Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

My book had all the answers written all over it. That was very disappointing:(

I've been in and out of therapy for over thirty years,and have read at least fifteen self help books. Basicly I was told, kill the negative self talk,say positive affirmations and one therapist said, "just snap out of it." I constantly battled with my self. I also suffer from anxiety attacks. I've work for 20 years for a very large orginazation with a few thousand employees. Once it became obvious that I was suffering from anxiety and self esteem issues, I became the subject of the rumor mill. I really don't know how I lasted on the job so long. But this book changed everything. I've learned to seperate myself from my thoughts and feelings, accept them, and then move on to live the life that I want. I realize now that my life will never be pain free, but in spite of that pain I can live the life I want. I don't have to battle my painful thoughts any more. They don't last as long, hurt as much, or stop me from doing my thing. This book is not for everybody, but neither is any religion or spouse. But I can bear witness that it has changed my life for the better.

Buddhism teaches that suffering is part of life and all our attempts to avoid the suffering only make it worse. ACT teaches the same thing. In that sense, Buddhism and ACT are the same. But ACT's intellectual roots are firmly within the Western scientific psychology tradition, so the author did not so much borrow from Buddhism, as arrive at the same result by a different method and then observed the similarity after the fact. The book begins by stepping you through the science and psychology of how the mind works, inviting you to see the inner workings for yourself through many exercises. Ultimately it leads to a simple conclusion - your anxiety, depression, or whatever ails may not be an "illness" at all, but simply normal mental processes that go awry when used to try to avoid negative thoughts and emotions. Most therapy attempts to remove the negative thoughts and feelings. ACT differs completely by asking you to ACCEPT negative thoughts and feelings as part of being human. To do this it shows you how to separate the "real you" from the contents of your mind. The negative doesn't go away, you just become more willing and able to live it. Then the focus switch to exploring your values, what's important to you personally. These values orient you on your journey through life. Finally you COMMIT to the course of action you yourself choose in accordance with your own values, and you use the skills you've learned to avoid the pitfalls that stopped you in the past. ACT bears one more resemblance to Buddhism. 2500 years ago, the Buddha stirred up the Hindu establishment by presenting ideas that were at once radically new and yet based in a deep understanding of Hindu mystical teachings. ACT does the same to western psychology. It is firmly grounded in a good and growing body of scientific evidence and clinical successes, yet could well turn out to be the most important advance in psychology since Freud. ACT is the first psychotherapy to develop a complete system around the idea that negative feelings are natural and normal, but it is our attempts to escape those feelings that creates pathologies. If you have tried other self-help techniques, therapy, pills and nothing has worked for you, it is definitely time to try this.

I was confused for years by positive thinking books that promote the suppression and judgment of all negative thoughts. I also didn't do well with the fake it until you make it model. After years of searching, I found relief and success when I read Optimal Thinking: How To Be Your Best Self because I learned to use the simple optimal roadmaps, especially - Accept, Understand, then Optimize - for negative thoughts and feelings. Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life is a fine book that does not cater to the erroneous belief that positive thinking will always save you and negative thinking will always destroy you. The author asks some excellent questions such as "Am I this negative thought or is this just a thought?" etc. These questions provide personal understanding. The concept in this book is not new for me, although I did come across some excellent questions I have not pondered previously. I certainly recommend this book in conjunction with Optimal Thinking: How To Be Your Best Self. I also recommend Learned Optimism, to understand pessimism and optimism. Read all three.

I'm a layperson, can't afford therapy, so I do it self-help. I've bought many self-help books, and while they have been interesting and true, they've never had any lasting worthwhile effect, except for me to look at myself and say, "Oh, I'm doing that wrong also, again!" This book is really what the other reviewers say it is. It was a total paradigm shift, which is what people need and why the myriad of other self-help books haven't helped your self! It is not an overnight fix, it is a bit heady, but take it step-by-step, do all the exercises, and it will be very worthwhile. I'm still trying to put it into practice into my everyday life, but little by little I'm seeing change, and at least now there's hope where there was hopelessness. Thanks so much to the authors for writing a book for the masses. There are many of us out there who don't have money to spend on therapy sessions that we would like to do.