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

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Chronic emotional avoiders do not know what they’re feeling because not knowing is itself a powerful form of avoidance. (Damn, that’s me) levels of self: 1. Conceptualized self, 2. Self as ongoing process of self-awareness, 3. Observing self 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. Steven C. Hayes, PhD, is University of Nevada Foundation Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is author of more than 350 scientific articles and twenty-seven books, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Relational Frame Theory—two books that significantly develop the concepts on which Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life is based. His research explores the nature of human language and cognition and their application to the understanding and alleviation of human suffering. In 1992, the Institute for Scientific Information reported Hayes among the highest-impact psychologists in the world during the years 1986–90 based on the citation impact of his writings. He is past-president of the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy, the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology, and Division Twenty-Five of the American Psychological Association. He was the first Secretary-Treasurer of the American Psychological Society. He is the recipient of the Don F. Hake Award for Exemplary Contributions to Basic Behavioral Research and Its Applications from Division 25 of the American Psychological Association. In 1999, US Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala appointed him to a four-year term on the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse.

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

This is consistent with Carl Jung’s idea of the shadow, which consists of all the aspects of yourself you have disowned. It also is consistent with Eastern philosophies that teach the Self as being one with everything.

The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

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. 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)

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

Is not: wanting, conditional, trying or effortful, a matter of belief, the self-deception of “yes, if…” According to your mind, the content of your pain is the source of your suffering because the pain is bad. Thus, you can measure suffering by the amount of the (bad) pain.” (129)

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. 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. 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)

Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life for Teens: A Guide to Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life for Teens: A Guide to

An author of 38 books and 550 articles, in 1992 he was listed by the Institute for Scientific Information as the 30th "highest impact" psychologist in the world during 1986-1990 based on the citation impact of his writings during that period. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a new, scientifically based psychotherapy that takes a fresh look at why we suffer and even what it means to be mentally healthy. What if pain were a normal, unavoidable part of the human condition, but avoiding or trying to control painful experience were the cause of suffering and long-term problems that can devastate your quality of life? The ACT process hinges on this distinction between pain and suffering. As you work through this book, you’ll learn to let go of your struggle against pain, assess your values, and then commit to acting in ways that further those values.

When exposed to the same levels of physiological arousal, experiential avoiders are more likely to feel pain than those who willingly accept their anxiety. This is the quintessential workbook on acceptance and commitment therapy. Written with wit, clinical wisdom, and compassionate skepticism, it succeeds in showing us that, paradoxically, there is great therapeutic value in going out of our minds. Once released from the struggle with thought, we are free to discover that a life of meaning and value is closer at hand than thought allowed. This book will serve patients, therapists, researchers, and educators looking for an elegant exposition of the nuts and bolts of this exciting approach.”— Zindel V. Segal, Ph.D., the Morgan Firestone Chair in Psychotherapy and professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Toronto and author of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression. I’ve noticed in my own life that as my memory and verbal skills have increased, so has my pain/suffering.