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ACT · Arlington, VA
Psychological flexibility skills for chronic anxiety, OCD, depression, chronic pain, and substance use — for people whose attempts to control their thoughts and feelings have stopped working. Delivered through PHP, IOP, and outpatient therapy for adults in Arlington, Washington, DC, and Northern Virginia.
Medically reviewed by the VABH Medical Team
Who ACT fits
ACT tends to help most where control strategies — avoidance, suppression, willpower — have already been tried and haven't worked.
When years of trying to eliminate anxious thoughts and sensations have only made them louder, ACT changes the target from reducing anxiety to reducing the fight against it.
Learn more about Chronic, treatment-resistant anxietyCompulsions are, at bottom, a control strategy — an attempt to make an uncertain feeling go away. ACT works alongside exposure and response prevention by targeting the willingness to feel uncertainty without acting on it.
Learn more about OCD and compulsive control strategiesPanic often worsens because people organize their entire life around avoiding the next attack. ACT builds a willingness to have physical sensations without the avoidance that keeps the fear circuit primed.
Learn more about Panic disorderDepression frequently runs on rigid rules about what a person should feel or accomplish before life is allowed to move forward. ACT loosens that rulebook and reconnects action with values instead of mood.
Learn more about Depression with heavy self-criticismWhen pain can't be eliminated, the fight to control it becomes its own source of suffering. ACT is one of the better-supported approaches for building a life alongside pain rather than waiting for pain to end first.
Most people in active addiction have tried, hard, to control their use through willpower, rules, and promises. ACT names that pattern directly and offers acceptance and values-based commitment as an alternative to another round of control.
Learn more about Substance use where control has backfiredProcrastination, people-pleasing, and rigid perfectionism are often experiential avoidance in disguise — ways of not feeling something uncomfortable. ACT makes that pattern visible and workable.
Some pain isn't a symptom to fix — it's a proportionate response to loss. ACT helps clients hold grief without getting stuck trying to reason or distract their way out of it.
The six core processes
Six interconnected skills, taught and practiced in session, that together make up what ACT calls psychological flexibility.
Making room for difficult thoughts, feelings, and sensations instead of struggling to suppress or eliminate them — not resignation, but an active willingness to feel what's already there.
Learning to see a thought as a thought — a mental event passing through — rather than a literal truth or command that has to be obeyed or fought.
Noticing what's actually happening right now, rather than living inside a narrative about the past or a rehearsal of the future.
Recognizing the observing self that has held every thought and feeling you've ever had — a stable vantage point that isn't threatened by any single difficult moment.
Getting explicit about what actually matters to you — as a parent, partner, professional, person of faith, or friend — as distinct from what you've been taught you should want.
Building concrete, values-aligned behavior, in workable steps, even when the thoughts and feelings that used to block that action are still present.
Traditional CBT often works to change the content of a thought — challenging its accuracy. ACT changes your relationship to the thought instead, which matters most when a thought is true but unhelpful to fight.
ACT is not used in isolation here. It's combined with CBT, DBT skills, exposure work, and psychiatric care depending on what a particular condition and person require.
Levels of care
An assessment determines the right starting intensity, and ACT is woven into every level rather than offered as a standalone add-on.
Daily individual and group ACT work for anxiety, OCD, depression, or substance use that hasn't responded to weekly outpatient care, combined with psychiatric oversight.
Group-based ACT and skills work several times a week, with day and evening tracks so treatment fits around work or school in Arlington or DC.
Individual ACT sessions to build psychological flexibility skills and keep values-based action moving after a higher level of care.
For anxiety, depression, or OCD where medication is appropriate, our medical staff may prescribe and monitor treatment alongside ACT rather than in place of it.
Across the river from Maryland
Our Arlington center is a short drive from Bethesda, Montgomery County, and Prince George's County. Maryland clients regularly attend in-person PHP and IOP here, and evening tracks keep treatment compatible with a DC workday. Telehealth sessions are available for Virginia residents.
Common questions
ACT is an evidence-based therapy built around psychological flexibility — the ability to stay present with difficult thoughts and feelings while still acting in line with what matters to you. Instead of aiming to eliminate anxiety, intrusive thoughts, or cravings, ACT changes how you relate to them.
CBT typically works to identify and restructure distorted thoughts. ACT doesn't require a thought to be false before you can act differently — it teaches you to notice a thought, let it be there, and still choose a values-based action. The two approaches overlap and are often used together in the same treatment plan.
No. ACT uses present-moment awareness as a skill, not a spiritual practice, and sessions are practical and behavior-focused. Most exercises take a few minutes and are taught the same way any other clinical skill would be.
Yes, particularly as a complement to exposure-based treatment. Willingness to feel uncertainty or physical sensation without acting on it is the same mechanism that makes exposure work, so ACT and ERP fit together naturally.
It's a good fit for people who have spent years trying to control their use through willpower alone. ACT reframes the goal from white-knuckle control to building a life aligned with your values, with acceptance skills to handle cravings when they arise.
Yes, for Virginia residents — our clinicians are licensed in Virginia, so telehealth sessions are available statewide. In-person PHP and IOP at our Arlington center is open to Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC residents.
ACT is typically billed as standard individual or group psychotherapy, which most commercial insurance plans cover as part of outpatient mental health or substance use benefits. Our admissions team verifies your benefits before you start.
In-person care at 5400 Shawnee Road, Arlington, VA for VA, MD, and DC residents. Telehealth for Virginia residents only.
If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or call 911.
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Insurance accepted
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is typically billed as standard psychotherapy and covered as a behavioral health benefit under most commercial plans — Anthem, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, Aetna, Cigna, UnitedHealthcare, Optum, Sentara Health Plans, UMR, and Johns Hopkins Health Plans. Send us your card and we'll confirm your benefits before you begin.
Don't see your plan? Call us — we also work with out-of-network benefits and self-pay.