William’s Reviews > Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change > Status Update

This last ten pages outlined the main approach of ACT and spent considerable time talking about how to help a client evaluate their current model for change to answer the practical question: is it working? Hayes argues that many people engage in types of problem solving with thought or emotional distress that are doomed to fail—and encourages clients to track the success of the methods they are using.

The author is making a compelling argument that the mind that does language is the mind capable of creating suffering through the same mechanisms that allow language to develop. And that the same strategies that lead a person to successfully navigate problems in the external world often produce distress when applied to the inner world. Lots of science and examples from clinical case work. Excellent, but dense.

The book is written in dense academic language. Despite having to wade through complex passive sentences filled with jargon, the logic and behind the book is refreshing.

Right now I am reading about how humans use verbal relationships to create the experience of suffering and how many of the solutions offered people become a recipe for increasing, and not decreasing the suffering they are experiencing.