally made for people with very intense, overwhelming emotions. It can be good for people who feel like their emotions are a rollercoaster, struggle with relationships, or have self-destructive urges.
Wellness Hills provides guidance on insurance coverage for therapy in NJ, offering free insurance verification and clarifying deductibles, copays, and session limits before you begin treatment.
ACT is typically billed under broader psychotherapy or outpatient mental health codes, such as:
Insurance and Verification
In-Network: Major NJ providers (e.g., Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, and Cigna) often cover ACT if it is medically necessary. You may only be responsible for a copay.
ACT-informed care may involve licensed therapists providing individual and group sessions, group facilitators in PHP or IOP, psychiatric providers such as a PMHNP for medication management when indicated, and care coordination staff who support scheduling, communication, and continuity of care.
Telehealth uses video calls or phones to provide therapy online. However, it is not a universal substitute for all treatment modalities. To maintain progress during transitions, a provider may follow a structured assessment process, like:
When looking for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in NJ, here are some of the items to look for:
Quality programs use regular questionnaires like the PHQ-9 for depression, GAD-7 for anxiety, and PCL-5 for trauma to track a client’s health. At Wellness Hills, the clinical team regularly reviews these specific scores. If a client’s scores on the PHQ-9, GAD-7, or PCL-5 stop improving or get worse, the team immediately updates the treatment plan. This ensures care is based on clear data rather than guesses. Primary therapists and Paula Weisman, PMHNP-BC, use these scores to decide if therapy or medication needs to be adjusted.
A good mental health plan should be a complete map for your recovery that includes these key parts:
The therapy method is just a tool; the plan ensures the tool actually helps you get better.
Wellness Hills Mental Health Treatment is a state-licensed facility (NJ Dept. of Health License No. 70290104). Our ACT therapy for depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), trauma- and stressor-related disorders, borderline personality disorder, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), among other mental health conditions recognized in the DSM-5 category.
The first step is a confidential clinical assessment to determine whether ACT is appropriate and which level of care, PHP, IOP, or outpatient, fits best. Privacy, safety, and clarity guide the process.
The first week includes a clinical assessment, discussion of goals, program fit, scheduling, coordination with psychiatry if indicated, and baseline measures such as PHQ-9 or GAD-7. Treatment planning is collaborative and individualized.
Expected Progress in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Weeks 1–2:
Weeks 3–6:
Weeks 7–10:
These FAQs cover the ACT questions we typically review during screening, intake, and the first few sessions.
ACT is a behavioral therapy focused on building skills to relate differently to thoughts and emotions while taking action aligned with values.
ACT is commonly used when anxiety or intrusive thoughts persist despite efforts to control them. A clinician can assess fit.
CBT emphasizes changing thought content. ACT emphasizes changing the relationship to thoughts and acting on values.
Yes. ACT can be coordinated with psychiatry services when medication support is clinically indicated.
Yes. ACT is integrated into PHP, IOP, and outpatient levels of care at Wellness Hills.
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline | 988 Lifeline – Official U.S. crisis hotline site.
APA Services | Psychotherapy CPT Codes & Reimbursement (Health Codes) – APA Services guide to psychotherapy billing codes and reimbursement considerations.
Kaiser Permanente Washington Provider Manual | Mental Health Medical Necessity – Kaiser Permanente coverage criteria page explaining medical necessity for mental health services.
American Psychiatric Association | Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) – Official APA overview of the DSM.
