Treatments • ACTAcceptance and Commitment Therapy in Los Angeles
Most of the young adults I meet have been waiting to feel ready. The application has been open in a browser tab since last month, and the decision they keep turning over never gets any closer to made.
Acceptance and commitment therapy, usually shortened to ACT, works on the waiting itself rather than on getting the thoughts to settle down first.
Recognizing the patternYou might be here because…
If you're a parentYour teen has quietly stopped trying things they used to be good at, and calls it not caring.
Your college student says they’re “fine,” and then doesn’t leave the apartment for three days.
You’ve watched them talk themselves out of something they wanted, and you couldn’t find a way to argue with it.
If you're a young adultYou know what you want to be doing, and you can’t seem to make yourself start.
You’ve gotten good at explaining why now isn’t the right time.
The list of things you work around has grown slowly enough that you didn’t notice it happening.
What looks like a motivation problem is usually avoidance doing its job. Stepping around something that feels threatening brings real relief, which is often what makes the pattern so difficult to interrupt, and that relief tends to wear off quickly.
The treatmentWhat is ACT, and how does it work?
Acceptance and commitment therapy is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy developed by the psychologist Steven Hayes and colleagues, and the name describes the two halves of the work.
Where some approaches begin by testing whether an anxious thought is accurate, ACT begins with a different question, which is how much that thought is allowed to decide about your week. A thought can be entirely believable and still be a poor guide for what you do next.
For many of the teens and young adults I work with, this is often the part that lands. They’ve already tried to think their way out, and they’ve usually been told to stop overthinking, which has never once worked.
Acceptance
Making room for difficult thoughts and feelings rather than spending the day fighting them or waiting for them to pass.
Commitment
Getting specific about what actually matters to you, and taking steps in that direction while those feelings are still present.
The course of treatmentWhat the work looks like
01
Noticing thoughts as thoughts
Anxious thoughts tend to arrive with the authority of instructions. Part of the early work is learning to hear the difference between “I’m going to embarrass myself” and “I’m having the thought that I’m going to embarrass myself,” which sounds like a small change and often turns out to shift how much the thought can direct.
02
Making room for the feeling
Most people arrive having tried to get rid of the discomfort first and act second. We usually work in the other order, practicing being uncomfortable on purpose in small and planned amounts, so that discomfort gradually stops functioning as a stop sign.
03
Getting specific about what matters
This is the part clients tend to find unexpectedly difficult. We tend to look at what you want your life to be organized around, in concrete terms rather than abstractions, and then at whether your recent weeks have been moving you toward those things or away from them.
04
Taking steps that are small enough to actually take
One of the biggest things I see help is creating structure and purpose again, even before motivation fully returns. We try to size the steps to the week you’re actually in rather than the week you wish you were having.
Over time, most people find that the difficult thoughts still turn up and simply carry less weight in what they choose to do about them.
Your clinicianMeet Brooke Sundin, LMFT
I’m Brooke Sundin, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the founder of Light Minds Child and Family Therapy. I trained in acceptance and commitment therapy through the Institute for Better Health. It’s the one I reach for most often with teens, college students, and young adults who are stuck rather than symptomatic in an obvious way.
I’ve spent over a decade working with children, teens, and families. Alongside ACT, I use cognitive behavioral therapy, exposure and response prevention for OCD, and the SPACE program from the Yale Child Study Center when parents want somewhere to start at home.
I see clients by telehealth throughout California, Florida, Utah, and Tennessee.
Credentials & trainingLicense: California #124192
Additional: TPMF1613 (FL), 14231277-3902 (UT), 2995 (TN)
Education: MS Marriage and Family Therapy, California State University, Long Beach
Certifications: SPACE (Yale Child Study Center), ACT (Institute for Better Health)
What it helpsWhat ACT can help with
Avoidance and Procrastination
This includes the kind that looks like laziness from the outside and feels like paralysis from the inside. The list of things you work around grows slowly, and each thing you skip makes the next one easier to skip.
Anxiety that has started making decisions
The worry itself is often less of a problem than the way plans get quietly shaped around it, until the shape of the week is being set by what feels manageable rather than by what matters.
Perfectionism
It usually matters most when the standard has stopped being motivating and has become the reason nothing gets submitted.
Life transitions
Starting and finishing college both qualify, along with the stretch afterward when the structure that organized the last sixteen years is gone.
Self-esteem and self-criticism
Here the running commentary has become loud enough that people plan their week around it.
Alongside OCD treatment
ACT is often folded in with exposure and response prevention rather than used in its place.
TeensIn the teens I work with, anxiety and low self esteem tend to feed each other. Avoiding a hard situation brings real relief, and it leaves behind the quiet conviction that they couldn’t have handled it anyway. The more they avoid, the smaller their world becomes, and the smaller world then supplies more evidence that they were right to avoid it in the first place.
Therapy for teens →
College students and young adultsWith college students and young adults, it often shows up as a stall instead of a retreat. I see young adults constantly thinking about what they should be doing while feeling unable to take the first step, and I see them become stuck when the pressure to make the “right” decision is heavy enough that they avoid making any decision at all.
Therapy for young adults →
Who I work withACT for teens, college students, and young adults
Getting startedHow we start ACT therapy
We start with a free 15-minute call. You tell me what's been going on, I explain how I work, and we get a sense of whether it's a good fit.
Alongside ERPHow ACT and ERP work together for OCD
Exposure and response prevention is the first-line treatment for OCD, and for OCD it stays the spine of the work. ACT is often folded in alongside it instead of being used in its place.
The reason the two fit together is that they ask for the same thing from different angles. ERP builds tolerance for the discomfort of not performing a compulsion. ACT works on the willingness that makes that tolerable, and on why it’s worth doing in the first place, which is usually a life that has been getting narrower.
Honest fitWhen ACT isn’t the right place to start
If someone is in acute crisis, or there are active safety concerns, outpatient therapy of any kind is not the right first step and a higher level of care comes first. If the presenting problem is OCD, we usually start with ERP and bring ACT in as the work progresses. If an eating disorder or substance use is the primary concern, those need treatment designed for them, and I will refer.
TESTIMONIALSWhat clients say
Brooke has been extremely helpful in supporting our little one around their anxiety. She's introduced a lot of tools for emotional regulation which has allowed our son to re-gain his confidence. Brooke also has done a great job at making sure we as parents have the tools and language to support our son at home.
H.L.Brooke is a thoughtful and insightful clinician. She has helped our teen daughter rebuild her confidence and ability to handle anxiety. She's also given us tools as parents to support our daughter at home.
L.N.Common questionsQuestions people ask about ACT
Is acceptance and commitment therapy a form of CBT?
ACT is part of the cognitive behavioral family, and it is often described as a third-wave behavioral therapy. It shares the same research tradition, and it differs mainly in where it puts its attention, which is on your relationship to thoughts and feelings rather than on the accuracy of their content.
How many sessions does ACT usually take?
That depends on what we are working on and how much of the week the avoidance is currently organizing. I would rather talk it through on the consultation call than give you a number that turns out not to describe your situation.
Does acceptance mean I have to be okay with how I feel?
No, and this is probably the most common misreading of the name. Acceptance here means stopping the fight with a feeling that is already present, rather than approving of it or deciding it is fine. Many people find it is the fighting, and not the feeling itself, that has been taking up much of the day.
What does the first session look like?
We spend most of it on what has been getting avoided and what has been getting lost to it. You will usually leave with one specific thing to notice during the week, rather than a homework assignment.
Do you take insurance?
I am an out-of-network provider, which means I don’t bill insurance directly. I provide superbills that many PPO plans reimburse, and I have a limited number of sliding scale spots. Contact me directly for more information on billing and fees.
Do you work with parents as well?
With teens I usually do, because a household can end up organized around the avoidance without anyone intending it. With young adults I am thoughtful about involving parents based on the client’s age, needs, and consent.
Location & telehealthAreas we serve
I’m based in Los Angeles, CA, and I'm licensed in California, Florida, Utah, and Tennessee. All sessions take place over secure video, so there's no commute and no waiting room.
Curious if ACT is right for you?
If anything on this page sounded familiar, that's reason enough to reach out. I provide a free 15-minute consultation to answer questions and assess fit.