[photopress:1572244259.03.TZZZZZZZ.jpg,thumb,alignright]A few minutes after my daily dose of Lamictal I noticed this Salon interview with ACT therapist Stephen C. Hayes (on the occasion of his new book). Not familar with ACT therapy? First I’d heard of it too.
ACT (Acceptance and Commitment) therapy is the third wave in the movement from behavioral therapy to cognitive therapy (to ACT therapy). Instead of just teaching folks to be able to detach enough from their emotions to make rational choices about them, ACT contrasts two ways of life (with convenient acronyms):
- ACT: Accept your reactions and be present. Choose a valued direction. Take action.
- FEAR: Fusion with your thoughts. Evaluation of experience. Avoidance of your experience. Reason-giving for your behavior.
ACT (and its sibling therapy schools) draws a lot from lay-friendly version of Buddhist mindfulness. What’s more, it teaches something of an American “Middle Way” between self-indulgence and self-mortification. Consumerism and feel-goodism (and overeating?) stand in as the American forms of self-indulgence. On the side of self-mortification, you could put American innovations like extreme sports and exercise obsession.
Feel-goodism? Perhaps the most controversial claim ACT makes is that happiness is not normal. Expecting happiness, or believing you have a “right” to happiness, ACT says, will in turn make you unhappy.
“Happiness isn’t normal” becomes the ACT catchphrase. Simple observation of human life throughout history should be enough to prove that. The trick, urges ACT, isn’t to be happy, it’s to lead a value-centered life—whether you’re happy that month or not.
Living out our deepest chosen values will carry us through most any storm. But because we get such poor training in even thinking about what our values might be—and such poor training in “sitting with suffering”—we have a hard time thinking outside the consumerist happiness box. Insert ACT therapy sessions here.
Sounds exciting. I’m going to look more into this. Looks to be much more info here.
interesting!
It sounds interesting! I want to read more about it. I wonder what benefit they are offering with their system since it doesn’t sound like it’s happiness? (It’s like relationship “experts” who say that it’s normal for people to be dissatisfied in marriage.)
Also, maybe happiness isn’t normal in the sense that it’s not average, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. Look at the Dahli Lama, he looks pretty happy to me and he is doing the accepting the moment thing. I think there is a wider range of well being and suffering than people realize, just like there is a huge gap between how much money people have.
I think there are some people who are very happy. I just saw Sarah Jessica Parker last night say, “I am the definition of contentment.” I am not the defintion of contentment, but I’m amazed at how high my base line level of well being is now. I have ups and downs but the landscape the hills and valleys are on is much better now. Is that happiness?
I’d guess they’d say the “benefit” is a full and meaningful life, whether or not it happened to be happy.
I certainly agree with you that happiness is possible. But so much of happiness depends on circumstance. If I am homeless, say, or a political prisoner, the odds that I can be legitimately happy really drop. But I can still choose to do everything I can to live a full and meaningful life despite those circumstance.
There was a big story in TIME magazine on ACT recently. I, too, noticed the similarities to Buddhism, which makes me interested in looking into it. Something always felt a little unnatural to me about the cognitive therapy I received. To return to the Buddhism metaphor, cognitive therapy would be like trying to meditate by shaping or suppressing your thoughts as they arise, whereas the Buddhist practice is to let them arise, but to note them for what they are, watching them arise and dissipate without trying to change or suppress them. ACT seems to be like the latter. On the other hand, the evangelistic zeal of some of its adherants makes me wary.
Very interesting. Never heard of this before, either. I have long thought that American culture over-emphasizes happiness and the appearance of happiness. This ACT therapy sounds more like where I am coming from – that you take life as a whole.
I just hope it isn’t to the extreme of the Dr Phil method… I can’t stand how he works.
Heh. No Dr. Phil stuff at all. Very anti-Phil. No cowboying up. Much more restful than that (though I’m only three chapters in).
Very interesting and useful information. I have already forwarded the link to this entry to several people.