Steven Hayes on PYP 425

Steven C Hayes is the originator of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or Acceptance and Commitment Training, take your pick), one of the most important psychological approaches of the past 100 years. Why the high praise? For several reasons: ACT is evidence-based ACT is learnable ACT is actionable ACT can be practiced and shared by pretty much any human in any role, unlike most therapies that require degrees and certifications. ACT is built from the ground up from fundamental theories of human cognition and behavior ACT seeks to create mental health, rather than simply address mental illness In our conversation, we tackled the question that has vexed so many philosophers: Why is it so damn hard to be a human? The answer, according to Hayes, lies in the very quality that has enabled us to tame fire, create civilizations, build the Internet, and invent flame throwers: our ability to create and share symbolic meaning. We've evolved a system in the brain that can evaluate, compare, and problem-solve. It's a freakishly useful tool, this brain-part, but it's also problematic. It tells us fantasies about the world and ourselves that we get duped into believing. And when these fantasies conflict with reality, we suffer. Hayes calls this part of us - and it's a part of each and every one of us, and never shuts up, and there's nothing we can do to make it stop - the Dictator. The Dictator is the voice that says things like, "You're stupid." "You'll never last on this diet." "People shouldn't be mean." "Unless you are thin, people will hate you." The first thing we can do to reclaim our power, and liberate our minds from the grip of this Dictator, is to create a separation between ourselves and the voice. ACT refers to this as defusion, as in undoing the fusion we accidentally made with the voice. The Dictator gets in our way not only when we're trying to lose weight or be more productive. It can also put deeply distressing thoughts in our heads; racist, sexist, perverted, hateful thoughts. We don't want to embrace the thoughts, but neither do we want to suppress them and have them drive our words and actions without our conscious knowledge and consent. For example, a racist thought that gets repressed might pop out in the ignorant comment, "I don't see race." The shame that would be triggered by conscious acknowledgment of internalized racism is so great, the person must repress and deny its existence. When we defuse from the Dictator and its unbidden thoughts, we can accept that those thoughts exist in our awareness, and work overtly to challenge them and keep them from defining our actions. Now about that fundamental theory of human cognition and behavior: it's called Relational Frame Theory, and it explains some of our weirdest quirks. Like, why do we sometimes binge on unhealthy food after passing a gym? Hayes blew my mind when he shared the etymology of the word "suffer." The -fer at the end is related to the word for "ferry," to carry or transport. And the "suf" prefix comes from "sub," or "under." So suffering is choosing to carry pain like a burden, to keep it with us and refuse to lay it down. ACT acknowledges that pain is an inevitable part of life. We talked about the three things that lead to pain: aversive events (experienced, witnessed, and recalled - so think about that the next time you turn on the TV news or scroll your Facebook feed), comparisons, and avoidance of unpleasant sensations and emotions. We also talked about using ACT to change our thought patterns, break our identification with unhelpful thoughts, and make plans to adopt behaviors more in keeping with our goals. We spoke about the power of values, as opposed to goals, to drive sustained behavior change. And we looked at a strange exercise - repeating a single word over and over for 30 seconds - to hack our minds to let go of dysfunctional meanings and give us the space to create new, empowering ones. In case this introduction doesn't work in convincing you that Dr Hayes is a BFD (that stands for Big Deal, of course), I've borrowed a few paragraphs from his website: Steven C. Hayes is Nevada Foundation Professor in the Behavior Analysis program at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada. An author of 44 books and nearly 600 scientific articles, his career has focused on an analysis of the nature of human language and cognition and the application of this to the understanding and alleviation of human suffering. He is the developer of Relational Frame Theory, an account of human higher cognition, and has guided its extension to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a popular evidence-based form of psychotherapy that uses mindfulness, acceptance, and values-based methods. Dr. Hayes has been President of Division 25 of the APA, of the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology, the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy, and the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. He was the first Secretary-Treasurer of the Association for Psychological Science, which he helped form and has served a 5 year term on the National Advisory Council for Drug Abuse in the National Institutes of Health. In 1992 he was listed by the Institute for Scientific Information as the 30th “highest impact” psychologist in the world and Google Scholar data ranks him among the top ~1,500 most cited scholars in all areas of study, living and dead (http://www.webometrics.info/en/node/58). His work has been recognized by several awards including the Exemplary Contributions to Basic Behavioral Research and Its Applications from Division 25 of APA, the Impact of Science on Application award from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy.