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Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Kindle Edition
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Get ready to take a different perspective on your problems and your life—and the way you live it.
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.
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.
- Learn why the very nature of human language can cause suffering
- Escape the trap of avoidance
- Foster willingness to accept painful experience
- Practice mindfulness skills to achieve presence in the moment
- Discover the things you really value most
- Commit to living a vital, meaningful life
This book has been awarded The Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Self-Help Seal of Merit — an award bestowed on outstanding self-help books that are consistent with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles and that incorporate scientifically tested strategies for overcoming mental health difficulties. Used alone or in conjunction with therapy, our books offer powerful tools readers can use to jump-start changes in their lives.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherNew Harbinger Publications
- Publication dateNovember 1, 2005
- File size9187 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Intriguing exercises help readers identify their core struggles, parse these into manageable pieces, and develop effective ways to move beyond rumination. The work progresses easily, thanks to Hayes' engaging style and his grace in coaching readers. Critics of cognitive and behavioral therapies will warm to Hayes' logical explanations of language's pitfalls (even language used by other therapeutic approaches); his sometimes goofy--but surprisingly effective--exercises; well-timed etymology lessons; and his uncanny ability to predict and skillfully address reader reactions throughout the workbook. Ironically, the path to life clocks many hours in the mind; plan to dedicate an intensive month of introspection to this program. Anyone who has been accused of thinking too much, who begrudges compliments, pines for a different life, or feels trapped at a mental dead end can benefit from Hayes' superior guidance.--Liane Thomas
Dr. Steven Hayes answers a few questions about his book, and describes how his research was inspired by his own struggles with panic and anxiety.
Questions for Steven Hayes
Amazon.com: Can you give us a lay person's primer on acceptance and commitment therapy?
Steven Hayes: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is based on a rather remarkable fact: when normal problem solving skills are applied to psychologically painful thoughts or feelings, suffering often increases. Our research program has shown this in thousands of patients, in almost every area of human suffering. Fortunately, we have discovered why this is and we have developed some ways of correcting it.
The basic research underlying ACT shows that entanglement with your own mind leads automatically to experiential avoidance: the tendency to try first to remove or change negative thoughts and feelings as a method of life enhancement. This attempted sequence makes negative thoughts and feelings more central, important, and fearsome--and often decreasing the ability to be flexible, effective, and happy.
The trick that traps us is that these unhelpful mental processes are fed by agreement OR disagreement. Your mind is like a person who has to be right about everything. If you know any people like that you know that they are excited when you agree with them but they can be even more excited and energized when you argue with them! Minds are like that. So what do you do?
ACT teaches you what to do. I will say what that is, but readers need to understand that these mere words will not be useful in and of themselves. Minds are too clever for that! That is why the book has so many exercises and why we have a free discussion group on line for people working through the book (http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/ACT_for_the_Public/). What ACT teaches is acceptance of emotions, mindful awareness of thoughts, contact with a transcendent sense of self, and action based on chosen values. This constellation of skills has shown itself in controlled research to help with an amazingly large range of problems, from anxiety to managing the challenges of physical disease, from depression, to stopping smoking.
Amazon.com: Some of this work is said to have come from your own battles with anxiety and panic. How did these ideas apply to your own struggles?
Steven Hayes: It was my own panic disorder that first put me on to the problem we have now confirmed in our research. My panic disorder began a little over 25 years ago. I watched in horror as it grew rapidly, simply by applying my normal problem solving skills to it. Anxiety felt awful and seemingly made it impossible to function, so it was obvious to me that I first needed to get rid of it before my life would improve. I tried lots of things to do that. But this very effort meant I had to constantly evaluate my level of anxiety, and fearfully check to see if it was going up or down as a result of my efforts. As a result, anxiety quickly became the central focus of my life. Anxiety itself became something to be anxious about, and meanwhile life was put on hold.
After two or three years of this I'd had enough. I began to experiment with acceptance, mindfulness, and valued action instead of detecting, disputing, and changing my insides.
I remember a moment that symbolizes the change in direction. In the middle of a panic attack, with a guttural scream like you hear in the movies, I literally shouted out loud to my own mind. "You can make me feel pain, you can make me feel anxiety," I yelled. "But you cannot make me turn away from my own experience."
It has not been a smooth path and it was several years before anxiety itself was obviously way down (getting it to go down was no longer my purpose, remember, but ironically when you stop trying to make it happen, often it does), but almost immediately life opened up again. ACT is the result of over 20 years of research, following the lead this provided.
Amazon.com: You are a language researcher and chapter two of Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life is called "Why Language Leads to Suffering." Can you tell us why you suggest that language is a source of human suffering?
Steven Hayes: Human language (by that I mean our symbolic abilities generally) is central to effective human cognition. It evolved to keep us from starving or being eaten--and it has done a pretty good job of that.
The key to symbolic processes is the ability to relate events in new and arbitrary ways. Our research program has shown this ability even in 14 month old babies, and we now know it comes from direct training from parents and others as part of normal language development. It is a wonderful skill. It allows us to imagine futures that have never been, and to compare situations that have never actually been experienced. That is the every essence of human verbal problem solving.
But that same process has a downside for human beings. For example, it allows us to fear things we have never experienced (e.g., death). It allows us to run from the past or compare the dull present to a fantasized future and to be unhappy as a result. And in my case it lead to the common sense but ultimately unhelpful idea that I needed to get rid of anxiety before I could live well.
We get a lot of training in how to develop and use our minds, but we get very little training in how to step out of the mental chatter when that is needed. As a result, this mental tool begins to use us. It will even claim to BE us. The overextension of human language and cognition, I believe, is at the core of the vast majority of human suffering in the developed world and human technology (the media) is only amplifying the problem by exposing us to an ever increasing stream of symbols and images. Learning how to get out of your mind and into your life when you need to do that is an essential skill in the modern world.
Review
"This manual, firmly based on cutting-edge psychological science and theory, details an innovative and rapidly growing approach that can provide you with the power to transform your very experience of life."
-- "David H. Barlow, professor of psychology"If you're tired of standard psychological parlance and still frustrated with your quality of life, this book can be a godsend.-- "Martha Beck, columnist for O Magazine"
From the Publisher
From the Back Cover
Get ready to take a different perspective on your problems and your lifeand the way you live it. 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, youll learn to let go of your struggle against pain, assess your values, and then commit to acting in ways that further those values.
ACT is not about fighting your pain; its about developing a willingness to embrace every experience life has to offer. Its not about resisting your emotions; its 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 youre struggling with anxiety, depression, or problem anger, this book can helpclinical 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 complaintit is a revolutionary approach to living a richer and more rewarding life.
· Learn why the very nature of human language can cause suffering
· Escape the trap of avoidance
· Foster willingness to accept painful experience
· Practice mindfulness skills to achieve presence in the moment
· Discover the things you really value most
· Commit to living a vital, meaningful life
About the Author
Steven C. Hayes, PhD, is a professor of psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. An author of more than 300 scientific articles and twenty-two books, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Relational Frame Therapy, his research explores the nature of human language and cognition and their application to the understanding and alleviation of human suffering. Steven is the recipient of the Don F. Hake Award for Exemplary Contributions to Basic Behavioral Research and Its Applications.
Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D., is University of Nevada Foundation Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. An author of more than 300 scientific articles and twenty-two books, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Relational Frame Therapy, his research explores the nature of human language and cognition and their application to the understanding and alleviation of human suffering. Steven is the recipient of the Don F. Hake Award for Exemplary Contributions to Basic Behavioral Research and Its Applications.Spencer Smith is a freelance writer and editor based in Santa Rosa, California.
Product details
- ASIN : B0054M063A
- Publisher : New Harbinger Publications; 1st edition (November 1, 2005)
- Publication date : November 1, 2005
- Language : English
- File size : 9187 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 221 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #57,226 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
My goal is a psychology of human functioning that transforms how we live our lives. That passion comes from personal pain. As a young professional I spiraled down into panic disorder and at the very lowest point in 1981 (www.bit.ly/StevesFirstTED) I found a way forward by turning toward pain and suffering, which then allow me to turn toward meaning and purpose. I tell this story in my book, A Liberated Mind. I immediately saw movement not just in myself, but also in my clients. Over two or three years I roughed out ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy ... by the way ACT is called "act" not Aay, Cee, Tee), and did a few outcome studies. Then I put randomized controlled trials on hold, while I and my team developed a basic science approach to human language (Relational Frame Theory or RFT), clarified the philosophy of science issues needed to do science in this slippery area (functional contextualism), developed a new behavioral approach to scientific development, Contextual Behavioral Science, and work on the techniques, measures, and theoretical concepts that would support all of this, especially the applied model called "psychological flexibility." Most of this was done at the University of Nevada, Reno, where I moved as a psychology professor in 1986.
Finally, in 1999 the first academic book on ACT appeared. At the time there were only 2 published randomized control trials of ACT. This book followed by the first RFT book in 2001, and then work really began to take off. We began doing outcome studies in earnest at the turn of the century. There are now several thousand studies on this work, including nearly 900 randomized controlled trials (see bit.ly/ACTRCTs) and nearly 300 meta-analyses or systematic reviews (see bit.ly/ACTmetas). ACT and RFT is being developed by a worldwide association of over 9,300 professionals with over 30 chapters outside of North America in 20 different languages -- the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS: www.contextualpsychology.org). At ACBS you will find list serves for professionals and a list of ACT therapists (bit.ly/FindanACTtherapist).
I've written 47 books but mostly for academics. My first popular book was Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life (with Spencer Smith; New Harbinger Publications, 2005) but I have a cool recent one I worked on for 11 years called A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters (2019; Penguin/Avery). It is a think book / self-help book / personal story / science story. It shows why psychological flexibility matters. If you want to be on my newsletter list go www.stevenchayes.com and click on "yes, please send it to me." I will start by sending you a 7 part mini-course on ACT. If you want a short and beautiful illustrated Ebook on "ACT in a Nutshell" drawn by my daughter Esther (her depiction of the Dictator Within will stay with you, I guarantee!), go to stevenchayes.com/a-liberated-mind and I'll send it to you. If you are a therapist, my newest book is called Learning Process-Based Therapy, written with Stefan G. Hofmann and David Lorscheid. It shows how to use processes of change to understand your clients and to fit treatment to them in an individually tailored way.
I continue to teach at UNR, but not for much longer (I will be retired from the academy in June 2023). I am now President of a 45 year old charitable organization, the Institute for Better Health, which is using modern technology to foster individually tailored psychological help. I spend my days writing, researching, helping my students, answering emails, hugging my wife, and appreciating my children (ages 16, 30, 33, and 52). I spend a lot of time trying to support the ACT, RFT, and process-based work of others.
You can learn more about my work at my website: www.stevenchayes.com
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I started by reading Tolle's "The Power of Now". The book, instead of helping me, caused me panic attacks (well, the book and my personal circumstances too). I was feeling like "Well, my thougts are different from myself and my self-identity, but... if I am not my mind, if I am not my thoughts, then who am I?". Afterwards, I read "Brain Lock". Great book! Still, I was living in continuous reactive mode: if an obsessive thought would come, I would react with the book methodology (Realize one is having a thought, realize one has OCD, find something else to do and, finally, stop giving importance to the obsessions). The book was a breakthrough for me into CBT. But, walking down a library some day, prey of a depression after a panic attack had spoiled a relationship, I came across this book (Get out of our mind...) I bought it with a bunch of other books.
What makes this book so great is that it takes you by hand to ACT (a form of CBT) and actually has compassion at yourself. It goes slowly. It repeats the ideas several times and makes amazing analogies. It explains, in plain English, the mind-trap of trying not to think something and how this is a loophole (the less you try to think on an elephant, the more you think of it). It contains plenty of exercises. I did them (Do them! They actually get yourself out of your talkative mind) and started feeling the change. I had lots of fear at the beginning, to confront my fears -yes: fear of my fears), but after some time I learned -or am learning- to accept my thoughts without fighting them... and then...
...and then, there was this chapter which actually was called "If I am not my thoughts, then who am I"!! This chapter opened my eyes to living my life not reactively (like, sadly, most people I know do) but proactively: you don't have to follow every little whim and capricious idea that spots on your mind! You can live according to your values and principles!
This book changed my life. God knows it did. And OCD and panic have made disasters in my life (destroyed a relationship with a wonderful woman, swamped myself and made me keep stuck on the same laboral position for years, and a very long etcetera), but I am not going to pay attention to them anymore. No matter how much they "yell" inside myself.
I got things more important to do than solving my "OCD/Panic" situation. I have some values to live for and some people to love.
10/10 (I am re-reading the book now, just after I finished it)
We may now be on the cusp another revolution in therapy that could ultimately relegate CBT to the history books, rather in the way that CBT did to psychoanalysis. This new approach has sprung directly from the Buddhist traditions, and revolves around "mindfulness and acceptance". In the Buddhist worldview, each moment is complete by itself, and the world is perfect as it is; That being so, the focus is on acceptance, validation and tolerance, instead of change, and experience rather than experiment as the way to understand the world.
For many patients it feels profoundly liberating to be able to see that thoughts are just thoughts and that they are not "you" or "reality." This realization can free an individual from the distorted reality that they often create and allow for more clarity and a greater sense of control in life.
This idea that the solution to suffering is to increase acceptance of the here and now, and to decrease the craving and attachment that inevitably keep one clinging to a past that has already changed, is quite different from behavior therapy's emphasis on developing skills for attaining one's goals.
But the notion that suffering results from things not being the way one strongly wants them to be, or insists they should be, is very compatible with cognitive-behavioral therapies. The work of Albert Ellis, who is still active in his nineties, is arguably the clearest and most consistent presentation of this point of view.
The ideas in this book are fresh, novel, interesting and controversial. Some of the suggestion will be of great help to some people. Yet two problems remain for most people, and these are motivation to change and resistance to change. Without attention to those twin demons, progress can be very difficult.
For anyone interested in personal growth and development and an easy introduction to a whole new approach to therapy, this book is highly recommended.
Top reviews from other countries
This is a book that everyone should read, probably the best self help book I have ever read.
Very well done, a bit thanks to the authors.
+ Le livre explique tous de point de vu scientifique.
+ Offre des exercices d'autoguérison et des programmes de "vie"(comment identifier ses valeurs entre autres).
+ Accompagner ce livre avec des méditations de "l'enfant intérieur" résout le problème depuis sa racine et permet de vivre plus en paix✌ (ma propre expérience)
Ps: c'est pas un livre qu'on termine dans une semaine.
Steven Hayes is a real genius, he managed to revolutionize our understanding of therapy by changing the focus from contenct to concept of consciousness and emotion. Thus, this book is not another of the countless self help books telling you to think positive, eat healthy, and do stuff that makes you feel good, rather it targets our relationship to our thoughts and emotions in general, freeing us from a stranglehold of happiness.
I can only recommend to read it!