Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Principles of Becoming More Flexible, Effective, and Fulfilled

By: Steven C. Hayes PhD

Narrated by: Steven C. Hayes PhD

Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

The pioneering originator of ACT teaches us the core principles and methods of this innovative, evidence-based model of life transformation.

Have you ever tried to "think” your way out of emotional turmoil - and ended up feeling even worse? Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) emerges from a remarkable insight: that when our normal problem-solving skills are applied to painful thoughts or feelings, suffering often increases.

Dr. Steven C. Hayes, ACT's originator and codeveloper, has found this to be true in almost every area of life's struggles. "Fortunately," he begins, "we have discovered why this is, and we have developed ways of correcting it."

For more than 30 years, ACT has been used effectively to treat not only mental and behavioral health problems such as anxiety and depression, but to help support workplace success, sports performance, weight loss, and social change. ACT works by helping us to accept and learn from our emotions, to think more freely and flexibly, and to find a liberating new perspective that allows us to take action based on what matters most to us.

Here, you will join this pioneering researcher to learn firsthand about the essentials of ACT. If you're seeking to improve your life, these sessions offer an immersive way to understand this demonstrated path to greater happiness and well-being.

Highlights:

1. Session one: "Learning to Let Life Be Your Teacher"
2. Session two: "Examining Your Sense of Self"
3. Session three: "Opening Up to Letting Go"
4. Session four: "Living Within Your Yes"
5. Session five: "Coming into the Present Moment"
6. Session six: "Identifying Values"
7. Session seven: "Committed Action"
8. Session eight: "Bringing It All Together"

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2020 Steven C. Hayes, PhD (P)2020 Sounds True

Practical, useful and enjoyable

Steven Hayes expplains the main elements of acceptance commitment therapy in an engaging and personal way. I believe that a lot of people could benefit from the methods in this audio book.

Shame it’s not better

There are a lot of useful teachings in the book however they’re obstructed by the endless rambling of the author. Instead of organizing thoughts and really delivering clear succinct messages he just speaks in the same tone of voice for sooo many hours….

Not for Entertainment

This book is more an experience in therapy than light listening. I am studying ACT and find this very useful.

amazing read

this book will change your life! I feel better already! four more words ugh

Valuable deep dive

I sought the ACT material & sought to immerse myself in it. This audiobook is exactly what I wanted.

I very much like Dr. Hayes’ delivery, and for seemingly very similar reasons others have disliked his delivery. Maybe prospective listeners would be well served to listen to a sample before committing.

I feel it is a treat to have the author narrate the book. I knew the narrator knew what the author was thinking.

More mindfulness than CBT but very good

MBCT is basically 99$ mindfulness and if you're lucky 1% CBT(still very good and highly recommended). ACT is closer to a 50/50 mix The mindfulness does have some exercises I didn't already know that will wind up being helpful. There is some visualization there that's not really my thing. I'll get better at it. Since ACT is a third wave CBT, it does have some CBT in it. Where ACT and other third wave CBT's differ from is they preach acceptance of things where CBT preaches challenging them. I think the best response is actually both. Those subtle challenges and trimming the edge off of things makes them easier to accept. Defusion is a great thing to learn and is the form of acceptance usually used in all third wave CBT's but it takes time to get to that point. The commited action part of ACT makes a ton of sense and comes up in other programs. It involves you finding what's important to you and making a conscious effort to make it a part of your life. Standing up for what's right is what's important to me. That's an awfully tough thing for me to make a conscious part of my life because I tend to pay the price for this more often than not. I'm not alone in that either. It's actually pretty much an accepted part of it. This is actually the cause of most of what brought me here to begin with. If I search deeper, I might be able to find something that fits the bill without the downside. There are some other fairly useful exercises in here. I still think the best overall answer is to study mindfulness, CBT and all the different third wave versions of it and apply all the best features that the most sense to you to your life. I still don't think any one is perfect for individual.

This audiobook will change your life.

If you want to make positive change in your life but have always found yourself struggling to “make it stick” for mysterious reasons, try the practices in this audiobook (really more like an audio seminar). They just might change everything. And even if they don’t, they will help you to be happier with the way things are.

Good but repetitive

Lots of good information and ideas but the it got repetitive. The voice of narrator seemed tired. It was difficult to listen to.

Great Content; Terrible Narration

I’m an avid ACT student. I own all the audiobooks that discuss the topic and have listened to each one several times. I was excited to find a new book on the topic, as I’m always eager to learn more. Despite my intense interest, I had a very hard time getting through this one because of the narration. I suspect the author wanted to use a conversational style, but I found highly distracting and even somewhat annoying. This is a shame, given how helpful I have found ACT to be for me.

Great content very hard to understand

I am so thankful to Dr. Hayes and find him very sincere. Great content of ACT, but very hard to understand and apply. I think I need to go ahead and repeat the book and hope to catch the lessons he’s trying to deliver.