Wow ! An excellent explanation of origin, principles and processes of ACT. Thanks Steve ! ACT is indeed a revolutionary approach to human psychological suffering. Appreciate your integrity, openness and humility. Your contribution is invaluable to psychotherapists community.
Dear The Middle Way Society :), I would like to say, thank you, to you, for taking the time, energy and effort to both upload and share this video with the youtube community. Thank You!
seems like a long winded discussion about learning to not identify with thoughts and feelings., which you call defusion....the part on suffering is incisive...Gurdjieff wrote that a man will give up anything in the world, but not his suffering......quite true. Its a sorry thing that the ego often finds that our extent of suffering is the most special thing about us. Values is problematic........ The section on hidden dark secrets is very good; sharing our dark secrets brings the realization that people are much more alike than we realize.it brings the renationalisation that we are "normal", so the ego cannot hang on to our "extra special awfulness". Must we have them to the extent that we are motivated to act on them?........ personalty this is a sticking point. Another is the idea of vindictive homeostasis...everything returns to equilibrium and this is why we can't keep happiness, and why we are rarely satisfied when we get what we want.,,similar with values...to what extent are they "our" "real" values and to what extent are they wants or things we think we want? Acceptance can also take the form of defeatism; for instance we all must die and lose things dear to us. I kinda like Ouspenskys take on this.."we are in a train, the train is going somewhere, all we can do is pass the time in the train differently, do something useful or spend it quite uselessly.
What therapies like ACT get wrong, demonstrated by a simple recipe for happiness. Essential to all psychotherapies is the principle that core affect (feeling bad or good) is dependent upon restructuring what one thinks about, or the ‘normative’ aspects of experience. However, for the field of affective neuroscience, core affect is instead dependent upon ‘how’ one thinks, or the ‘abstract’ aspects of experience. If this is true, then the personal control of affect can effectively bypass psycho-therapeutic interventions and make ‘happiness’ simply a matter of rearranging abstract aspects of one’s perceptual world. The virtue of this approach is its simplicity, predictive power, and testability, so it has a low shelf life if wrong. An exemplar of this is a ‘recipe for happiness’ proposed below. In affective neuroscience, it is well known that behaviors that involve continuous high and positive act/outcome discrepancy (gaming, gambling, creative work) correspond to elevated dopaminergic activity and a feeling of arousal, but not pleasure. However, for many individuals engaging in similar activity, a feeling of pleasure is also reported, but only when their covert musculature is inactive (i.e., a state or rest). Because relaxation activates opioid systems, and tension inhibits them, it is postulated that dopaminergic activity stimulates opioid activity, but only during resting states. This hypothesis can be easily tested and is described in greater detail below. If correct, it will demonstrate for the first time that elevated and sustained arousal and pleasure, or ‘eudaemonia’ or ‘happiness’ can be induced easily through simple modifications of abstract perceptual properties of behavior that anyone can easily do throughout the day. THE CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT OF POSITIVE AFFECT AFFECT AND MOTIVATION Opioid and dopamine systems represent bundles of neurons or ‘nuclei’ in the mid brain that are respectively responsible for the affective states of pleasure and attentive arousal, and sub-serve the neural processes that govern motivation. OPIOID AND DOPAMINE SYSTEMS ARE ACTIVATED BY DIFFERENT STIMULI EITHER VIRTUAL (COGNITIVE) OR REAL Eating and drinking, having sex, and relaxing or resting all activate opioid systems, whereas the anticipation or experience of positive act-outcome discrepancy (or positive surprises or meaning) activate dopamine systems. OPIOID AND DOPAMINE SYSTEMS CAN CO-ACTIVATE EACH OTHER Taking our pleasures increases our attentive arousal, and increasing our attentive arousal accentuates our pleasure. If these systems are concurrently activated both are accentuated or affectively ‘bootstrapped’, as both pleasure and attentive arousal will be higher due to their synergistic effects. OPIOID AND DOPAMINE SYSTEMS CAN BE CO-ACTIVATED THROUGH THE ARRANGEMENT OF SPECIFIC ACT-OUTCOME EXPECTANCIES OR RESPONSE CONTINGENCIES As characterized by the well documented ‘flow response’ (pp.82-86), consistently applied contingencies that elicit pleasurable resting states and consistent attentive arousal result in self-reports of heightened pleasure and energy. This emotional experience can be easily replicated by simultaneously applied contingencies that elicit rest (mindfulness protocols) and meaning (imminent productive behavior and its uniform positive implications). To achieve complete rest and accentuate positive affect, these contingencies must be applied for periods of at least a half hour or more. Just as one sets meditative sessions to last for a set time period and frequency to be effective, so mindfulness and meaning sessions must be similarly arranged, with cumulative sessions if possible charted to provide proper feedback of efficacy. Finally, the intensity of positive affect will scale to the importance or salience of moment to moment meaningful behavior, with the more meaningful the task the higher the pleasurable affect. IMPLICATIONS Affect is as much an aspect of how information is arranged as what information is, or the abstract rather than normative properties of behavior. It follows that as a positively affective state, happiness is not just a product of what we think, but how we think, and derives not only from our pleasures but also from our incentives. Positive incentives can accentuate those very pleasures that we wish to maximize, and conversely, associated pleasure will increase the ‘appetitive value’ or ‘liking’ of incentives (or in other words, increase the value of productive work), and all sustained by simple choices within our grasp, as is ultimately happiness itself. I offer a more detailed explanation in pp. 47-52, and pp 82-86 of my open source book on the neuroscience of resting states, ‘The Book of Rest’, linked below. www.scribd.com/doc/284056765/The-Book-of-Rest-The-Odd-Psychology-of-Doing-Nothing This above book is based on the research of the distinguished neuroscientist Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan, a preeminent researcher and authority on dopamine, addiction, and motivation, who was kind to vet the work for accuracy and endorse the finished manuscript. Berridge’s Site sites.lsa.umich.edu/berridge-lab/ also: Meditation and Rest from the International Journal of Stress Management, by this author www.scribd.com/doc/121345732/Relaxation-and-Muscular-Tension-A-bio-behavioristic-explanation
Thank you for posting
Wow ! An excellent explanation of origin, principles and processes of ACT.
Thanks Steve !
ACT is indeed a revolutionary approach to human psychological suffering.
Appreciate your integrity, openness and humility.
Your contribution is invaluable to psychotherapists community.
Dear The Middle Way Society :), Thank you for taking the time and energy to both upload and share this video with the youtube community. Thank you
Hi Raymond
You're welcome!
Dear The Middle Way Society :), I would like to say, thank you, to you, for taking the time, energy and effort to both upload and share this video with the youtube community. Thank You!
THANK YOUUUU
seems like a long winded discussion about learning to not identify with thoughts and feelings., which you call defusion....the part on suffering is incisive...Gurdjieff wrote that a man will give up anything in the world, but not his suffering......quite true. Its a sorry thing that the ego often finds that our extent of suffering is the most special thing about us. Values is problematic........ The section on hidden dark secrets is very good; sharing our dark secrets brings the realization that people are much more alike than we realize.it brings the renationalisation that we are "normal", so the ego cannot hang on to our "extra special awfulness". Must we have them to the extent that we are motivated to act on them?........ personalty this is a sticking point. Another is the idea of vindictive homeostasis...everything returns to equilibrium and this is why we can't keep happiness, and why we are rarely satisfied when we get what we want.,,similar with values...to what extent are they "our" "real" values and to what extent are they wants or things we think we want? Acceptance can also take the form of defeatism; for instance we all must die and lose things dear to us. I kinda like Ouspenskys take on this.."we are in a train, the train is going somewhere, all we can do is pass the time in the train differently, do something useful or spend it quite uselessly.
What therapies like ACT get wrong, demonstrated by a simple recipe for happiness.
Essential to all psychotherapies is the principle that core affect (feeling bad or good) is dependent upon restructuring what one thinks about, or the ‘normative’ aspects of experience. However, for the field of affective neuroscience, core affect is instead dependent upon ‘how’ one thinks, or the ‘abstract’ aspects of experience. If this is true, then the personal control of affect can effectively bypass psycho-therapeutic interventions and make ‘happiness’ simply a matter of rearranging abstract aspects of one’s perceptual world. The virtue of this approach is its simplicity, predictive power, and testability, so it has a low shelf life if wrong. An exemplar of this is a ‘recipe for happiness’ proposed below.
In affective neuroscience, it is well known that behaviors that involve continuous high and positive act/outcome discrepancy (gaming, gambling, creative work) correspond to elevated dopaminergic activity and a feeling of arousal, but not pleasure. However, for many individuals engaging in similar activity, a feeling of pleasure is also reported, but only when their covert musculature is inactive (i.e., a state or rest). Because relaxation activates opioid systems, and tension inhibits them, it is postulated that dopaminergic activity stimulates opioid activity, but only during resting states.
This hypothesis can be easily tested and is described in greater detail below. If correct, it will demonstrate for the first time that elevated and sustained arousal and pleasure, or ‘eudaemonia’ or ‘happiness’ can be induced easily through simple modifications of abstract perceptual properties of behavior that anyone can easily do throughout the day.
THE CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT OF POSITIVE AFFECT
AFFECT AND MOTIVATION
Opioid and dopamine systems represent bundles of neurons or ‘nuclei’ in the mid brain that are respectively responsible for the affective states of pleasure and attentive arousal, and sub-serve the neural processes that govern motivation.
OPIOID AND DOPAMINE SYSTEMS ARE ACTIVATED BY DIFFERENT STIMULI EITHER VIRTUAL (COGNITIVE) OR REAL
Eating and drinking, having sex, and relaxing or resting all activate opioid systems, whereas the anticipation or experience of positive act-outcome discrepancy (or positive surprises or meaning) activate dopamine systems.
OPIOID AND DOPAMINE SYSTEMS CAN CO-ACTIVATE EACH OTHER
Taking our pleasures increases our attentive arousal, and increasing our attentive arousal accentuates our pleasure. If these systems are concurrently activated both are accentuated or affectively ‘bootstrapped’, as both pleasure and attentive arousal will be higher due to their synergistic effects.
OPIOID AND DOPAMINE SYSTEMS CAN BE CO-ACTIVATED THROUGH THE ARRANGEMENT OF SPECIFIC ACT-OUTCOME EXPECTANCIES OR RESPONSE CONTINGENCIES
As characterized by the well documented ‘flow response’ (pp.82-86), consistently applied contingencies that elicit pleasurable resting states and consistent attentive arousal result in self-reports of heightened pleasure and energy. This emotional experience can be easily replicated by simultaneously applied contingencies that elicit rest (mindfulness protocols) and meaning (imminent productive behavior and its uniform positive implications). To achieve complete rest and accentuate positive affect, these contingencies must be applied for periods of at least a half hour or more. Just as one sets meditative sessions to last for a set time period and frequency to be effective, so mindfulness and meaning sessions must be similarly arranged, with cumulative sessions if possible charted to provide proper feedback of efficacy. Finally, the intensity of positive affect will scale to the importance or salience of moment to moment meaningful behavior, with the more meaningful the task the higher the pleasurable affect.
IMPLICATIONS
Affect is as much an aspect of how information is arranged as what information is, or the abstract rather than normative properties of behavior. It follows that as a positively affective state, happiness is not just a product of what we think, but how we think, and derives not only from our pleasures but also from our incentives. Positive incentives can accentuate those very pleasures that we wish to maximize, and conversely, associated pleasure will increase the ‘appetitive value’ or ‘liking’ of incentives (or in other words, increase the value of productive work), and all sustained by simple choices within our grasp, as is ultimately happiness itself.
I offer a more detailed explanation in pp. 47-52, and pp 82-86 of my open source book on the neuroscience of resting states, ‘The Book of Rest’, linked below.
www.scribd.com/doc/284056765/The-Book-of-Rest-The-Odd-Psychology-of-Doing-Nothing
This above book is based on the research of the distinguished neuroscientist Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan, a preeminent researcher and authority on dopamine, addiction, and motivation, who was kind to vet the work for accuracy and endorse the finished manuscript.
Berridge’s Site
sites.lsa.umich.edu/berridge-lab/
also:
Meditation and Rest
from the International Journal of Stress Management, by this author
www.scribd.com/doc/121345732/Relaxation-and-Muscular-Tension-A-bio-behavioristic-explanation
Am I the only one who cannot hear Steven Hayes? I only hear the interviewer.
Yeah you must not be in stereo... One is on the left and the other one is on the right. It's annoying.
Cant undestand anything