CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

COMMENTARIES ON TIMOTHY A. SISEMORE’S “ACCEPTANCE AND COMMITMENT THERAPY”
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A Biblical Counseling Response to Timothy
Sisemore’s “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy:
A Christian Translation”
Winston T. Smith
Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation
Dr. Timothy Sisemore’s article represents an important
engagement with ACT utilizing Eric Johnson’s
translation approach. I appreciate his observation that
one of the difficulties of translation is our relative inexperience
with one of the languages involved and few
of us are equally fluent in theological and psychological
dialects. My native tongue is theology and psychology
is a secondary dialect, but as a biblical counselor I
am familiar with third wave CBT, primarily DBT, and
have been sharpened by it. However, in the interest of
full disclosure, I confess that I have not had significant
exposure to ACT and have not read Steve Hayes
work, though I believe I can provide feedback from a
biblical counseling perspective that will contribute to
a constructive engagement with ACT.
Sisemore wisely starts his translation process by
identifying several “core constructs” of ACT and then
following the first three of Johnson’s translation steps:
thoughtfully comprehending, evaluating, and translating.
Only then does he bring the core elements together
within the whole of ACT’s hexaflex model and
takes a few initial steps into the process of transposing
of ACT into a Christian model. I think his instinct
to translate core concepts and not just techniques is
critical if we are to avoid the errors of pragmatism and
the importation of anti-Christian concepts into our
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counseling.
His translations of core constructs into a Christian
worldview are thoughtful and he makes important
distinctions between concepts that require
“paraphrasing” versus “transliteration” versus the
creation of a new term. He identifies appropriate
Christian categories that correspond to the element
of ACT being explored. For instance, he explains
the core concept of “psychological flexibility” which
requires understand suffering as a natural part of living
while also recognizing how suffering is amplified
when rigid psychological processes prevent constructive
engagement with circumstances. Sisemore sees
this reflected in the way Christians at times have rigid
understandings of what it means to follow Christ in
particular contexts and so lock themselves into responses
and behaviors that amplify suffering. He gives
a brief example of a man whose narrow understanding
of following Christ means primarily being a husband
might find it difficult to know how to follow Christ
after his wife dies. In translating this concept he notes
that the Christian life calls for understanding how the
Holy Spirit is active in cultivating an ongoing positive
process of what it means to follow Christ in the everchanging
circumstances in our lives.
In responding to Sisemore’s work, I would like
to reflect on two core concepts, “functional contextualization”
and “self as context” that may best
demonstrate how a biblical counselor seeks to engage
constructively with a secular approach.
Functional Contextualism
Sisemore explains that unlike traditional CBT,
ACT does seek to evaluate cognition and behavior
within a framework of objective truth in order to
bring individuals into greater alignment with it. Instead,
ACT seeks to understand the individual within
his or her own framework of purpose and meaning
and to help the individual move towards meaningful
goals within that framework. Truth is a functional category
within the context of the individual’s life rather
than an ontological reality. As Sisemore explains, ACT
is not anti-ontology but rather a-ontological for the
purposes of facilitating growth. Sisemore surmises
that, “This may be totally unacceptable for a biblical
counselor who holds to his or her particular understanding
of Scripture as Truth, and aims to bring the
counselee’s thinking, behavior, and emotions into
conformity with it.” However, he proposes that the
Christian counselor may liken this to adopting the
rules of a game, say basketball, understanding that
they are arbitrary, for the purposes of achieving gains
in the context of the game itself like relationship
building. In other words, the Christian counselor may
accept a person’s stated or assumed framework, helping
them to grow within it, without insisting that it
square perfectly with Christian norms or dogma.
Christian Psychology