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The New Acceptance & Commitment Therapy

Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D. and Spencer Smith

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a new approach to psychotherapy that rethinks even our most basic assumptions of mental well-being. Starting with the assumption that the normal condition of human existence is suffering and struggle, ACT works by first encouraging individuals to accept their lives as they are in the here and now. This acceptance is an antidote to the problem of avoidance, which ACT views as among the greatest risk factors for unnecessary suffering and poor mental health. The process of ACT includes help for individuals to identify a set of core values, a personal set of objectives that matter to them personally. The therapy then encourages the individual to commit to behavior that furthers these values despite potentially painful emotional obstacles.

Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life offers a five-step plan for coping with painful emotions such as anxiety and depression. It teaches you how to learn life-enhancing behavior strategies that work to further the goals you value most. You'll learn to engage with and overcome painful thoughts and feelings with step-by-step acceptance and mindfulness-based techniques. You'll find out how to let go of control, and develop compassion and flexibility. The realization that painful feelings cannot be controlled will open you to the possibility of fully emotional living. Once present, engaged, and aware, you can begin to build new lives for yourself filled with significance and meaning. This book is not about overcoming pain or fighting emotions; it's about embracing life and feeling everything it has to offer. In this way, it offers a way out of suffering by choosing to life a life based on what matters most.

Author

Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D., is University of Nevada Foundation Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. An author more than 300 scientific articles and twenty-two 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 psychologist 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.

Audience

Appropriate for anyone interested in a scientifically based psychotherapy that provides a practical approach for developing and maintaining mental well-being.