I am very excited about reading my latest book purchase.

Here it lies on my desk — shiny, fresh, and seductive. It wants me to devour it, and the feeling is mutual. However, these projects require some prep on my part. I psych myself up for the adventure. I find a new pen and a clean notebook. Highlighters in a rainbow of colors are a plus!

Nevertheless, the second it arrived, I gently breezed through each gem of a page. The bowels of the book felt cool against my hot palm as it disappeared between the heavy, inflexible covers. I secretly enjoy the pressure on my hand when it’s pressed hard between hefty books.

Visually, I was stimulated, too. I saw paragraphs, pages, chapters, glimpses of charts, and an appendix full of very significant topics related to anxiety and panic.

If there is a traditional therapy out there, I’ve tried it. I’ve tried Life Coaching. I’ve tried herbs and other supplements. I’ve tried homeopathy. I’ve been to an iridologist. I’ve tried 5 different religious groups. I’ve seen a shaman for energetic healing. I’ve listened to hundreds of tapes, and I’ve read hundreds of books.

But, there is one book that I haven’t mastered. After a two-hour search on the background of this book, I am convinced it is one more thing I must try before I say “Nothing Works.”

This approach seems like it will fit me like a glove. I think it’s geared for someone just like me:

1. Someone who’s tried behavioral therapy with little success.
2. Someone who’s tried cognitive therapy with little success.
3. Someone who’s tried CBT with little success.
4. Someone who is highly sensitive (HSP).
5. Someone who has tried DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy — not just for Borderlines anymore) with very good success.
6. Someone whose official diagnoses tend to confuse the psychiatrists themselves.
7. Someone who needs very specific, relevant, and personal coping skills.
8. Finally, someone who, after X years or Y weeks of psychotropic medications, has said, “No More Meds.”

I need so much help now as I make the final transition to be medication-free. It’s frightening. No, it’s terrifying to believe I’m on my own.

I will dive into this book soon, and I promise to post about what I learn. I want to share it with all the other “someones” out there who are just like me.

And, by the way, the experts say this theory — ACT — is applicable for everyone who has been labeled “mentally ill.” Its skills help people during psychotic episodes, with hallucinations, visions… And it works equally for very angry people, for depressed people, people on meds, and for people who decide to not be on meds. It’s a very non-judgmental therapy.

Now, I proudly introduce Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Anxiety Disorders, by Georg H. Eifert, Ph.D., and John P. Forsyth, Ph.D.

The book’s contents:

PART I: UNDERSTANDING ANXIETY DISORDERS

What Is ACT?
Overview of Anxiety Disorders
Cognitive Behavioral Views and Treatments of Anxiety Disorders

PART II: HOW ACT REFRAMES THE ANXIETY DIMENSION

Controlling Anxiety Is the Problem, Not a Solution
Balancing Acceptance and Change

PART III: ACT TREATMENT OF ANXIETY

Core Treatment Components and Therapist Skills
Psychoeducation and Treatment Orientation
Creating an Acceptance Context for Treatment
Acceptance and Valued Living as Alternatives to Managing Anxiety
Creating Flexible Patterns of Behavior Through Value-Guided Exposure
Staying Committed to Valued Directions and Action
Practical Challenges and Future Directions

A Letter from the Author:

John P. Forsyth, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology
Faculty Director, Anxiety Disorders Research Program

April 11, 2006

This professional book was a labor of love.

The book presents a down to earth practical overview of a new approach — based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (or ACT, pronounced as a single word) — for therapists working with persons who are stuck and struggling with anxiety-related problems. It is a treatment guide of sorts, with session-by-session guidelines, activities, worksheets, and includes a CD with related exercises, forms, and worksheets. We tried to make the book accessible to therapists and even the general public. So, you won’t find much psychobabble or jargon in the book.

This work is based on emerging basic and applied research suggesting that the core of human suffering has much to do with excessive thought and emotion regulation applied where it does not work and where it is largely unnecessary. This research base is showing that excessive emotion regulation, or experiential avoidance, is a core process that turns normal fear and anxiety (including other forms of psychological and emotional pain) into life shattering clinical problems.

The book teaches therapists working with anxious persons how to foster acceptance and change as vital alternatives to anxiety management and control. It teaches skills designed to help clients learn to drop the rope in their tug of war with anxiety and fear, unpleasant thoughts, worries, etc. and to do what they truly care about.

Instead of feeling better before living better, the ACT approach helps clients get on with living better. When they do, we think they will feel and think better too.

The alternative is to learn to be with thoughts as thoughts, feelings and feelings, memories as memories, and to take them with you in directions you want to go.

Clients learn where their evaluative mind has kept them stuck and how to bring mindful acceptance and compassion to their thoughts, feelings, painful memories, etc. and to exert control where they have it — in the actions they take in directions that they deeply value. The prize here is a life and learning how not to let anxiety, fear, and worry stand in the way of that life.

This book is very much about fostering experiential and psychological flexibility in order to make this happen.

We hope that it makes a difference in your life and those with whom you have contact.

If you are a member of the public you might especially benefit by going there to join a list serve called “ACT_for_the_Public“. That listserve is a kind of online support group of readers and professionals who can help you with the concepts in popular ACT books like Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life and ACT on Life, Not on Anger. It is not a substitute for therapy but it is a help when you get stuck with the ideas in ACT. The archive of messages is a great help to those new to the work.

Again, thank you, and we hope our work is useful to you. Let us know if there is a way we can be of help.

- John P. Forsyth, Ph.D.

Sounds worthy of some more investigation, no? If you’d like to read more about this book, click here. I think it may lead to some wonderful and insightful discussions!