Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. the Process and Practice of Mindful Change

Description

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 ACT—from conceptual and empirical foundations to clinical techniques—written 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, self-awareness, values, and committed action. Sample therapeutic exercises and patient–therapist dialogues are integrated throughout.

New to This Edition

• Reflects tremendous advances in ACT clinical applications, theory building, and research.
• Psychological flexibility is now the central organizing focus.
• Expanded coverage of mindfulness, the therapeutic relationship, relational learning, and case formulation.
• Restructured to be more clinician friendly and accessible; focuses on the moment-by-moment process of therapy.

Table of Contents

I. Foundations and the Model

1. The Dilemma of Human Suffering
2. The Foundations of ACT: Taking a Functional Contextual Approach
3. Psychological Flexibility as a Unified Model of Human Functioning

II. Functional Analysis and Approach to Intervention

4. Case Formulation: Listening with ACT Ears, Seeing with ACT Eyes, with Emily K. Sandoz
5. The Therapeutic Relationship in ACT
6. Creating a Context for Change: Mind versus Experience

III. Core Clinical Processes

7. Present-Moment Awareness, with Emily K. Sandoz
8. Dimensions of Self
9. Defusion
10. Acceptance
11. Connecting with Values
12. Committed Action

IV. Building a Progressive Scientific Approach

13. Contextual Behavioral Science and the Future of ACT

Audience

Clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, clinical social workers, counselors, and other mental health practitioners.

About the authors

Steven C. Hayes, PhD, is Nevada Foundation Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada. His career has focused on the analysis of the nature of human language and cognition and its application to the understanding and alleviation of human suffering.

Kirk D. Strosahl, PhD, is a primary care psychologist at Central Washington Family Medicine, in Yakima, Washington, where he is promoting the use of ACT in general medical practice with predominantly low-income underinsured or uninsured clients.

Kelly G. Wilson, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Mississippi, where he is also Director of the Center for Contextual Psychology and the ACT Treatment Development Group.