Scott Peck already has done this. His book "The Road Less Traveled" sold millions of copies and was on the best seller lists for years. The opening section, called "Problems and Pain", he wote "Life is difficult...". What Hayes has done, intentionally or not, is to copy the success of that message. Given the appetite the media encourages us to have for immediate gratication, that's not a bad message to reiterate. Go to the excerpt at Amazon.com and go to page three of the first chaper "Discipline", the first section "Problems and Pain"...

Dear Editor

Many people have written here about how Buddhism have inspired concepts like mindfulness in ACT. No-one has mentioned other religious traditions. It seems to me that often concepts and techniques shared across different religions and psychotherapeutic schools are part of "wisdom texts/traditions" and worthwhile to pay attention to.

Maybe since Descartes famously stated: "cogito ergo sum" Westerners have emphasised thinking too much and that ACT's recommendation that too much entanglement with one's thinking should be discouraged is spot-on.

John Baldock, in a chapter on "Rumi and Islam" in his book _The Essence of Rumi_ mentions that there is a habit of making life more complicated than it really is by 'thinking' about the reason for doing things, rather than just doing them with intention. By complicating our lives by identifying too much with our thinking we add unnecessary unhappiness in my opinion. This seems to resonate with what I've read about ACT. Baldock quotes Iqbal's comments on a passage from the Mathnawi by Rumi. Iqbal concludes his comments on this passage with:

"The philosopher kills himself thinking; the more he thinks, the less he finds." Maybe we should indeed get on with living our lives by getting out of our minds. Dr Hayes, your book is on my wish list.

As a psychologist I've found the insights, metaphors and techniques I've gained already by exposure to RFT and ACT beneficial to both my patients and myself. Thanks for your contributions to Psychology.

Kind regards.

Ester de Beer

Bloemfontein, South Arica

ester.debeer@gmail.com

I have to post this anonymously for reasons that involve the second letter of the acronym I'm involved with, but it struck me that Steven Hayes has some of his concept from the more enlightened views of substance abuse recovery.

There is a cliche spouted off in AA meetings of "Happy, Joyous, and Free" which I've always found to be bullshit. Happy and Joyous have always struck me as expectations, just like when I got drunk, I expected to be happy.

The truly wonderful thing about the enlightened view of substance recovery is that AA provides a method to Get Free. I don't want to be happy and joyous, I just want to be free to sit quietly with all the good and bad things that come with life and not have to numb myself with booze, drugs, television, buying crap, etc. Crimony, especially being a New Yorker living in a posh-ass neighborhood and seeing everyone filling voids with all the previous, I get a little down and lonely in this thought process.

SO.. reading this article, I feel like I just got some validation which can be hard to come by. Thank you much.

A Sober Humanist and Atheist

I have to post this anonymously for reasons that involve the second letter of the acronym I'm involved with, but it struck me that Steven Hayes has some of his concept from the more enlightened views of substance abuse recovery.

There is a cliche spouted off in AA meetings of "Happy, Joyous, and Free" which I've always found to be bullshit. Happy and Joyous have always struck me as expectations, just like when I got drunk, I expected to be happy.

The truly wonderful thing about the enlightened view of substance recovery is that AA provides a method to Get Free. I don't want to be happy and joyous, I just want to be free to sit quietly with all the good and bad things that come with life and not have to numb myself with booze, drugs, television, buying crap, etc. Crimony, especially being a New Yorker living in a posh-ass neighborhood and seeing everyone filling voids with all the previous, I get a little down and lonely in this thought process.

SO.. reading this article, I feel like I just got some validation which can be hard to come by. Thank you much.

A Sober Humanist and Atheist

Wow!!

Sounds like common sense!!

Lynne

Sydney Australia

About that post of mine below -- I meant this book is my begining or that of the ACT / RFT community in the popular media. That last line seems to have me saying that I believe a little self-help book is THE beginning of a process of applying psychological science to the problem human hatred.

Whoa, down boy! (Even I am not quite so gradiose as THAT).

When our data on prejudice and stigma hit, though, what I mean empirically will be clearer.

Let me say it this way: Acceptance and values are about love. Let's learn more.

- S

hayes@unr.edu

As this one winds down, let me just say thanks to the folks looking into this whole area. I've received a lot of cool emails, and a lot of ones from people in great pain. I've responded to all of them. It has been sobering. There is so much pain in the world and yet so much courage.

So far people seem to find value in the book, which is exciting. It was the #1 self-help book on Amazon yesterday ... and its not because there has been monster publicity so much as word of mouth is working. You will fine the ideas in that book more complex than what shows through in stories like this one (despite the best efforts of really good reporters ... and so far we've had great ones). Folks who want to join a dialog about the issues in the book can go to yahoo groups and join a list serve called "ACT_for_the_Public" (there is also a link to it on the contextualpsychology.org site). It has some good ACT therapists and researchers on it, but it is for nonprofessionals.

I've personally been on a bit of a ride (Time magazine etc), which has been fun, but the real prize for me is trying to help create a psychological science more adequate to what the world needs of it. That is in the distant future perhaps, but it is worth pursuing. It's critical, in fact.

Underneath the ideas you can get into a popular interview like this is a research program, scientists and therapists around the world, basic studies, outcomes studies, trainings, students etc etc. People wanting to understand more of the science can look to the ACT and RFT books readily available on places like Amazon, or hang out on the site. What is really different about the ACT / RFT universe is that it is open and non-hierarchical; it is basic and applied; and it aspires to the heights but is firmly grounded in data. I don't think there is a community quite like it elsewhere in psychology.

There are limits to the value of articles such as this. I'm a neophyte when it comes to the popular media, but what becomes popular seems to be about personalities, conflict, and angles. These will not survive our passing. What might is a progressive science more adequate to challenges of the human condition.

For all of their value, spiritual, religious, artistic, and humanistic traditions have not found a way to be progressive in the same fashion as experimental science. Unfortunately, that statement is far more readily justified in the physical sciences -- behavioral science has not really lived up to that hope ... but what if it could?

What is most important about ACT is not ACT but its link to its basic theory, Relational Frame Theory (RFT). RFT might, just might, be a better way forward into human cognition and its foibles. Hardly any of that story is in these articles yet -- it is very complex work and hard to explain -- but that is the hope.

Physical science cannot and will not fully solve the core problems of humanity. In some ways it is making it all worse. Each invention makes the world easier, for example -- but done carelessly, that makes the lure of "ease" even more powerful, distress tolerance becomes even less likely, and suffering deepens.

The answer has to include a better, much better, kind of behavioral science that empowers our other institutions (religion, politics, media, etc) and that helps us learn how to create a more compassionate, loving, values-based world. Or so I believe. The book applies these methods to the individual struggling with human pain. Acceptance is indeed a loving thing to do for oneself. Undermining self-hatred and the objectification and dehumanization of oneself is what "Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life" is all about. But if we truly understood how the human mind works, could we take the next step and reduce the objectification and dehumanization of others? Could we being to address the problem of hatred in the world?

We are determined to begin to learn. We must. By the time suitcase bombs arrive (20 years from now? 30? 50?) we'd better have more than soldiers and physical technology to protect humanity or we are headed toward a nightmare society. In a world of modern technology, we will never be able to kill enough people to make us safe.

The Time Magazine story called that way of speaking "icky zealotry" -- but I think is just the situation we are facing. We either learn how to create a more loving world or we may not have one worth living in at all. I'm betting psychological science can help. This book is a beginning.

Peace, love, and life

- S

Steve Hayes, University of Nevada (hayes@unr.edu)