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Acceptance and commitment training in the workplace

Flaxman, P. ORCID: 0000-0002-6417-2499, Prudenzi, A. & Zernerova, L. (2023). Acceptance and commitment training in the workplace. In: Twohig, M. P., Levin, M. E. & Petersen, J. M. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. (pp. 407-431). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197550076.013.19

Abstract

Over the past two decades, the workplace has become an important context for delivering ACT interventions. In this chapter, we summarise the evidence that has accumulated around worksite ACT-based training programmes. Although these programmes have been shown to be effective in improving employees’ general mental health, their effects on job burnout and overall psychological flexibility have been less consistent. We respond to calls to provide clearer conceptualization of ACT’s hypothesised influence on people’s work-related wellbeing, by considering the functions of psychological flexibility from the perspective of resource-based theories of job characteristics, burnout, and work engagement. The chapter highlights opportunities for further workplace research and practice, including: exploring the predictive influence of psychological flexibility on the effects of job demands and job resources; the use of multidimensional measures of flexibility to investigate specific subprocesses of change in worksite ACT interventions; and the potential of cultivating flexibility as part of other organisational initiatives.

Publication Type: Book Section
Additional Information: This material was originally published in The Oxford Handbook of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy edited by Michael P. Twohig, Michael E. Levin, and Julie M. Petersen and has been reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197550076.013.19. For permission to reuse this material, please visit http://global.oup.com/academic/rights
Publisher Keywords: Acceptance and commitment training; workplace interventions; employee wellbeing; work-related stress; job burnout; work engagement
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Departments: School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Psychology
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