I saw this in a letter from Steven Hayes and thought I might pass this concept along here for you all to review and consider:
A person has greater response flexibility when:
1. They have multiple alternative ways to act in response to a given situation. They know that those actions are sometimes performed, and they feel they are capable of performing them competently.
That flexibility means the person “feels free” in the sense that there are many different successful actions available to them, and they feel that these actions will lead to positive outcomes if they follow them out.
(this would be the Values and Committed action processes)
2. There are many ways available to the person to perform a given action, so even if one way forward is closed off, they can explore other ways.
Suppose there are two people who always take the same route to the same grocery store, even though there are many grocery stores in the area and several ways to get to each store.
Person 1 has never explored alternate routes or alternate stores.
Person 2 knows several alternate routes and alternate stores.
Superficially both people may look equally rigid in their choice of stores, but if that store collapses in a hurricane, Person 2 will immediately be shown to have far more response flexibility.
Take Away
When it comes to helping folks pivot from a more rigid view to a more flexible view, just having conversations where their awareness is expanded is often times all that is needed to help someone become “unstuck” since they are aware of alternative options.
Focused Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is heavily based on this notion, focus in on one issue or possible issue, notice what comes up for the client, have them identify or name the situation, encourage them to let go of the rigid viewpoint (even if it is a valid viewpoint) soften into the moment creating a space that is more open and present, then expand outward and look for alternatives.
Another way to think about this is the “Principle of Small Changes”, where little possibilities are explored based upon values and then little experiments are run where the client is highly confident that they will be able to accomplish the task is run.
Either way, we are in both cases, simply making alternatives known, allowing for a flexible response should the main avenue become blocked for whatever reason.
