Get Out of Your Mind and into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

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Hayes' work is somewhat controversial, particularly with his coined term "Relational Frame Theory" to describe stimulus equivalent research in relation to an elaborate form of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior (also referred to as verbal operants). If you are fighting to be ‘right,’ even if it doesn’t help move you forward, assume the White Queen has decreed that you are ‘right.’ Now ask yourself, ‘So what? What can I actually do to create a more valued life from here?’” (84) Is not: wanting, conditional, trying or effortful, a matter of belief, the self-deception of “yes, if…”

Get Out of Your Mind and into Your Life: The New Acceptance

If you commit to a particular act, use mindfulness and defusion strategies when your mind starts giving you problems with pursuing that path, and move forward, accepting what your mind offers you, you will be in a better position to live a full and meaningful life with or without unpleasant thoughts, emotions, and sensations. ACT is not about fighting your pain; it’s about developing a willingness to embrace every experience life has to offer. It’s not about resisting your emotions; it’s about feeling them completely and yet not turning your choices over to them. ACT offers you a path out of suffering by helping you choose to live your life based on what matters to you most. If you’re struggling with anxiety, depression, or problem anger, this book can help—clinical trials suggest that ACT is very effective for a whole range of psychological problems. But this is more than a self-help book for a specific complaint—it is a revolutionary approach to living a richer and more rewarding life.

The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

I’ve noticed in my own life that as my memory and verbal skills have increased, so has my pain/suffering. Ask yourself this question when you think you’ve failed: What is buying that thought in the service of? What value does it comport with? Being right? Never failing? Never being vulnerable? Is that what you want your life to be about? If not, take responsibility even for your mind chattering on about what a failure you are. Feel the pain. Learn from it. Then move on.” (162) During this chapter I’m realizing why smarter people are often more anxious/depressed and I also worry that because baby is soooo good at relating words and concepts to each other he is at an even higher risk for psychological pain. I hope not though. The past is verbally remembered and the future is verbally imagined or “languaged” with images (23)

Get Out of Your Mind | Psychology Today UK Get Out of Your Mind | Psychology Today UK

If you could only get past feelings of embarrassment, fear, self-criticism, and self-doubt, how would your life be different? You might take more chances and make more mistakes, but you’d also be able to live more freely and confidently than ever before. Language creates suffering in part because it leads to experiential avoidance. Of all the psychological processes known to science, experiential avoidance—avoiding unpleasant thoughts, emotions, or events—is one of the worst.

How to Operate Your Inner Flashlight

Steven C. Hayes, PhD, is Nevada Foundation Professor in the department of psychology at the University of Nevada. An author of thirty-four books and more than 470 scientific articles, he has shown in his research how language and thought leads to human suffering, and cofounded ACT, a powerful therapy method that is useful in a wide variety of areas. Hayes has been president of several scientific societies and has received several national awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy. Humans suffer, at least in part, because we are verbal creatures. We are often either recreating the past or living in an imagined future. I’m naturally a very cerebral person, which is partly the reason why overthinking and anxiety have been problems for me. I think too much and feel too little. I have a tendency to over intellectualize my emotions, which often means I don’t actually process them effectively. ACT/Buddhism seems to be an excellent counterbalance to my temperament. Just as Stoicism is the philosophical precursor to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Buddhism is the philosophical precursor to ACT. Unlike Stoicism and CBT which use logic and reason to reframe negative events, ACT uses mindfulness to investigate the nature of the emotions themselves. In short, CBT is more head and ACT is more heart. Chronic emotional avoiders do not know what they’re feeling because not knowing is itself a powerful form of avoidance. (Damn, that’s me)