Most therapists and clients believe that a more vital life can be attained by overcoming negative thoughts and feelings. Yet despite efforts to achieve this goal, many individuals continue to suffer with behavior disorders, adjustment difficulties, and low life satisfaction.

Most therapists and clients believe that a more vital life can be attained by overcoming negative thoughts and feelings. Yet despite efforts to achieve this goal, many individuals continue to suffer with behavior disorders, adjustment difficulties, and low life satisfaction. This volume presents a unique psychotherapeutic approach that addresses the problem of psychological suffering by altering the very ground on which rational change strategies rest. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses in particular on the ways clients understand and perpetuate their difficulties through language. Providing a comprehensive overview of the approach and detailed guidelines for practice, this book shows how interventions based on metaphor, paradox, and experiential exercises can enable clients to break free of language traps, overcome common behavioral problems, and enhance general life satisfaction.

Part 1: The Problem and the Approach
The Dilemma of Human Suffering
The Philosophical and Theoretical Foundation of ACT
The ACT Model of Psychopathology and Human Suffering
Part 2: Clinical Methods
Creative Hopelessness: Challenging the Normal Change Agenda
Control is the Problem, Not the Solution
Building Acceptance by Defusing Language
Discovering Self, Defusing Self
Valuing
Willingness and Commitment: Putting ACT into Action
Part 3: Using ACT
The Effective ACT
Therapeutic Relationship
ACT in Context.