New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Resources for the Public

At Portland Psychotherapy, for years we’ve been maintaining a list of the best ACT resources for the public that we know about. We have links to video, self help courses, meditation recordings, apps, and much more. I recently went out and searched the web for additional Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) resources to update our … Read more

The Importance of Acceptance in Dealing with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

People with OCD are often plagued with a wide variety of painful thoughts. These include horrible images, worries they might harm themselves or others, or beliefs that they are condemned altogether. It’s natural why people would struggle with these, why they would try to push them away and get rid of them. However, there’s a … Read more

Evaluating Self Help: The Mindfulness & Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety

There’s no shortage of self-help books on the market. There is, however, a paucity of research on whether those self-help books are actually helpful to the people who use them. In an ideal world, every self-help book would be submitted to scientific scrutiny to determine if people actually benefit from using them. Unfortunately, this happens … Read more

How to Read Your Emotions Part I: Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover

Sometimes when you first start having a feeling, your brain will very quickly make up its mind that the emotion is somehow dangerous or bad. Then it tries to escape from the emotion or control the emotion by turning your attention elsewhere and getting you to do something that makes the emotion go away. Because … Read more

ACT and body image difficulties: Maybe not liking your body isn’t the problem

“Why doesn’t anyone tell us that it’s normal to feel bad about our bodies?” What?!?  It’s “normal” to feel badly about my body? No, that can’t be right. It’s “wrong” to have a negative body image! I need to think more positively about myself and my body! Right? Or maybe not… Why do so many … Read more

What Makes Us Unique

Portland Psychotherapy is a clinic, research & training center with a unique business model that funds scientific research. This results in a team of therapists who are exceptionally well-trained and knowledgeable about their areas of specialty.