The Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Model and the Hexaflex

Some nights your mind will not switch off. The same worry circles back, you push it away, and it comes back louder. The harder you try to fix how you feel, the more tangled it gets. If you have spent years trying to think your way out of a feeling and ending up more tired, you are not broken, and you are not failing at it. You are doing what most of us were taught to do.

There is another way to hold all of this, and it does not start with telling you to think positive. The acceptance and commitment therapy model offers a different map. It does not ask you to win the argument with your own thoughts. It asks you to stop fighting them long enough to take one real step toward the life you actually want. At the centre of that map is a simple six-sided diagram called the Hexaflex. This guide explains the ACT model in plain language, walks through the Hexaflex and its six core processes, shows how it differs from CBT, and tells you how to access this kind of therapy in Ontario.

What Is the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Model?

The acceptance and commitment therapy model, or ACT, is an evidence-based talk therapy. Instead of trying to remove difficult thoughts and feelings, it helps you make room for them and keep acting on your values, the things that matter most to you. The goal is psychological flexibility, the ability to stay present and do what matters even when life is hard.

That is the short answer to what is the ACT model. The longer answer is that the ACT model of therapy is less a set of rules and more a way of relating to your own mind. Pain is part of being human; the act therapy model does not promise to delete it. What it offers is a way to carry it that costs you less, so the hard feeling stops running the whole show. The central question in the act therapy process is not “is this thought true?” It is “is this thought helping me build the life I want?” If the answer is no, ACT gives you tools to loosen the thought’s grip so it no longer steers your actions.

What Is Psychological Flexibility?

Psychological flexibility is the ability to stay in contact with the present moment and keep moving toward your values, even when difficult thoughts or feelings show up. It is the central aim of ACT. The six Hexaflex processes are the skills that build it, so you can respond to life on purpose instead of on autopilot.

The Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, the international professional body for ACT, defines psychological flexibility as the ability to contact the present moment more fully as a conscious human being, and to change or persist in behaviour when doing so serves what you value. In plain terms: feeling the feeling, and still choosing the action that matters.

What Is the Hexaflex in ACT?

The Hexaflex is a six-sided diagram that maps the six core processes of acceptance and commitment therapy: acceptance, cognitive defusion, contact with the present moment, self-as-context, values, and committed action. Each point is a skill, and together they build psychological flexibility. Therapists use it as a guide, not a checklist.

You might hear a therapist mention the hexaflex act therapy model and picture something complicated. It is the opposite. The acceptance commitment therapy hexaflex is just a way to see, at a glance, the six skills that help you stop avoiding your life and start living it. The act therapy hexaflex lets you and your therapist look at a struggle from six different angles and ask which skill the moment is calling for. The acceptance and commitment therapy hexaflex is not about being perfect. It is about being whole.

What Are the Six Core Processes of ACT?

The six core processes are acceptance (making room for hard feelings), cognitive defusion (seeing thoughts as thoughts, not facts), contact with the present moment, self-as-context (you are the observer of your experience), values (what matters to you), and committed action (acting on those values). They group into three pillars: Open Up, Be Present, and Do What Matters.

According to the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, these act therapy six core processes are not separate techniques bolted together; they are inter-related parts of one skill, psychological flexibility, and each one is a positive ability you build, not just a problem you avoid. Here is how the six core processes of acceptance and commitment therapy break down across the three pillars.

Pillar One: Open Up (Acceptance and Defusion)

Acceptance. This is making room for difficult feelings instead of fighting them. When you stop wrestling a feeling, it often stops screaming. Acceptance does not mean you like the feeling or want it to stay. It means you let it be there while you get on with your day.

Cognitive defusion. Cognitive defusion means seeing your thoughts as words and pictures passing through your mind, not as literal truths you have to obey. One cognitive defusion example is the gap between “I am a failure” and “I am having the thought that I am a failure.” The first one runs you. The second one gives you a half-step of room. That small space is where choice lives.

Pillar Two: Be Present (Present Moment and Self-as-Context)

Contact with the present moment. This is mindfulness in everyday clothes: being here, in this moment, instead of lost in the past or bracing for the future.

Self-as-context. Self-as-context is the part of you that notices your experience, the observer underneath the thoughts. A common image: you are the sky, and your thoughts are the weather moving through. Storms come and go. The sky stays.

Pillar Three: Do What Matters (Values and Committed Action)

Values. Your values are how you want to show up: as a parent, a partner, a friend, a worker, a person. They are your “why,” and they do not depend on feeling good first.

Committed action. Committed action is taking real steps guided by those values, even small ones, even on hard days. This is where ACT stops being an idea and becomes a life.

The Three Pillars of the ACT Model at a Glance

If the full Hexaflex feels like a lot, the act model three pillars are the simple version. Open Up: let the hard feelings be here. Be Present: come back to right now. Do What Matters: take one step toward your values. The acceptance and commitment therapy components all fit under those three. When you are stuck, you do not need all six at once. You need the next one.

What Are the Main Components of ACT Therapy?

The main components of act therapy are mindfulness, acceptance, and values-based action, woven together through the six Hexaflex processes. The act therapy components combine behavioural science with mindfulness so the work is both practical and grounded. These are not academic ideas. The acceptance and commitment therapy components are life skills you can practise.

You do not have to be in a therapist’s office to begin using the components of act therapy. The next time you feel pressure building, try walking through the act therapy techniques the model is built on:

• Check in. Are you actually here, in this moment, or somewhere in tomorrow? (Be Present)
• Look at the thought. Is it a thought, or are you treating it as a fact? (Defusion)
• Make room. Can you let the feeling sit there without rushing to fix it this second? (Acceptance)
• Find your why. What kind of person do you want to be right now, in this exact situation? (Values)
• Take one step. What small action would your values choose? (Committed Action)

Practising these acceptance and commitment therapy six core processes is how psychological flexibility gets built, not in one breakthrough, but in repetition. This is the quiet engine of staying steady in a world that rarely is.

How Is ACT Different from CBT?

CBT often works to change or challenge unhelpful thoughts. ACT works to change your relationship with those thoughts instead. In ACT, the aim is not to make a thought disappear but to reduce its grip, so it stops steering your actions. Many therapists draw on both, depending on what you need.

That is the heart of act vs cbt. CBT, or cognitive behavioural therapy, often asks “is this thought accurate, and how can I think about it more helpfully?” ACT asks “do I have to obey this thought at all?” Neither one is better than the other. They answer different questions, and a skilled clinician will often blend them. If you want to understand the other side of that pair, our CBT guide explains how cognitive behavioural therapy works.

Is ACT Therapy Effective?

Many people find ACT helpful, and a growing research base supports it. A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis of 39 randomized controlled trials, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, found that internet-delivered ACT produced small positive effects on depression, anxiety, stress, psychological distress, and quality of life, both right after treatment and at follow-up.

One of the most respected features of ACT is how it defines progress. The aim is to build psychological flexibility rather than to erase every symptom. Researchers who study the acceptance and commitment therapy model processes and outcomes use a comprehensive assessment of acceptance and commitment therapy processes to track whether people are becoming more flexible: more able to handle stress, more connected to the people they love, more able to act on their values. Many people report that their quality of life improves as that flexibility grows, even when some anxious or low feelings are still present. That is a gentler and more honest way to think about getting better. The goal is not a life with no hard feelings. The goal is a life that is full despite them.

Can ACT Help with Chronic Anxiety?

Yes, many people find ACT helpful for ongoing anxiety. Rather than trying to make anxious feelings vanish, ACT teaches you to stop fighting them and to keep doing what matters anyway. As anxiety loses its grip on your choices, many people find they can function well even on days when the nervous feeling is still there.

If anxiety has been your constant companion, that reframe can feel like a relief by itself. You are allowed to feel anxious and still live your life. Our guide on anxiety goes deeper into what helps. If your anxiety ever turns into thoughts of harming yourself, please use the crisis resources at the bottom of this page right away.

Where ACT Fits Among Other Approaches

ACT is one path among many, and that is worth saying plainly. Some people do better with CBT, some with mindfulness-based work, some with trauma-focused approaches. There is no single right door. What sets the acceptance and commitment therapy hexaflex apart is its focus on mindfulness and values as the main engine of change, rather than on debating the content of your thoughts.

If you are looking for support for a teenager rather than for yourself, please know that Saalvio’s virtual therapy is for adults in Ontario. A young person in distress can reach Kids Help Phone any time at 1-800-668-6868, or by texting CONNECT to 686868. Your family doctor and your child’s school can also connect you with clinicians who specialize in children and youth.

ACT Therapy in Ontario: How to Start

ACT therapy in Ontario is available through Saalvio. Our clinical team of registered psychotherapists and registered social workers works with acceptance and commitment therapy, alongside other evidence-based approaches, to help you build psychological flexibility and take steps toward what matters to you. Therapy with a Saalvio clinician is offered in Ontario today.

You do not have to figure this out alone, and you do not have to decide everything tonight. Before you book anything, you can message a therapist before you book and ask whatever you need to ask: whether they have worked with someone like you, whether ACT fits what you are carrying, whether they will understand the life you come from. There is no cost and no commitment. Messaging is for questions and brief clarifications; it is not therapy by text, and therapy itself happens in booked sessions.

Every Canadian’s first therapy session with a Saalvio clinician is free, so deciding to try therapy is not a financial gamble on whether the fit will be right. You can learn more about online therapy in Ontario, find support in your area through our pages for therapy in Toronto, therapy in Mississauga, and therapy in Brampton, or read more about how the model works on our ACT therapy page.

Across the rest of Canada and North America, the Saalvio app offers self-help tools, guided practices, mood tracking, and structured self-assessments you can use any time. The app and the therapy service are two different things: the app is self-help you hold in your own hands, and therapy is a conversation with a registered clinician.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Saalvio Editorial Team

Clinically reviewed by Usman Khan, RP (CRPO #13456)