Dr. Kevin Polk

Whether you are working with your own pain or helping others, this can be a useful exercise.

First establish the ACT – the Matrix point of view. You can use…

1. Who is important to you? (goes in the lower right)
2. What gets in the way of moving toward who’s important to you, including pain? (lower left)
3. What have you been doing to deal with or reduce the pain? If you’ve been trying to think yourself out of pain, that maps to the lower left. Taking pills, exercising, stretching and such map to the (upper left).
4. What could you do to move Toward who’s important to you AND have the pain? (upper right)

• You will learn how to establish the point of view (technically called Functional Contextualism) and begin some of the basic exercises for using ACT – the Matrix for Pain.
• You will also learn how to assign a special kind of homework unique to ACT – the Matrix.

• We will review “homework” and then delve more deeply into the “unworkable change agenda” exercise that is done using Quadrants 2 and 3 of the Matrix.
• We will focus on the unworkable aspects of “pain.”
• We will finish with the “Noticing Hooks” exercises, which becomes the standard “homework.”

• After reviewing some “Noticing Hooks” homework, we will do a bit more on the Values and Committed Action work.
• At this point we will be ready for more serious “Noticing the Difference” work (discrimination training).
• We will switch our attention from Quadrants to the two lines of the Matrix and practice the “sorting of pain” experiences into the Matrix.
• We will also be talking about how to artfully use positive reinforcement to draw people into the discrimination training.

• Don’t worry, you don’t need to know any music or stage improv, however the Matrix (and ACT in general) is fluid and flexible.
• That means your responses change with the context.
• In this session you will get started on this fluid process as you work with chronic pain clients.

Someone sent me a question asking about difficult toward moves.

This is something that comes up often, the notion that toward moves are easy. The reality is that they are often very difficult.

Recall that when you do the Matrix by quadrants the upper right quadrant are behaviors you can do to move Toward others while having the unwanted feelings from the lower left quadrant.

If you have ever asked someone out on a date you might have noticed this process. You were afraid of rejection, but you had that fear and went ahead and asked for a date to move Toward a relationship.

Of course you may have decided to avoid the fear (upper left quadrant) and not ask.

Some toward moves are very, very hard. Soldiers, police officers, fire fighters and others take fear along with them as they go about their duties. These can be very difficult toward moves.

All of us end up having to confront someone about something, and often the fear of the loss of the relationship is very hard to have while doing the confronting.

The trick is to know what you value and then commit to making the move toward the value. So if relationships are important to you (you value them), it might just be worth it to take some fear, pain or other unwanted stuff along with you as you move toward the relationship.

The other trick is to notice what unwanted stuff you move away from the most, and how you go about doing the away moves.

There is no magic answer to when to do a Toward move and when to do an Away move. They are both parts of life. The Matrix diagram is about mindfully Noticing as you do toward and away moves and then noticing if the pattern of Away and Toward moves is ultimately moving you toward a valued life.

Be Well,

Kevin

Kevin L. Polk, Ph.D.

Toward and Away Training: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004M8S4Z4

Recall moving Toward someone who was important to you like a friend or family member.

Recall moving Away from an unwanted mental experience like fear, anger or sadness.

Notice the difference between how it feels to recall Toward and how it feels to recall Away behaviors.

Balancing: The goal is a balanced, valued life. While it’s natural to think that ‘Toward’ is ‘better’ and that more life needs to be lived over there, from a Matrix point of view that would be out of balance. Better to hang around the center, staying loose and light on your feet, always ready to choose the next Away or Toward move.

Be well,

Kevin