The ACE Model & the Pearl Dive
A gentle, evidence-based framework for moving through and making meaning of deep inner experience.
The ACE model
Accept, Connect, Embody — offers a simple arc for navigating intense inner experience: accept what is difficult, connect to what is meaningful, and embody it in how you live. Drawing on the same evidence base as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, it was refined through clinical trials of psychedelic therapy for depression. The Pearl Dive is the practice at its heart — picture yourself as a free diver descending from the busy surface of the mind into the depths of the body, where a pearl waits in a closed shell. The pearl is the message your inner world has been holding. The dive is how you find it and bring it home.
About the Model
This model and the protocol were created by Dr. Rosalind Watts, DClinPsy, Centre for Psychedelic Research, Department of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London, United Kingdom. Please do not download or reuse this information without paying for the use license which you can find here: https://acerintegration.com/the-pearl-protocol
ARTICLE: The use of the psychological flexibility model to support psychedelic assisted therapy, January 2020, Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science 15(1):92-102
Psychological Flexibility
Psychological dysfunction correlates with psychological inflexibility and psychological flourishing correlates with high psychological flexibility.
Preparation that supports psychological flexibility is key for maximizing the beneficial psychedelic experience and integration is important for prolonging improvements. The concept of the Accept Connect Embody (ACE) Model provide psychological flexibility.
Accept Connect Embody (ACE) Model
Although content varies in psychedelic journeys, experiences follow a typical arc: letting go of day to day thinking, intense sensory/emotional experiences, and formation of insight and meaning. The ACE model provides some support in preparing for and integrating these experiences; patients are encouraged to accept negative content, connect to positive content, and feel everything as deeply as possible by attending to somatic cues.
In practice, the ACE model is used flexibly. It serves as a framework for therapists to guide patients towards acceptance of what is challenging, connection to what is positive, and staying embodied. It is also used as the basis for guided visualization exercises during preparation and integration sessions as well as home practice, which has shown to help with pulling together narrative, distilling key insights, and supporting behavior change..
ACE Model
Key:
Accept:
1. Let go: Dive down from your busy mind into the depths of your body
2. Sense: Sweep your awareness from you fingers to your toes.
3. Feel: Open yourself up to emotion. Lift the lid of that closed shell
(What is this feeling trying to tell you? This message is the pearl. Collect it. Swim up!)
Connect:
4. Self: Take deep breaths, feel expansive, warm, and calm as the sunlit sky.
5. Meaning: Look at the pearl in your hand. Put into words what it represents, why it matters.
6. Intention: Make a promise about how you will honour this pearl with actions
The Pearl Dive:
If you have the password for The Pearl Dive, the Journey Companion, the Preparation Workbook and the Integration Workbook, click here for the download page.
