An author of 38 books and 550 articles, in 1992 he was listed by the Institute for Scientific Information as the 30th "highest impact" psychologist in the world during 1986-1990 based on the citation impact of his writings during that period. If you are fighting to be ‘right,’ even if it doesn’t help move you forward, assume the White Queen has decreed that you are ‘right.’ Now ask yourself, ‘So what? What can I actually do to create a more valued life from here?’” (84)

If you find yourself entangled in a ‘logical’ but sad story about your life, and why things have to be the way they are, write down the normal story, then take all the descriptive facts and write the same exact facts into a different story” (84)Steven C. Hayes, PhD, is Nevada Foundation Professor in the department of psychology at the University of Nevada. An author of thirty-four books and more than 470 scientific articles, he has shown in his research how language and thought leads to human suffering, and cofounded ACT, a powerful therapy method that is useful in a wide variety of areas. Hayes has been president of several scientific societies and has received several national awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy. I love ACT, so it pains me to rate this less than 4 or 5 stars, but I would really hesitate to recommend it to any consumer with less than a master’s degree. The appendix includes a note to scientists explaining that the authors dumbed down many of the Relational Frame Theory (RFT) concepts for the sake of the general public, and they did, but still there is much in here that goes way beyond what an average self-help consumer will push through. I find the exercises and quotes useful to me as a practitioner but it’s hard for me to imagine more than a handful of the people I have ever worked with going through this book start to finish. I’m willing to be wrong about that. 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.

The past is verbally remembered and the future is verbally imagined or “languaged” with images (23) None of [these techniques] will work simply by reading about them, any more than reading about physical exercise will build your muscles.” (119) Hayes has been President of Division 25 of the American Psychological Association, of the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology, the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy (now known as the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies), and the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. He was the first Secretary-Treasurer of the American Psychological Society (now known as the Association for Psychological Science), which he helped form.levels of self: 1. Conceptualized self, 2. Self as ongoing process of self-awareness, 3. Observing self Suffer means having a burden we are unwilling to carry, that we move away from carrying: “fer” comes from Latin for ‘carry,’ “suf/sub” comes from Latin for ‘from below to up and away’ (12)