THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER's Books & More Shop: Books in General: Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Home

Books in General

Social Work Books

Office Products

Location: Home :: Books in General :: Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Need a quick gift? Try Amazon gift certificates.

Don't Forget To Visit:

The New Social Worker Online

SocialWorkJobBank

Online Continuing Education for Social Workers

Amazon.com Widgets

Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
enlarge	Author: Steven C. Hayes Publisher: New Harbinger Publications Category: Book List Price: ~~$19.95~~ Buy Used: $10.71 You Save: $9.24 (46%) New (45) Used (15) from $10.71 Media: Paperback Edition: 1 Number Of Items: 1 Pages: 206 Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2 Dimensions (in): 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.6 ISBN: 1572244259 Dewey Decimal Number: 616.89142 EAN: 9781572244252 ASIN: 1572244259 Publication Date: October 2005 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Shipping: Expedited shipping available Shipping: International shipping available Condition: truly BRAND NEW Bk with subtle ding[s]; gift quality--unless perfectionist. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED! FAST shipping; Why not go with the seller you can trust completely?

Editorial Reviews: Amazon.com Review Trying to "change" negative thoughts through cognitive gymnastics is like trying to win a war single-handedly. Why waste a life trying the impossible? In iGet Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy/i, advocate Dr. Steven Hayes escorts the mildly depressed, angry, and anxiety prone through a new approach to handling suffering--universal human suffering caused by language's illusions. Rather than fighting off bad thoughts and feelings with internal pep talks, Hayes beautifully explains how to embrace those pessimistic and foreboding mental voices (much like welcoming home one's cranky, play-worn children), "defuse" them with respectful attention, and commit to leading a purposeful life that includes their occasional ranting.brbr 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.--iLiane Thomas/ibrbr 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. p align=left span class="h1"strongQuestions for Steven Hayes/strong/span p strongAmazon.com:/strong Can you give us a lay person's primer on acceptance and commitment therapy? pstrongSteven Hayes:/strong 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. p 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. /p p 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? /p p 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./p pstrongAmazon.com:/strong 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? pstrong Steven Hayes:/strong 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. p 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. p 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." p 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. pstrongAmazon.com:/strong You are a language researcher and chapter two of iGet Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life/i is called "Why Language Leads to Suffering." Can you tell us why you suggest that language is a source of human suffering? pstrong Steven Hayes:/strong 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. /p p 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./p p 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. /p pWe 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./p Product Description 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. Youll learn to engage with and overcome painful thoughts and feelings with step-by-step acceptance and mindfulness-based techniques. Youll 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; its 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.

Customer Reviews: Read 26 more reviews... A time for value August 2, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful This is a great book for helping you get your life back on tract. It's a step by step way of getting to know yourself, and what you think is important in your life. A program that leads you to setting up goals (values). It shows you how to deal with the sticking points that have stopped you living your values and reaching those goals. This book would work quit well with a therapist too. I really cannot simply say enough about the simplicity of grasping the approach and making it work. Best Wishes...... Vern Powerful ideas ripped off from Claire Weekes July 10, 2008 6 out of 8 found this review helpful To the author's credit, these are very powerful ideas that, as I know first hand, can have a VERY powerful psychological healing effect.br /br /To his discredit, he totally ripped them off from a book called Hope and Help for Your Nerves by Claire Weekes. Now he's the founder of a "new school" of therapy. Please. He should grow a pair and credit his source.br /br /Five stars for the fact that the ideas are good. Minus three for intellectual grand larceny. If you have anxiety or depression, GET THIS BOOK NOW... March 16, 2008 3 out of 3 found this review helpful A truly magnificent work. Unlike many of the traditional McTherapy books that I wasted my money on, this book actually worked. It has transformed my life in ways that I cannot even begin to appreciate. br /br /br /br / A good explanation of how we drive ourselves nuts. March 12, 2008 4 out of 4 found this review helpful Yes, it has been said before, by various awakened sages, especially the Buddhists; and several modern Buddhists authors have also said it very well (Pema Chodron, Joko Beck, Jack Kornfield--"After the Ecstasy, the Laundry"). br /br /Even so, I enjoyed hearing the practical message again (Be willing to feel what you feel when you feel it, without avoidance or clinging). The explanations in the book are helpful and the exercises are useful. br /br /I can recommend this book to anyone who has struggled to make unwanted feelings go away. It's a huge relief to lay down your weapons and walk away from the battlefield. br /br / Free Your Mind January 28, 2008 0 out of 1 found this review helpful If you are looking for a fresh start- I would recommend the practices in this book. I would also recommend books by ANTHONY STULTZ and EZRA BAYDA for the foundations of this wonderful new approach to freedom from unhealthy thoughts and feelings.

Copyright 2007 White Hat Communications.
Disclaimer: The products referenced on this site are manufactured and sold by parties other than The New Social Worker/White Hat Communications. We make no representations regarding either the products or any information vendors offer about their products.

Visit our poster store for unique social issues posters.

Amazon.com Widgets