ACT Values Worksheet (ACT Values Assessment Tool)

Unlike simple values lists, this worksheet is structured as a comparative assessment rather than a static reflection exercise. Clients are asked not only to identify what matters to them, but to discriminate between domains where values are actively lived versus domains where disconnection or avoidance patterns may be present.

This distinction is clinically important in ACT because psychological suffering is often maintained not by the absence of values, but by reduced contact with them in behavior. By asking clients to rate importance across multiple life areas, the worksheet creates a visual “values landscape” that can be used to identify asymmetries between aspiration and lived action.

Clinicians can use this information to guide subsequent interventions—particularly committed action planning, exposure-based work toward avoided domains, and defusion strategies targeting barriers that prevent values-consistent behavior.

Over time, repeated use can help clients refine values hierarchies, detect shifts in life priorities, and maintain behavioral alignment even during periods of emotional difficulty or cognitive fusion.

How This ACT Values Worksheet Can Be Used

This tool is typically introduced during early or middle phases of ACT to establish a baseline map of client values across life domains. Clinicians may revisit it periodically to track change in values salience or to identify emerging areas of avoidance or disengagement.

It can also serve as a preparatory step before:

• Committed action planning
• Exposure to avoided interpersonal or vocational contexts
• Work on experiential avoidance patterns
• Values-consistent behavioral activation

Clinical Functions

• Establishes a structured values baseline across major life domains
• Highlights discrepancies between importance and behavioral contact
• Supports functional case conceptualization in ACT
• Identifies potential avoidance-maintained life narrowing
• Provides anchoring data for committed action interventions
• Facilitates longitudinal tracking of values change over therapy

Integration Notes for Clinicians

Rather than treating results as static “truths,” clinicians are encouraged to treat outputs from the worksheet as hypothesis-generating clinical data. High importance ratings paired with low behavioral engagement often signal areas where experiential avoidance, cognitive fusion, or environmental constraint may be shaping behavior.

The most clinically useful follow-up is rarely further values exploration, but rather movement into barriers analysis and behavioral activation consistent with ACT’s functional contextual approach.

References:

• Steven C. Hayes, Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
• Steven C. Hayes, Luoma, J. B., Bond, F. W., Masuda, A., & Lillis, J. (2006). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: Model, processes and outcomes. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44(1), 1–25.
• Wilson, K. G., & Murrell, A. R. (2004). Values work in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: Setting a course for behavioral treatment. Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 22(4), 291–304.