Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a mindfulness-based behaviour therapy that utilises an electric mix of metaphor, paradox, and mindfulness skills. In this context mindfulness is consciously focusing on the here-and-now.

Being open, interested, and receptive to the moment, rather than getting lost in our thoughts, can help with painful thoughts, feelings and sensations making them appear less challenging and lessening their influence over our lives. 

ACT is a type of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)with a distinguished difference around thinking and behaviour. In CBT, the therapist will work with you to to help you identify patterns of thinking, (cognition) and acting (behaviour) that are making you more likely to suffer anxiety, or that are keeping you from improving or settling down once you become anxious. During ACT the therapist teaches you to just notice and accept your thoughts and feelings without trying to change them. 

 Where CBT has symptom reduction in mind, CBT does not, believing that ongoing attempts to eliminate symptoms can, in fact, create clinical depressive disorders or make them worse. 

Think of this this way: If we take anxiety for example, the more we try not to think about something we are anxious about, the more we think about it. Have you noticed that? We become obsessed with trying to eliminate it from our lives that it is always in the forefront of our minds. We become preoccupied with anxiety, therefore, we become even more anxious.