ACT Therapy in Los Angeles: Stop Fighting Your Mind. Start Building Your Life.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an evidence-based approach that helps you stop struggling against painful thoughts and feelings. Instead, you can build a life rooted in what truly matters to you. Our ACT therapists Ariadna Armenta LCSW #102477 & Christina Harrison LCSW #99941 in Los Angeles provide affirming care for LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and neurodivergent adults.
supporting ACT's effectiveness
than comparison treatments(APA, 2016)
from substance use
What Is ACT Therapy?
ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) has been found to be highly effective for anxiety, depression, substance use, chronic pain, OCD and dysmorphia. Unlike approaches that focus on eliminating painful thoughts and feelings, ACT teaches you to change your relationship to them. It helps you to build a life guided by your values rather than your fears.
The word "acceptance" in ACT is not about giving up or tolerating the intolerable. It means actively making room for difficult inner experiences without letting them control your choices. The word "commitment" refers to taking meaningful action in the direction of what matters most to you, even in the presence of discomfort.
At the heart of ACT is the concept of psychological flexibility. This is the ability to be present, open, and engaged with your life, regardless of what your mind is doing. This is a skill that can be learned and practiced, and research shows it produces lasting change across a wide range of mental health challenges.
At Nokdu Therapy, our Los Angeles ACT therapists bring a liberation-centered, culturally responsive lens to this work. For LGBTQ+, BIPOC, Asian American, and neurodivergent clients, suffering is often shaped by systemic oppression, chronic invalidation, and intergenerational trauma. ACT offers tools that are uniquely suited to that reality. You can learn to hold pain without being consumed by it, while staying connected to what matters to you.
Actively making room for difficult thoughts, feelings, and sensations without fighting or avoiding them.
Learning to observe your thoughts rather than fusing with them. Seeing them as just words, not facts to be obeyed.
Developing the capacity to be here and now. Leaning into curiosity and openness, rather than being stuck in the past or future.
Connecting to the part of you that observes all your experiences but is not defined by any of them.
Getting clear on what genuinely matters to you. Developing your personal compass for how you want to move through the world.
Taking meaningful steps toward your values, even in the presence of fear, pain, or uncertainty.
ACT for Anxiety, Depression & Beyond
ACT is one of the most broadly applicable therapeutic approaches available. Research supports its effectiveness for a wide range of experiences, particularly those rooted in experiential avoidance and disconnection from values.
Anxiety & Chronic Worry
ACT reduces anxiety not by eliminating it, but by changing your relationship to anxious thoughts so they no longer control your choices.
Depression & Low Mood
ACT helps you re-engage with life and meaning even before depression fully lifts. Values-based action is itself part of the recovery process.
Trauma & PTSD
ACT can complement trauma work by helping you hold pain without avoidance, and reconnecting to a sense of self beyond what happened to you.
OCD & Intrusive Thoughts
ACT's defusion techniques help reduce the power of intrusive thoughts without requiring you to eliminate or neutralize them.
Burnout & Life Transitions
ACT's values clarification is especially powerful for people navigating major transitions, identity questions, or a sense of being lost.
Racial Trauma & Systemic Stress
ACT's acceptance work is not about accepting injustice. It's about holding pain without being consumed by it, so you can keep acting toward what matters.
ACT Through a Liberation-Centered Lens
Standard ACT was developed in a Western, predominantly white context. At Nokdu Therapy, we hold ACT's framework alongside a critical, anti-oppression lens. Psychological flexibility means something different when you are navigating racism, transphobia, xenophobia, or intergenerational trauma at the same time.
Affirming the Full Spectrum of Who You Are
ACT's values clarification work is especially powerful for LGBTQ+ clients learning to discern their own values from the messages of families, religions, and cultures that may not have affirmed them.
Holding Collective and Individual Pain
For BIPOC and Asian American clients, some of what ACT asks you to "accept" is not irrational fear. It is the lived reality of navigating racism and marginalization. Our therapists hold that distinction. We help you build psychological flexibility while acknowledging the conditions we exist in.
ACT for Neurodivergent Adults
ACT's defusion techniques and mindfulness practices can be especially helpful for neurodivergent adults experiencing shame spirals, emotional intensity, or the exhaustion of masking. We adapt the approach to work with your nervous system, not against it.
Decolonizing the Values Process
Standard ACT values work can inadvertently center individualistic, Western notions of a "good life." At Nokdu, we recognize that values are often deeply relational, communal, and culturally shaped. We hold space for that complexity throughout the work.
Your Path to ACT Therapy in LA
ACT therapy at Nokdu Therapy is collaborative, flexible, and paced to match your real life. Here's what to expect.
Free 20–30 Minute Consultation
Connect with one of our Los Angeles ACT therapists at no charge. We'll hear what's bringing you in, share how we work, and confirm whether we're a good fit. It's no pressure, just a real conversation.
Intake, Assessment & Getting to Know You
Your therapist will take time to genuinely understand your history, your patterns, what you've already tried, and what matters most to you. We'll co-create a treatment plan built around your life, not a generic protocol.
Psychoeducation & Building the Foundation
You'll develop a clear understanding of how ACT works and why the struggles you've been having make complete sense. This phase often brings its own relief by finally having language for what's been happening.
Active Skills Work & Values Exploration
Sessions focus on building the six core ACT processes in a way that is grounded in your real life. This includes the specific weight of your identities, your history, and the systemic realities you navigate.
Committed Action & Integration
As therapy deepens, the focus shifts toward taking consistent steps toward your values, and building a life that feels genuinely yours. Telehealth options are available throughout Los Angeles and all of California.
Meet Our ACT-Trained Therapists
Our ACT therapists in Los Angeles bring clinical training, lived experience, and deep commitment to working with BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and neurodivergent communities. There will be some things you just don't have to explain.
Ariadna Armenta (she/her), LCSW #102477
Ariadna is a first-generation Mexican-American, bisexual, femme therapist whose primary therapeutic approach is ACT. She uses mindfulness to foster self-compassion and commitment in the service of living a life aligned with your values. Ariadna brings a culturally humble, intersectional lens to her work with adults navigating depression, anxiety, trauma, neurodivergence, and identity.
Christina Harrison (they/them; she/her), LCSW #99941
Christina is a first-generation, queer, Filipinx-Jamaican American femme therapist whose primary approach is ACT. Christina centers mindfulness, self-compassion, and commitment to self in the service of living a full life — in spite of the discomfort and challenges that come with it. A certified CBT trainer also extensively trained in DBT, CPT, Prolonged Exposure, and IFS.
ACT Therapy Across Greater Los Angeles
We serve clients via telehealth anywhere in California, and in person in West LA.
Common Questions About ACT in LA
What is the difference between ACT and CBT?
CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) primarily works by identifying and changing unhelpful thought patterns. The goal is to think more accurately or helpfully. ACT takes a different approach. Rather than changing the content of thoughts, it changes your relationship to them. ACT doesn't ask whether a thought is true or false. It asks whether being fused with that thought is helping you live the life you want. Both are evidence-based, and our therapists are trained in both approaches and can integrate them when helpful.
Is ACT effective for anxiety and depression?
Yes — ACT has strong research support for both. For anxiety, ACT helps by reducing experiential avoidance: the pattern of organizing your life around avoiding anxious feelings, which paradoxically keeps anxiety central. For depression, ACT's values clarification and committed action work can help you begin re-engaging with life even before the depression fully lifts, which research suggests actually accelerates recovery.
How is ACT different from mindfulness-based therapy?
ACT includes mindfulness as one of its core components. Mindfulness in ACT is in service of something: building psychological flexibility so you can take committed action toward your values. ACT adds cognitive defusion, acceptance, self-as-context, values clarification, and committed action as distinct practices. Think of mindfulness as one tool inside a larger, values-directed framework.
Does ACT work via telehealth?
Yes. Telehealth ACT therapy is highly effective and allows you to practice skills in the same environment where challenges typically arise. We offer secure video sessions to clients throughout Los Angeles and all of California.
Can ACT help with racial trauma and systemic stress?
Yes! This is something our therapists think deeply about. ACT's acceptance work is not about accepting injustice or systemic harm. It's about learning to hold the pain that comes from those realities without being consumed by it, so you can continue to act in ways that matter to you. Our therapists bring a liberation-centered, anti-racist framework to ACT, and understand the difference between adaptive acceptance and the harmful pressure to simply be okay with things that are not okay.
Is ACT covered by insurance?
We are not in network with any insurance companies. If your PPO plan confirms they will reimburse you for out-of-network services, you will automatically receive a superbill at the beginning of each month to submit to your insurance. We also have limited sliding scale spots available for those for whom finances are a barrier. Please ask about this during your free consultation.
How long does ACT therapy typically take?
The length of treatment depends on the complexity of what you're bringing and what you're working toward. Some clients find significant shifts in 12–16 sessions. Others work with us for longer, especially when processing complex trauma, identity-related pain, or patterns with deep roots. Your therapist will discuss a personalized timeline during your initial consultation.
Ready to Begin ACT Therapy in Los Angeles?
Schedule a free 20–30 minute consultation with one of our ACT therapists. Telehealth available statewide throughout California.