State of the Research & Literature Address: ACT with Children, Adolescents and Parents (Report‪)‬

To date, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999) has been has been shown effective with adults who experience a number of conditions, including work- related stress (Bond & Bunce, 2000), professional burnout (Hayes, Bissett et al., 2004), and anxiety with marital distress (Luciano & Gutierrez, 2001). ACT has also been used to effectively treat several common forms of psychopathology among adults, such as as major depressive disorder (Lopez & Arco, 2002), panic disorder (Carrascoso, 2000), and poly-substance abuse (Hayes, Wilson et al., 2002). In addition, ACT has been shown to be an effective treatment of serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia (Bach & Hayes, 2002), and medical disorders--e.g., diabetes (Gregg, 2004). A good deal of time and effort has gone into the summarization of ACT conducted with adults. Several international presentations, an empirical review paper (Hayes, Masuda, Bissett, Luoma, & Guuerrero, 2004), and a meta-analysis (Hayes, Luoma, Bond, Masuda, & Lillis, 2006) have summarized such theoretical and empirical work. Thus far, there has been little focus on summarizing the state of ACT work conducted with children, adolescents, and their parents. To rectify this need, theoretical papers and empirical research conducted with these populations will be reviewed. Prior to this review, the authors will provide a list of general considerations for using ACT with youth and parents.