Dr. Steven C Hayes Returns! | Death, Meaning, and Dispelling "Normal"

Mentally Flexible

My guest today is Dr. Steven C. Hayes. Steven Hayes is a Nevada Foundation Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada. An author of 47 books and nearly 670 scientific articles, his career has focused on an analysis of the nature of human language and cognition and the application of this to the understanding and alleviation of human suffering. He is the developer of Relational Frame Theory and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), He is also a co-developer of Process-Based Therapy (PBT), a new approach to evidence-based therapies more generally, which we discuss in this episode.

Some of the topics we explore include
- Death and dying young
- Aging and how Steve views his own process
-Challenging meaninglessness to make space for conscious meaning making
- We go deep on all things Process-Based Therapy
- Self-compassion and how it is not helpful for some people
- Making psychological flexibility more inclusive from a process-based approach
- The problems with current diagnostic, syndrome based treatment
- How racism and classism has been built into the traditional statistical methods
- And how the concept of “ being normal” played a role in atrocities in Nazi Germany

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Dr. Steven Hayes’ website: https://stevenchayes.com/about/
Learning PBT Book: https://www.newharbinger.com/9781684037551/learning-process-based-therapy/

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