Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
The third wave stated in full. Acceptance and values rather than disputation.
The book's presentation of the core principles of ACT, including practical guidance for implementing them in clinical practice, is simply superb.
Written by the originators of ACT, this second edition sets out the model in full: how ordinary language and rule-following trap people in struggle against their own thoughts and feelings, and why trying to argue those experiences away tends to deepen them. In place of disputation, the authors build a case for acceptance, contact with the present moment, and action guided by chosen values.
The clinical half is where the book earns its keep. Six processes (defusion, acceptance, present-moment attention, a flexible sense of self, values, and committed action) are laid out as a working model of psychological flexibility, each with exercises, metaphors, and transcribed dialogue a practitioner can adapt. Case formulation runs throughout, so the interventions attach to a person rather than a diagnosis.
First published in 1999, the model here reflects two decades of behavioural science reorganised for use at the point of contact with a client.
About the authors
Steven Hayes
Steven C. Hayes (born 1948) is an American clinical psychologist and Nevada Foundation Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. He developed relational frame theory, an account of human language and cognition, and co-developed Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) with Kirk Strosahl and Kelly Wilson. His work centres on acceptance, mindfulness, and values-based action rather than direct symptom change. For a psychodynamic reader, ACT offers a contrasting behavioural framework for how language shapes suffering and how clinicians might respond.
Kirk Strosahl
Kirk D. Strosahl is a clinical psychologist and a co-developer of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which he created with Steven Hayes and Kelly Wilson. He works as a primary care psychologist at Central Washington Family Medicine in Yakima, Washington, and he adapted ACT into a brief form for general medical practice, known as focused ACT (FACT). Much of his practice serves low-income, underinsured, and uninsured patients.
Kelly Wilson
Kelly G. Wilson is a clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychology at the University of Mississippi. He is a co-developer of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), the contextual behavioural approach he built with Steven Hayes and Kirk Strosahl, and he co-authored later editions of the field's core text. His work centres on acceptance, mindfulness, and values-based methods, and he trains practitioners internationally in the design and delivery of behavioural treatment.
Details
- 1999
- English
- Guilford Press
- Guilford Press, 2nd edition, 2012
- 402
- 9781609189624