Posted by honeybee on May 31, 2006, at 9:27:37
In reply to What I think of ACT » honeybee, posted by pseudoname on May 30, 2006, at 19:06:58
So, do I get to call you PN, then? I hope so. You can call me HB or BH or anything you'd like. Sometimes one finger strikes the keyboard just a bit faster than the other because it has important things to do.
My brother hasn't been to any of Hayes' seminars and, from what I understand, his exposure has been to him mainly through the literature. My brother has fairly strictly cleaved to the CBT line but has also found Buddhist thought and practice to be helpful in his own life. The two together prepped him for Hayes's work and, I think, made him appreciate it more. Part the reason that he suggested the workbook, too, was that I was having a lot of trouble finding anyone on my health plan who practiced something other than psychodynamic (I live in NYC, the stronghold of the psychodynamic/psychoanalytic approach). I didn't want to deal with having to go over the same territory with a new therapist when what I want is some practical direction in how to
a) deal with this depression and its rather crippling intensity,
b) safeguard my marriage while it's going on,
c) maintain my friendships in the meantime,
d) develop a "treatment plan,"
e) accept some of the really awful things going on that I simply can't change right now (though I'd really, really, really like to!)
Anyway, my brother sent me the workbook and said, sometimes, when we can't find good therapists, we have to treat ourselves. (I'm still just starting up with someone new, but working on the ACT material on the side.) How were you exposed to it? Through the crappy acolyte of Hayes? Mixed blessings, redux!It's a mixed blessing having a therapist in the family. Perhaps it's tragically narcissistic of me, but I imagine that my own struggles have something to do with pushing him that direction. He's very rigorous about talking to me "as my brother" and not as a therapist, so I don't get to benefit from his expertise. Truly, I think it's a bummer, because I think he's so good, I respect his perspective immensely, and I *trust* him, which is something that I've not done with a therapist for so, so long. Even if I want to clock when he tells me that maybe it's time to stop struggling. DAMMIT. But he is my brother.
Back to ACT. For what it's worth, I've been plowing through the workbook for the last three weeks or so and have dipped into "Acceptance and Behavior Therapy" that Hayes and several of his colleagues wrote for therapists (sometimes, workbooks strike me as a bit puerile). The book for therapists has done a lot to help me understand a bit more of the rationale for the approach. Again, the paradox of being willing to accept the suffering, anxiety, and whatever of else of life, and just getting on with it.
Thus far, the benefit to me has been simply that I'm not trying so hard. So many of us on Babble, I think, want to understand, quantify, figure out the why's and how's and how-to-fix's of our depressions/anxieties/and so on. But Hayes's work is the first that I've seen to question that approach and to suggest that "dropping the rope" in the endless tug-of-war with the vastly superior monster at the other end may be an option. That's somewhat freeing.
I have only just peeked at the ACT yahoo forum. Hayes does seem to have provoked a cultlike adulation from his converts. Luckily, though I've heard about it, I haven't seen it. It's difficult enough to find a CBT therapist in NYC (who takes insurance), let alone find someone who does ACT, as well. Do you post there?
Any other babblers out there who've started exploring ACT? I'd love to hear what people think.
hb
p.s. What med did the trick for you? I love hearing success stories.
poster:honeybee
thread:492810
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/books/20051228/msgs/650918.html