The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (A New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook)

This really goes deep into your values and habits. I simply adore Dr. Hays and his work in ACT as it has helped me become a better helper to others. I recommend this book to anyone seeking more studies in ACT. This is a great toolbox item to have at the ready should you need a printable handout.

A necessity for every person.

We seem to forget that mental health is the same as physical health in the sense that it needs the same amount of work each day to keep healthy.

As you maintain your body with good nutrition and exercise, this book provides the exercises to reach and maintain a healthy mind for good decision making and responsible living.

I wish everyone would read this book and commence working on their mental health.

Helps explain the principles in everyday language that makes it easier to really understand. It has lots of practical worksheets such as "attempted solutions and their long term effects" which facilitate application personally or professionally.

I've used this book. Without going into the sordid details, it was extremely helpful to me. I wish there were more therapist who were well-versed in this practice. I'd recommend it to anyone who struggles with anxiety or other issues, and would also recommend it to therapists who are looking to broaden their horizons.

It is excellent. Steven C. Hayes (and Spencer Smith), I commend you, you've made a difference in at least one life, and probably many others.

For the deeply depressed I'd recommend first getting stabilized with medications, but then ask your therapist to work with you on this, or do it on your own. There are brief portions that get a little technical/thick, but most of it is quite easy to read and engaging. It is not at all condescending, judgmental, lecturing, etc. It is very gentle and respectful, and allows room for skepticism. I think it's helped me finish off one of my last mental health challenges.

For the deeply depressed I'd recommend first getting stabilized with medications, but then ask your therapist to work with you on this, or do it on your own. There are brief portions that get a little technical/thick, but most of it is quite easy to read and engaging. It is not at all condescending, judgmental, lecturing, etc. It is very gentle and respectful, and allows room for skepticism. I think it's helped me finish off one of my last mental health challenges.

About halfway though. I skip lots of parts on the advice of my counselor - she agrees with me that it goes a bit too "woo" at times - but overall, it is one of the best books i've encountered on the topic. Recommended!

I found this book extremely useful in helping to understand how we think. It did help me to 'file' anxious thoughts and to live more in the present. I have to admit I skipped some of the exercises, but I already knew a lot of it so felt that was right for me. I'd highly recommend it for people who suffer from anxious, worrying, obsessive or depressing thoughts.

Psychological treatments, like most forms of therapy, have been developing and adapting for centuries. In recent years the best treatment for depression, as well as a host of other psychiatric disorders, has being centered on a combination of medication and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). The behavior therapies largely replaced psychoanalytic theory. The transition from psychoanalysis was not smooth, and as an attempt to ridicule psychoanalytic ideas, some notorious behavior therapists used to train people with mental illness to perform simple actions and then they would watch with amusement as psychoanalytically trained colleagues concocted creative but often bizarre symbolic interpretations of behaviors that had just been created.

We may now be on the cusp another revolution in therapy that could ultimately relegate CBT to the history books, rather in the way that CBT did to psychoanalysis. This new approach has sprung directly from the Buddhist traditions, and revolves around "mindfulness and acceptance". In the Buddhist worldview, each moment is complete by itself, and the world is perfect as it is; That being so, the focus is on acceptance, validation and tolerance, instead of change, and experience rather than experiment as the way to understand the world.

For many patients it feels profoundly liberating to be able to see that thoughts are just thoughts and that they are not "you" or "reality." This realization can free an individual from the distorted reality that they often create and allow for more clarity and a greater sense of control in life.

This idea that the solution to suffering is to increase acceptance of the here and now, and to decrease the craving and attachment that inevitably keep one clinging to a past that has already changed, is quite different from behavior therapy's emphasis on developing skills for attaining one's goals.

But the notion that suffering results from things not being the way one strongly wants them to be, or insists they should be, is very compatible with cognitive-behavioral therapies. The work of Albert Ellis, who is still active in his nineties, is arguably the clearest and most consistent presentation of this point of view.

The ideas in this book are fresh, novel, interesting and controversial. Some of the suggestion will be of great help to some people. Yet two problems remain for most people, and these are motivation to change and resistance to change. Without attention to those twin demons, progress can be very difficult.

For anyone interested in personal growth and development and an easy introduction to a whole new approach to therapy, this book is highly recommended.

Bought this book based on the recent article in Men's Health on this topic, featuring the author Steven Hayes. Having read many psychology books and other self-helpish books, I was anxious for some new paradigms. Unfortunately, I looked and looked in this book, and just saw more of the same.
The premise is somewhat unique, the 'suffering is everywhere, trying to avoid it makes you crazy, i.e. neurotic' basis of the book.
You can sum this book up in the famous quote, which I will ruin here, 'Life is a struggle, the sooner you realize that the better off you'll be'
There is a section on goal-setting? Meditation? Very run-of-the-mill stuff for modern self-help literature.

I really wanted to like this book, but it is a long walk for a brief and simple premise. You'd be better served reading up on basic Buddhist philosophy, but if you're coming to self-help for the first time, this book would seem comprehensive and interesting.