Feelings, Action, ACT, ADHD CBT, and Behavioral Activation

My question about Behavioral Activation was this: it looks like it focuses a lot on feelings and mood. But isn’t that the opposite of what ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) teaches?

Maybe not really. Discussing it here.

ACT does not say feelings are unimportant. It says feelings should not be in charge. You can notice them, accept them, and understand them—but they should not decide whether you act or not. This helped me out of the unending quagmire of solving and perfecting oneself while life moves on around you.

So a simple way to understand this is: Feelings give information. Feelings do not give orders.

Behavioral Activation often asks: “What activities affect my mood?” This can be helpful if you treat mood as feedback. But it becomes a problem if you start letting your mood decide everything.

For me, from material on Behavioral Activation, the most useful part of Behavioral Activation is that it gives structure to action.

It encourages you to:

Choose specific activities
Make them small and manageable
Break them into steps
Schedule them
Do them even if they are not perfect
Then review what happened

This is very similar to what is done in ADHD training and adult ADHD CBT. We all know organization matters. We need to know what to do before we can do it. We need to make things into the smallest steps possible so that we can actually do them. But only after repeatedly going through material related to executive functions and ADHD training did I actually start using them.

In ADHD CBT, a common problem is: “I know what to do, but I can’t organize it, start it, continue it, or finish it.”

So ADHD CBT focuses on building external structure, such as:

• Planning
• Prioritizing
• Scheduling
• Using reminders
• Reducing friction
• Breaking tasks into smaller parts
• Managing procrastination

Behavioral Activation does something similar, but from the depression side. It says that when people start avoiding things—like work, social contact, or meaningful activities—their mood often gets worse. So the goal is to slowly rebuild action in small steps.

ACT adds another important idea: values. ACT asks: “What matters to you, even if you don’t feel like doing it right now?”

The final takeaway looks like this:

• Choose activities based on your values
• Make them very small
• Schedule them clearly
• Do them without waiting for motivation

This way, feelings are not ignored. But they are also not given unnecessary importance. They are not in control.

Values decide the direction. Structure helps you take action. Mood is just feedback.

Knowing this is one thing; the usual problem is performing this. Just like we write detailed tabs so we know exactly what notes to play and movements to do, and then go to just the very first bar of music and actually collect the notes and play them, let us move forward slowly in movable chunks.

Disclaimer:
This article/video is for educational and reflective purposes only. It is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Behavioral Activation, ACT, CBT, ADHD treatment, and depression treatment should be understood and applied with the help of qualified mental health professionals when needed. If you are dealing with severe depression, suicidal thoughts, trauma, bipolar symptoms, medication-related concerns, or difficulty functioning, please seek professional help.