A Different Way to Use The Matrix

Rotating around the point of observation

You wouldn’t know it from the fact that I have an entire website about the ACT Matrix, and this newsletter, but I actually kind of hate the matrix. There are so many times where I’m frustrated by it. So many times when I want to throw it out the window and never use it with clients again.

Often I think that the matrix tries to do too much. Tries to be too many different types of interventions. Other times I think it doesn’t do enough.

The reason I’ve dedicated so much of my time to it is because I think it could be a better tool. I catch myself in my free time making adjustments to the diagram. Ooh, what if I worded things like this! Oh! This will fix it for sure!

Last summer I woke up every day at 5:30am and worked on variations of the matrix for a few hours.

Jacob Martinez, LPC @actnaturallypls

A glimpse into my morning life. I spend several hours each day tweaking the ACT Matrix. Every once in a while I make a good one.

In any case, a few days ago I worked up a way of using the matrix that has been pretty useful with the clients I’ve tried it out with so far. Here’s an image of it with a download for the PDF below.

Download Here

On the surface this doesn’t look too different from the standard ACT matrix, so here is how this works:

You hand the client this matrix, and set up the center circle as the observation point/tower/umpire-chair. It’s a high place from which you can observe what’s going on from a bird’s eye view.

And then you say something like “From time to time I’ll ask you to step into this point of observation and see what you can notice happening in your body and mind.”

Then as the client is talking you can ask them to look down at their experience, simply choose any of the quadrants and answer the question.

You might also ask them to observe a specific quadrant, “See if you can step back and observe what’s going on in the bottom left quadrant for you right now.”

You can also have clients “rotate around the observation point” and attend to each of the quadrants in turn.

And don’t forget the lines of the matrix! You can ask clients to simply observe what is happening right now in their body (or what their body is doing).

I find that this way of working is an easier alternative to the classic “Polkian” way of having clients sort their experience into the quadrants. This is a wonderful method of having a client familiarize themselves with the matrix and practice a hierarchical view of their experience.

Try it. You might like it.

Respectfully Submitted,

Jacob Martinez // Through The ACT Matrix