Group-based acceptance and commitment therapy to enhance graduate student psychological flexibility: Treatment development and preliminary implementation evaluation.

Graduate student mental health is a growing concern and the need for interventions is well-documented. This manuscript outlines an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy group treatment for graduate students intended to promote psychological flexibility through the cultivation of six processes: contact with the present moment (mindfulness), freely chosen life direction (values), distance from thoughts (defusion), nonjudgmental acknowledgement of one's internal experiences (acceptance), meta-awareness of one's own experiences (self-as-context), and ongoing patterns of behavior in the service of values (committed action). The treatment was delivered to graduate students across academic disciplines with variable psychological concerns over several semesters. Graduate students completed measures of preliminary acceptability. Clients perceived the intervention positively and believed they benefited from participating. Treatment evaluation information support the social validity and acceptability of the treatment and justify future studies assessing treatment efficacy and effectiveness.