Adapting Psychotherapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for People with Acquired Brain Injury
brain injury
AIDS
Based on a literature review, several alterations of psychotherapy were identified: memory aids (visual resources, workbook, session summaries, written notes), simplified tasks, emphasis on behavioural techniques, repetition of content, structured sessions, incorporating breaks, use of concrete examples, involving relatives in therapy or homework tasks, one-on-one face-to-face sessions, adjusting the number of sessions and the duration of the sessions, and including an initial session focused on psycho-education and normalising reactions to acquired brain injury.Modifications specific to acceptance and commitment therapy can include: summaries of the core components covered in each session, focussing on experiential exercises which are audiotaped, using concrete and personally relevant metaphors and exercises, using shorter mindfulness exercises, providing tangible ideas (for instance the card sorting task as an aid for value exploration), and focussing on promoting values-based goal-directed behaviour and behavioural activation components.