The ABCs of Insomnia (ABC-I): An Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT)-Based Insomnia Treatment Development Study: Pilot Results and Future Directions

Insomnia is a very prevalent complaint, especially among individuals with psychiatric conditions. While there are a variety of treatment options including psychopharmacology and cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), each of these has its own drawbacks. Hypnotic medications are only indicated for short-term use and may result in relapse of insomnia upon medication discontinuation, while CBT-I has treatment adherence issues often complicating the use of this modality. In this chapter, we describe the development of a new insomnia treatment, the ABC-I, which incorporates elements of Acceptance Commitment-Therapy (ACT) into the traditional behavioral treatment for insomnia with the specific goal of increasing adherence to the behavioral recommendations known to improve sleep. The ABC-I treatment components, the underlying rationale and specific application are described below. In addition, we present the results of two ABC-I pilot studies conducted by the authors and discuss future directions.