Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change - Hardcover

Hayes PhD, Steven C.; Strosahl PhD, Kirk D.; Wilson PhD, Kelly G.; Strosahl, Kirk D.; Wilson, Kelly G.; Hayes, Steven C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1572304812 ISBN 13: 9781572304819

Publisher: The Guilford Press, 1999

Synopsis

The prevailing view among therapists as well as clients is that a more vital life can be attained by overcoming negative thoughts and feelings. Yet despite efforts to achieve this goal, many individuals continue to suffer with behavior disorders, adjustment difficulties, and low life satisfaction. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a unique psychotherapeutic approach that addresses this issue by altering the very ground on which rational change strategies rest. Within a coherent theoretical and philosophical framework, ACT illuminates the ways clients understand and perpetuate their difficulties through language. The book shows how interventions based on metaphor, paradox, and experiential exercises can enable clients to break free of language traps and make contact with thoughts, feelings, memories, and physical sensations that have been feared and avoided. Detailed guidelines are presented for helping clients recontextualize and accept these private events, develop greater clarity about personal values, and commit to needed behavior change. Providing in one volume a scientifically sound theory of psychopathology and a practical treatment model, and illustrated by a wealth of clinical examples, this is an important resource for practitioners and students in the full range of behavioral health care fields.

About this title

About the Author

Steven C. Hayes, PhD, is Nevada Foundation Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada. An author of 15 books and more than 250 scientific articles, his interests cover basic research, applied research, methodology, and philosophy of science.

Kirk D. Strosahl, PhD, is Research and Training Director for the Mountainview Consulting Group, where he provides consultation and training on integrative primary care medicine, outcomes management in applied delivery systems, clinical management of the suicidal patient, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

Kelly G. Wilson, PhD, is Associate Director of the Center for Contextual Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has directed a National Institute on Drug Abuse grant since 1993, examining both Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and 12-Step facilitation treatment of substance abuse.

From the Back Cover

This book offers the clinician a theoretical, philosophical, and practical guide to a new and potentially powerful model of psychotherapy. Focusing on the context and process of change, Hayes and his colleagues set out a clear plan to help those clients who, as they put it, feel unable to find their way out of life's ongoing traps. Their blueprint for change encourages a strategic and technical eclecticism and the building of a strong working alliance. The pragmatic and reasonable approach described in this book will be of great interest to therapists from any disciplinary background. It will also serve as an excellent text in graduate-level counseling and psychotherapy courses (Arthur Freeman, EdD, ABPP).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

I. The Problem and the Approach 1. The Dilemma of Human Suffering 2. The Philosophical and Theoretical Foundation of ACT 3. The ACT Model of Psychopathology and Human Suffering II. Clinical Methods 4. Creative Hopelessness: Challenging the Normal Change Agenda 5. Control Is the Problem, Not the Solution 6. Building Acceptance by Defusing Language 7. Discovering Self, Defusing Self 8. Valuing 9. Willingness and Commitment: Putting ACT into Action III. Using ACT 10. The Effective ACT Therapeutic Relationship 11. ACT in Context

Edition details

• Publisher: The Guilford Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1572304812
• ISBN 13: 9781572304819
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304