on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change
Download Your Copy Acceptance And Commitment Therapy: The Process And Practice Of Mindful Change By Steven C. Hayes Supplied As Digital Copy
a therapistintraining and as someone who has gone to therapy, I love Acceptance and Commitment Therapy ACT, It integrates several helpful parts of other mainstream therapeutic modalities: the search for insight from psychodynamic, the emphasis on meaning from existential, and the actionoriented components from behavioral therapies.
The main thesis of ACT is that we should strive to recognize and accept the painful emotions, thoughts, and events in our lives, and then take action in the direction of our chosen values anyway.
This book describes ACT well, and ACT comes across as a hopeful and involved therapy, where the client has to do a significant amount of work to yield a significant amount of reward.
It would take forever for me to write all that I appreciate about ACT, so will focus on a few qualities, I love the concept of reducing experiential avoidance and increasing acceptance instead of hiding or trying to change the most painful parts of ourselves, we can learn to accept them without judgement or shame.
Another principle that resonated with me: staying with the present instead of living in the past or the future, So many of us forget to enjoy and to immerse ourselves in each of our waking moments, so I feel glad that the authors incorporated elements of mindfulness here.
Finally, I am enamored with ACT's orientation toward values, Instead of only prioritizing what society wants us to e, g. , money, having a romantic partner, etc, we can learn to act based on our own chosen values, whether that be living with compassion, pursing a love of learning, cultivating one's independence or interdependence, etc.
Overall, five because I find ACT such a rich and rewarding therapy and way of living, I would so recommend it if you are interested in mental health, mindfulness, and/or general psychology, While some parts of the book were a little dense, and more work should be done to see how ACT applies to minority groups, I have hope that the modality will only improve with time.
A very good and useful book regarding ACT and clinical applications of contextual therapies, Too much longwinded theory! But Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a fascinating approach to behavioral change that dovetails nicely with vipassana meditation, It comes across as heavy handed and topdown, but provides a lot of tools for understanding, I love doing ACT. I find it tremendously powerful, As with the workbook, I wish that the brilliant, brilliant Steven Hayes were a bit more concise, Hayes presents the tenets of this “Third Wave” therapy which presents a format of therapy and behaviour change which employs certain approaches and often turns more traditional therapies on their heads.
ACT engages the client in a greater awareness of the limitations of language and how it can enslave us and limit our world view, It also highlights patterns of emotional avoidance which can similarly imprison us and narrow our life experience, ACT is careful to avoid the pitfalls that other therapies easily fall into where they become alternative forms of avoidance or simply add more complicated language to our cognitive make up, simply ensnaring us further.
ACT makes rich use of metaphor and experiential exercises to broaden emotional experience and circumvent the pitfalls of intellectualization and language processes themselves, In the process of ACT the client is nurtured to develop an openness to encounter and observe emotional experience and the language we automatically attach to it and to gradually develop a personal pathway based on values determined from life experience rather than simple wants or societal pressures.
The client is encouraged to commit to actions based on their values and develop their willingness to experience the emotional content both positive and negative that will inevitably arise on this path.
ACT is a therapy which shows much potential and promise and this book, although challenging and dense at times, is effective at challenging the conventional orthodoxies of our time and presenting an alternative approach to wellness and healing.
The content is good, I dont like the narration A very convincing approach to dealing with psychological and emotional disorders, Updated review:
Im not sure Im not into ACT or into this book, Hard to say. I mostly like it until aroundof it, However, when it gets into the exercises and techniques, it stops making sense to me altogether, Some ambivalente feelings about this book, Maybe I will revisit it a third time in a couple of years,
Not sold
It isn't bad, I suppose it may be interesting to the beginner practicioner in search of his language, There are things I liked, but mostly the ones that resembled Mindfulness and CBT, Some of the metaphors were fine, but others I couldn't present them to my clients without laughing or really wishing to be taken seriously, even when I recognize the solidity in the theory behind it.
It was good to get some more perspective and extraknowledge , but not my thing, This is the major text for therapists wishing to learn ACT, There are briefer, more practical texts out there, but I think a thorough read of this longer text is time wellspent, A theory and practice for the present
Whats fabulous about this book is that it isnt just a collection of techniques cobbled together around a loose philosophy.
This is solid critical analysis based on a long history of philosophical and empirical development, The techniques stem from the theory, they are not just thrown together on top of a disconnected one, As a result, this is less a cookbook and more a thoughtful jaunt through humanity what makes us think, how we do our thinking, and the root of our suffering.
Im not sure Id recommend this to just anyone, as the philosophical writing can be a bit heavy for some, but anyone coming to this should walk away having been challenged and made the better for it.
Great short intro to ACT
The end product is a humane, rational, evidenced based approach that reaches far beyond the scope of traditional psychotherapy,
Both Steven C, Hayes and Kelly Wilson are some of the most expressive, imaginative and effective writers and educators in the field, That being said, parts of this book are a bit opaque, I'm a fan of relational frame theory RFT, and I even pretend to sort of understand it sometimes, But the presentation of RFT in the early chapters of this book is not as well executed as others I've read,
That being said, ACT/RFT is an ambitious model, It's pretty comprehensive. I can forgive the authors if aspects of the model are less effectively condensed into chapter length summaries than others, The reason I am willing to cut these guys some slack is, I think they have done a fantastic job of making the model accessible, engaging, easily learnable, and downright entertaining where ever possible.
In fact, most of this book is really readable quite lovely even w/o sacrificing depth or precision,
Setting this and similar formal criticisms aside, the ACT/RFT model is amazing and powerful and this is manual represents the most up to date, comprehensive presentation currently available.
If you're a practicing clinician considering working within the ACT/RFT psychological flexibility framework, this book is definitely worth your time and effort, Best book ever for understanding and treating mental health issues, Reach out to me sitelink com/in/enockphd if you want to hear moreI would write a proper review on demand,
Favorite section page: ltgtgt
The philosophy underlying Contextual Behavioral Science, of which ACT is a part, is pragmatic rather than material or ontological as in elemental realism.
The concern is not with what is materially true, but with what works, This is the same definition of capitalT “Truth” that Jordan Peterson prefers: the sense in which an arrow flies true,
While some take it as materially or ontologically true that syndromes like Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder “exist” in a real sense, so far science has failed to show that these meet the criteria for disease states.
Even the American Psychiatric Association admits that “not one laboratory marker has been found to be specific in identifying any of the DSMdefined syndromes, ” The focus has been on the form of symptoms rather than their function how people relate to their symptoms, In other words, its possible that distress comes not from the actual internal states we experience, but how we relate to those internal states and therefore how those experiences function in our lives.
In fact, experiential avoidance of internal states accounts forof the variance in behavioral health problems,
Furthermore, our culture tends to overpathologize the human experience, Ive been told throughout my training as a therapist that
suicidal ideation “is never normal, ” Really Then why does half the population admit to having moderate to severe levels of suicidality at some point in life
And while were on the topic, why dont animals commit suicide There must be something about the human condition that makes these behaviors so prevalent, and CBS believes the problem is the misuse of human language, or an overidentification with the mind.
The creation story in Genesis seems to be about the loss of innocence through the knowledge of good and evil, another way of describing evaluative language processes that separate things into good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable.
All religions have a mystical tradition of connecting with direct experience that is beyond evaluative language,
Human language is a doubleedged sword it has led to great achievement and creativity as well as to immense suffering, Life is not a problem to be solved but a process to be experienced, Our problemsolving mode of mind is not good at helping us navigate internal states of mind and heart, Human language probably evolved or was divinely created first as a means of social control, cooperation, and danger signaling, and then for complex problem solving.
Infantile amnesia drops away as we learn deictic relations in language, such as I/here/now and you/there/later, so language is intimately related to consciousness and the experience of being human.
If we can see language for what it is a tool to be used rather than taking it literally, we can make progress in reducing our suffering.
If we can look at thoughts rather than look from thoughts, were making progress,
ACT researchers note that the process of challenging the ontological truth of thoughts in order to think different thoughts, as CBT aims to help people do, has not been proven effective.
Its not that CBT doesnt work, it does, Its just that we cant prove that the reason it works is because people actually change the content of their thoughts, Its possible that CBT works because challenging thoughts helps people defuse from thoughts and relate to them differently, not because the challenge leads to the elimination of negative or “irrational” thoughts.
Furthermore, ACT is not opposed to anything thats effective when used flexibly, such as cognitive reappraisal, but experience suggests that changing ones relationship to thoughts is more effective than trying to change the thought content itself.
Notes:
“This is just your mind speaking to you, The mind is not the same as you, You are the human being, Your mind is a verbal tool, not your master, But it is a very noisy servant and tricky to deal with at times, ”
Moderators explain when effects will occur ex, gender: more women will improve than men, Mediators explain how or why effects occur ex, specific factors: women scored lower on aggression so were less affected
Nothing can really be unlearned, only inhibited or forgotten.
The persistence of memory makes cognitive restructuring very difficult
Types of rule following:
, Pliance based on social consequences, ex: client does something to please the therapist
, Tracking based on natural consequences, ex: dressing warmly for cold weather
, Augmenting alters the degree to which an event will impact bx, ex: learning that bueno means good will change how reinforcing that word is
Problematic polarities:
.
Good vs. bad
. Right vs. wrong
. Fair vs. unfair
. Responsibility vs. blame
The fearsomeness of the world is constructed, not discovered, but fusion prevents a person from seeing that
The goal is not to change the self story but to weaken the attachment to it
Values are better said to be constructed rather than discovered or clarified, because they are freely chosen
Qualities of fused speech to listen for: comparison/evaluation, complex/busy/confusing, adversarial, justifying/reasongiving, perseveration
The Latin root of emotion is motion.
We could relate to our emotions as if they were messengers trying to promote effective action rather than trying to kill the messenger
Responsible originally meant responseable, as in capable of responding
Reasons dont actually cause choices, choices are made freely.
Thoughts and feelings may influence behavior, but they dont cause behavior
Potent Quotables:
Nothing external ensures freedom from suffering.
“The good physician treats the disease the great physician treats the person who has the disease, ” Dictum attributed to William Osler
People often dive into their mental machinery much as sailors would dive into the sea i, e. , not without some degree of delight,
When you are too busy being what your mind says you are, stepping outside of your normal habits becomes impossible, even when it would be useful to do so.
Being “right” about whats wrong can become more important than living in a vital and effectual way,
Minds hate unemployment,
“Vision without action is a daydream action without vision is a nightmare, ” Japanese proverb
Building a vital life is not always a logical enterprise,
The fundamental challenge of being human involves learning when to follow what your mind says and when to simply be aware of your mind while attending to the here and now.
“You cant cross a canyon in two steps, ” Zen saying
Trying to be happy by achieving goals is living in a world where what is important is constantly missing,
Outcome is the process through which process can become the outcome, .
The main thesis of ACT is that we should strive to recognize and accept the painful emotions, thoughts, and events in our lives, and then take action in the direction of our chosen values anyway.
This book describes ACT well, and ACT comes across as a hopeful and involved therapy, where the client has to do a significant amount of work to yield a significant amount of reward.
It would take forever for me to write all that I appreciate about ACT, so will focus on a few qualities, I love the concept of reducing experiential avoidance and increasing acceptance instead of hiding or trying to change the most painful parts of ourselves, we can learn to accept them without judgement or shame.
Another principle that resonated with me: staying with the present instead of living in the past or the future, So many of us forget to enjoy and to immerse ourselves in each of our waking moments, so I feel glad that the authors incorporated elements of mindfulness here.
Finally, I am enamored with ACT's orientation toward values, Instead of only prioritizing what society wants us to e, g. , money, having a romantic partner, etc, we can learn to act based on our own chosen values, whether that be living with compassion, pursing a love of learning, cultivating one's independence or interdependence, etc.
Overall, five because I find ACT such a rich and rewarding therapy and way of living, I would so recommend it if you are interested in mental health, mindfulness, and/or general psychology, While some parts of the book were a little dense, and more work should be done to see how ACT applies to minority groups, I have hope that the modality will only improve with time.
A very good and useful book regarding ACT and clinical applications of contextual therapies, Too much longwinded theory! But Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a fascinating approach to behavioral change that dovetails nicely with vipassana meditation, It comes across as heavy handed and topdown, but provides a lot of tools for understanding, I love doing ACT. I find it tremendously powerful, As with the workbook, I wish that the brilliant, brilliant Steven Hayes were a bit more concise, Hayes presents the tenets of this “Third Wave” therapy which presents a format of therapy and behaviour change which employs certain approaches and often turns more traditional therapies on their heads.
ACT engages the client in a greater awareness of the limitations of language and how it can enslave us and limit our world view, It also highlights patterns of emotional avoidance which can similarly imprison us and narrow our life experience, ACT is careful to avoid the pitfalls that other therapies easily fall into where they become alternative forms of avoidance or simply add more complicated language to our cognitive make up, simply ensnaring us further.
ACT makes rich use of metaphor and experiential exercises to broaden emotional experience and circumvent the pitfalls of intellectualization and language processes themselves, In the process of ACT the client is nurtured to develop an openness to encounter and observe emotional experience and the language we automatically attach to it and to gradually develop a personal pathway based on values determined from life experience rather than simple wants or societal pressures.
The client is encouraged to commit to actions based on their values and develop their willingness to experience the emotional content both positive and negative that will inevitably arise on this path.
ACT is a therapy which shows much potential and promise and this book, although challenging and dense at times, is effective at challenging the conventional orthodoxies of our time and presenting an alternative approach to wellness and healing.
The content is good, I dont like the narration A very convincing approach to dealing with psychological and emotional disorders, Updated review:
Im not sure Im not into ACT or into this book, Hard to say. I mostly like it until aroundof it, However, when it gets into the exercises and techniques, it stops making sense to me altogether, Some ambivalente feelings about this book, Maybe I will revisit it a third time in a couple of years,
Not sold
It isn't bad, I suppose it may be interesting to the beginner practicioner in search of his language, There are things I liked, but mostly the ones that resembled Mindfulness and CBT, Some of the metaphors were fine, but others I couldn't present them to my clients without laughing or really wishing to be taken seriously, even when I recognize the solidity in the theory behind it.
It was good to get some more perspective and extraknowledge , but not my thing, This is the major text for therapists wishing to learn ACT, There are briefer, more practical texts out there, but I think a thorough read of this longer text is time wellspent, A theory and practice for the present
Whats fabulous about this book is that it isnt just a collection of techniques cobbled together around a loose philosophy.
This is solid critical analysis based on a long history of philosophical and empirical development, The techniques stem from the theory, they are not just thrown together on top of a disconnected one, As a result, this is less a cookbook and more a thoughtful jaunt through humanity what makes us think, how we do our thinking, and the root of our suffering.
Im not sure Id recommend this to just anyone, as the philosophical writing can be a bit heavy for some, but anyone coming to this should walk away having been challenged and made the better for it.
Great short intro to ACT
Since the original publication of this seminal work, acceptance and commitment therapy ACT has come into its own as a widely practiced approach to helping people change.
This book provides the definitive statement of ACTfrom conceptual and empirical foundations to clinical techniqueswritten by its originators, ACT is based on the idea that psychological rigidity is a root cause of a wide range of clinical problems, The authors describe effective, innovative ways to cultivate psychological flexibility by detecting and targeting six key processes: defusion, acceptance, attention to the present moment, selfawareness, values, and committed action.
Sample therapeutic exercises and patienttherapist dialogues are integrated throughout,
The end product is a humane, rational, evidenced based approach that reaches far beyond the scope of traditional psychotherapy,
Both Steven C, Hayes and Kelly Wilson are some of the most expressive, imaginative and effective writers and educators in the field, That being said, parts of this book are a bit opaque, I'm a fan of relational frame theory RFT, and I even pretend to sort of understand it sometimes, But the presentation of RFT in the early chapters of this book is not as well executed as others I've read,
That being said, ACT/RFT is an ambitious model, It's pretty comprehensive. I can forgive the authors if aspects of the model are less effectively condensed into chapter length summaries than others, The reason I am willing to cut these guys some slack is, I think they have done a fantastic job of making the model accessible, engaging, easily learnable, and downright entertaining where ever possible.
In fact, most of this book is really readable quite lovely even w/o sacrificing depth or precision,
Setting this and similar formal criticisms aside, the ACT/RFT model is amazing and powerful and this is manual represents the most up to date, comprehensive presentation currently available.
If you're a practicing clinician considering working within the ACT/RFT psychological flexibility framework, this book is definitely worth your time and effort, Best book ever for understanding and treating mental health issues, Reach out to me sitelink com/in/enockphd if you want to hear moreI would write a proper review on demand,
Favorite section page: ltgtgt
The philosophy underlying Contextual Behavioral Science, of which ACT is a part, is pragmatic rather than material or ontological as in elemental realism.
The concern is not with what is materially true, but with what works, This is the same definition of capitalT “Truth” that Jordan Peterson prefers: the sense in which an arrow flies true,
While some take it as materially or ontologically true that syndromes like Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder “exist” in a real sense, so far science has failed to show that these meet the criteria for disease states.
Even the American Psychiatric Association admits that “not one laboratory marker has been found to be specific in identifying any of the DSMdefined syndromes, ” The focus has been on the form of symptoms rather than their function how people relate to their symptoms, In other words, its possible that distress comes not from the actual internal states we experience, but how we relate to those internal states and therefore how those experiences function in our lives.
In fact, experiential avoidance of internal states accounts forof the variance in behavioral health problems,
Furthermore, our culture tends to overpathologize the human experience, Ive been told throughout my training as a therapist that
suicidal ideation “is never normal, ” Really Then why does half the population admit to having moderate to severe levels of suicidality at some point in life
And while were on the topic, why dont animals commit suicide There must be something about the human condition that makes these behaviors so prevalent, and CBS believes the problem is the misuse of human language, or an overidentification with the mind.
The creation story in Genesis seems to be about the loss of innocence through the knowledge of good and evil, another way of describing evaluative language processes that separate things into good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable.
All religions have a mystical tradition of connecting with direct experience that is beyond evaluative language,
Human language is a doubleedged sword it has led to great achievement and creativity as well as to immense suffering, Life is not a problem to be solved but a process to be experienced, Our problemsolving mode of mind is not good at helping us navigate internal states of mind and heart, Human language probably evolved or was divinely created first as a means of social control, cooperation, and danger signaling, and then for complex problem solving.
Infantile amnesia drops away as we learn deictic relations in language, such as I/here/now and you/there/later, so language is intimately related to consciousness and the experience of being human.
If we can see language for what it is a tool to be used rather than taking it literally, we can make progress in reducing our suffering.
If we can look at thoughts rather than look from thoughts, were making progress,
ACT researchers note that the process of challenging the ontological truth of thoughts in order to think different thoughts, as CBT aims to help people do, has not been proven effective.
Its not that CBT doesnt work, it does, Its just that we cant prove that the reason it works is because people actually change the content of their thoughts, Its possible that CBT works because challenging thoughts helps people defuse from thoughts and relate to them differently, not because the challenge leads to the elimination of negative or “irrational” thoughts.
Furthermore, ACT is not opposed to anything thats effective when used flexibly, such as cognitive reappraisal, but experience suggests that changing ones relationship to thoughts is more effective than trying to change the thought content itself.
Notes:
“This is just your mind speaking to you, The mind is not the same as you, You are the human being, Your mind is a verbal tool, not your master, But it is a very noisy servant and tricky to deal with at times, ”
Moderators explain when effects will occur ex, gender: more women will improve than men, Mediators explain how or why effects occur ex, specific factors: women scored lower on aggression so were less affected
Nothing can really be unlearned, only inhibited or forgotten.
The persistence of memory makes cognitive restructuring very difficult
Types of rule following:
, Pliance based on social consequences, ex: client does something to please the therapist
, Tracking based on natural consequences, ex: dressing warmly for cold weather
, Augmenting alters the degree to which an event will impact bx, ex: learning that bueno means good will change how reinforcing that word is
Problematic polarities:
.
Good vs. bad
. Right vs. wrong
. Fair vs. unfair
. Responsibility vs. blame
The fearsomeness of the world is constructed, not discovered, but fusion prevents a person from seeing that
The goal is not to change the self story but to weaken the attachment to it
Values are better said to be constructed rather than discovered or clarified, because they are freely chosen
Qualities of fused speech to listen for: comparison/evaluation, complex/busy/confusing, adversarial, justifying/reasongiving, perseveration
The Latin root of emotion is motion.
We could relate to our emotions as if they were messengers trying to promote effective action rather than trying to kill the messenger
Responsible originally meant responseable, as in capable of responding
Reasons dont actually cause choices, choices are made freely.
Thoughts and feelings may influence behavior, but they dont cause behavior
Potent Quotables:
Nothing external ensures freedom from suffering.
“The good physician treats the disease the great physician treats the person who has the disease, ” Dictum attributed to William Osler
People often dive into their mental machinery much as sailors would dive into the sea i, e. , not without some degree of delight,
When you are too busy being what your mind says you are, stepping outside of your normal habits becomes impossible, even when it would be useful to do so.
Being “right” about whats wrong can become more important than living in a vital and effectual way,
Minds hate unemployment,
“Vision without action is a daydream action without vision is a nightmare, ” Japanese proverb
Building a vital life is not always a logical enterprise,
The fundamental challenge of being human involves learning when to follow what your mind says and when to simply be aware of your mind while attending to the here and now.
“You cant cross a canyon in two steps, ” Zen saying
Trying to be happy by achieving goals is living in a world where what is important is constantly missing,
Outcome is the process through which process can become the outcome, .