Steven Hayes, psychologist

I was going to just copy an entire Salon article I read this morning about Steven Hayes and his recent work "Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life", but I have to be the copyright police at work so I am loathe to be so bold here. Paraphrasing from the Salon article, Hayes deals in a type of psychology known as acceptance and commitment therapy. It is an evolution from what is presently in vogue, namely, cognitive therapy.

The gist of it is something like this: Suffering is normal. Pain is to be expected. Where other types of therapy fail is in trying to negate such feelings in an attempt to pull the person away from them, essentially a state of denial. But we cannot deny that in the course of living our lives we will have experiences that cause pain. By accepting that inevitability and dealing with it in a more constructive manner, we are better able to live well rather than just endlessly acting in a manner that is supposed to create happiness while never reconciling the momentary euphoria with the dark cloud underneath.

I am not explaining it well. But it is a notion worth exploring. Check out these other articles for a better summation/explanation: Time, Psychology Today, New Harbinger.