Steven C Hayes

University of Nevada, Reno | UNR · Department of Psychology

According to the psychological flexibility model, “we hurt where we care, and we care where we hurt.” This suggests that values-based living and hedonic well-being are not always positively correlated, such as when engaging in valued action in the presence of important but stressful situations, which may reduce joy or increase sadness. Despite this...

Objectives This study examined the role of self-other harmony in the relations between self-compassion, other-compassion, and well-being. Past research has shown self- and other-compassion to be positively related. But we hypothesised that self-compassion can be perceived as incompatible with other-compassion, and that self-compassion and other-com...

Evolutionary science has led to many practical applications of genetic evolution but few practical uses of cultural evolution. This is because the entire study of evolution was gene centric for most of the 20th century, relegating the study and application of human cultural change to other disciplines. The formal study of human cultural evolution b...

Background: Clinical data are usually analyzed with the assumption that knowledge gathered from group averages applies to the individual. Doing so potentially obscures patients with meaningfully different trajectories of therapeutic change. Needed are “idionomic” methods that first examine idiographic patterns before nomothetic generalizations are...

Background/objective: Human consciousness is arguably unique, and its features are hard to explain. Continuous and discrete accounts of consciousness are commonly viewed as incompatible, but both have limitations. Continuous accounts cannot readily account for what appears to be unique about human consciousness; discrete accounts have a hard time...

This study evaluated a treatment combining bupropion with a novel acceptance and relationship focused behavioral intervention based on the acceptance and relationship context (ARC) model. Three hundred and three smokers from a community sample were randomly assigned to bupropion, a widely used smoking cessation medication, or bupropion plus functio...

Historically, evidence-based treatment has followed the latent disease model, which emphasizes using specific protocols tied to diagnoses. Today, the field continues to move towards an individual approach with models of treatment based on change processes. Here, we describe Process-Based Therapy (PBT), a new way of thinking that is moving away from...

Background. Identifying the most important psychological drivers of well-being for a particular individual is critical to developing personalised interventions. Methods. We utilised three, intensive daily diary studies (within person measurement occasions N >50) across three data sets (n1=44; n2=37; n3=141) to examine within-person associations bet...

Compassion towards oneself and others is generally regarded as conducive for well-being. We hypothesized that self-compassion may conflict with compassion for others, at least in some people, which might weaken the link between self/other-compassion and well-being for those individuals. In an experience sampling study with transdiagnostic patients...

The last few decades have seen an explosion of self-compassion research, and yet the measurement of self-compassion remains fiercely debated. Rakhimov et al (2022) add fire to the debate by showing that a single factor mode, with six subfactors, fits Neff ‘s (2003) self-compassion scale (SCS) extremely well and arguing that a single total score can...

Despite the significant contribution of cognitive-behavioral therapy to effective treatment options for specific syndromes, treatment progress has been stagnating, with response rates plateauing over the past several years. This stagnation has led clinical researchers to call for an approach that instead focuses on processes of change and the indiv...

ACT ha abierto la puerta a descubrimientos fascinantes sobre el ser humano, el lenguaje y la psicopatología en general. Dentro de estos descubrimientos se encuentran las técnicas de tratamiento que componen ACT y que se presentan de forma muy convincente en este libro, Una Guía Práctica a la Terapia de Aceptación y Compromiso. Como describen los au...

ACT ha abierto la puerta a descubrimientos fascinantes sobre el ser humano, el lenguaje y la psicopatología en general. Dentro de estos descubrimientos se encuentran las técnicas de tratamiento que componen ACT y que se presentan de forma muy convincente en este libro, Una Guía Práctica a la Terapia de Aceptación y Compromiso. Como describen los au...

ACT ha abierto la puerta a descubrimientos fascinantes sobre el ser humano, el lenguaje y la psicopatología en general. Dentro de estos descubrimientos se encuentran las técnicas de tratamiento que componen ACT y que se presentan de forma muy convincente en este libro, Una Guía Práctica a la Terapia de Aceptación y Compromiso. Como describen los au...

ACT ha abierto la puerta a descubrimientos fascinantes sobre el ser humano, el lenguaje y la psicopatología en general. Dentro de estos descubrimientos se encuentran las técnicas de tratamiento que componen ACT y que se presentan de forma muy convincente en este libro, Una Guía Práctica a la Terapia de Aceptación y Compromiso. Como describen los au...

ACT is entering its 40th year of development. Despite its undeniable historical origins in behavior analysis, extensive basis in behavior analytic research, and now enormous body of empirical research supporting its basic claims, some are still arguing that ACT is not legitimately part of behavior analysis. We agree with the target article that it...

Psychology is a popular subject to study, with thousands entering graduate school each year, but unlike med or pre-law, there is limited information available to help students learn about the field, how to successfully apply, and how to thrive while completing doctoral work. The Portable Mentor is a useful, must-have resource for all students inter...

Objectives Although research in self-compassion has been rapidly growing, there is still substantial controversy about its meaning and measurement. The controversy centers on Neff’s popular Self- Compassion Scale (SCS) and the argument that compassionate self-responding (CSR) and uncompassionate self-responding (UCS) are a single dimension versus t...

The wide variety of “third wave” cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) methods (e.g., Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or “ACT”, Compassion Focused Therapy, Meta-Cognitive therapy, Functional Analytic Therapy, Dialectic Behavior Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy) have left a mark on the field that appears to be growing. As ACT enters its 4...

Relational models of cognition provide parsimonious and actionable models of generative behavior witnessed in humans. They also inform many current computational analogs of cognition including Deep Neural Networks, Reinforcement Learning algorithms, Self-Organizing Maps, as well as blended architectures that are outperforming traditional semantic m...

Background Syndromal classification has failed to produce a progressive science of case conceptualization for mental and behavioral health issues. An idiographic application of processes of change can provide a viable empirical functional analytic alternative if it could be linked to an idionomic approach, modeling idiographic effects first, and re...

The embodied knowledge of psychological flexibility processes was tested by examining the ability of raters to score whole body pictures based on the degree to which they were open, aware, and engaged. Participants’ best and worst physical posture was photographed when asked to think of a difficult psychological matter. Naïve and untrained raters (...

Since 2000, research within positive psychology has exploded, as reflected in dozens of meta-analyses of different interventions and targeted processes, including strength spotting, positive affect, meaning in life, mindfulness, gratitude, hope, and passion. Frequently, researchers treat positive psychology processes of change as distinct from each...

Process-based therapy (PBT) focuses on treatment elements that target biopsychosocial processes of relevance to individual treatment goals. This focus requires new, more integrative and idionomic models that identify key processes of change, using high temporal density measurement applied at the level of the person. Standard measurement validation...

The waves and generations of behavioral and cognitive therapy are normal features of a progressive science. Two of the key processes in modern CBT are briefly examined: defusion and acceptance. Both had important antecedents in the work of Aaron Beck, among others; at the same time, they both represent meaningful changes. This dialectic of continui...

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) should be understood as a piece of the larger puzzle being constructed by contextual behavioral science (CBS). The goal of this scientific endeavor is not only to reduce suffering but also to understand complex human behavior to the degree necessary for bringing about large-scale changes in the world and faci...

The “protocols for syndromes” approach to evidence-based psychological intervention has failed the test of scientific progressivity. Process-based therapy provides an alternative model that is focused on treatment elements that target biopsychosocial processes of relevance to individual treatment goals. That shift in focus requires new, more integr...

For decades, cognitive and behavioral therapies (CBTs) have been tested in randomized controlled trials for specific psychiatric syndromes that were assumed to represent expressions of latent diseases. Although these protocols were more effective as compared to psychological control conditions, placebo treatments, and even active pharmacotherapies,...

El lenguaje humano y el uso que hacemos de él para comunicarnos o entender el mundo requiere derivar relaciones entre acontecimientos: por ejemplo, si A=B y A=C, entonces B=C. La teoría del marco relacional sostiene que esas interpretaciones son el núcleo de cualquier psicología del lenguaje y la cognición. Desde una edad muy temprana, los seres hu...

El lenguaje humano y el uso que hacemos de él para comunicarnos o entender el mundo requiere derivar relaciones entre acontecimientos: por ejemplo, si A=B y A=C, entonces B=C. La teoría del marco relacional sostiene que esas interpretaciones son el núcleo de cualquier psicología del lenguaje y la cognición. Desde una edad muy temprana, los seres hu...

El lenguaje humano y el uso que hacemos de él para comunicarnos o entender el mundo requiere derivar relaciones entre acontecimientos: por ejemplo, si A=B y A=C, entonces B=C. La teoría del marco relacional sostiene que esas interpretaciones son el núcleo de cualquier psicología del lenguaje y la cognición. Desde una edad muy temprana, los seres hu...

El lenguaje humano y el uso que hacemos de él para comunicarnos o entender el mundo requiere derivar relaciones entre acontecimientos: por ejemplo, si A=B y A=C, entonces B=C. La teoría del marco relacional sostiene que esas interpretaciones son el núcleo de cualquier psicología del lenguaje y la cognición. Desde una edad muy temprana, los seres hu...

El lenguaje humano y el uso que hacemos de él para comunicarnos o entender el mundo requiere derivar relaciones entre acontecimientos: por ejemplo, si A=B y A=C, entonces B=C. La teoría del marco relacional sostiene que esas interpretaciones son el núcleo de cualquier psicología del lenguaje y la cognición. Desde una edad muy temprana, los seres hu...

El lenguaje humano y el uso que hacemos de él para comunicarnos o entender el mundo requiere derivar relaciones entre acontecimientos: por ejemplo, si A=B y A=C, entonces B=C. La teoría del marco relacional sostiene que esas interpretaciones son el núcleo de cualquier psicología del lenguaje y la cognición. Desde una edad muy temprana, los seres hu...

El lenguaje humano y el uso que hacemos de él para comunicarnos o entender el mundo requiere derivar relaciones entre acontecimientos: por ejemplo, si A=B y A=C, entonces B=C. La teoría del marco relacional sostiene que esas interpretaciones son el núcleo de cualquier psicología del lenguaje y la cognición. Desde una edad muy temprana, los seres hu...

El lenguaje humano y el uso que hacemos de él para comunicarnos o entender el mundo requiere derivar relaciones entre acontecimientos: por ejemplo, si A=B y A=C, entonces B=C. La teoría del marco relacional sostiene que esas interpretaciones son el núcleo de cualquier psicología del lenguaje y la cognición. Desde una edad muy temprana, los seres hu...

El lenguaje humano y el uso que hacemos de él para comunicarnos o entender el mundo requiere derivar relaciones entre acontecimientos: por ejemplo, si A=B y A=C, entonces B=C. La teoría del marco relacional sostiene que esas interpretaciones son el núcleo de cualquier psicología del lenguaje y la cognición. Desde una edad muy temprana, los seres hu...

El lenguaje humano y el uso que hacemos de él para comunicarnos o entender el mundo requiere derivar relaciones entre acontecimientos: por ejemplo, si A=B y A=C, entonces B=C. La teoría del marco relacional sostiene que esas interpretaciones son el núcleo de cualquier psicología del lenguaje y la cognición. Desde una edad muy temprana, los seres hu...

El lenguaje humano y el uso que hacemos de él para comunicarnos o entender el mundo requiere derivar relaciones entre acontecimientos: por ejemplo, si A=B y A=C, entonces B=C. La teoría del marco relacional sostiene que esas interpretaciones son el núcleo de cualquier psicología del lenguaje y la cognición. Desde una edad muy temprana, los seres hu...

El lenguaje humano y el uso que hacemos de él para comunicarnos o entender el mundo requiere derivar relaciones entre acontecimientos: por ejemplo, si A=B y A=C, entonces B=C. La teoría del marco relacional sostiene que esas interpretaciones son el núcleo de cualquier psicología del lenguaje y la cognición. Desde una edad muy temprana, los seres hu...

El lenguaje humano y el uso que hacemos de él para comunicarnos o entender el mundo requiere derivar relaciones entre acontecimientos: por ejemplo, si A=B y A=C, entonces B=C. La teoría del marco relacional sostiene que esas interpretaciones son el núcleo de cualquier psicología del lenguaje y la cognición. Desde una edad muy temprana, los seres hu...

El lenguaje humano y el uso que hacemos de él para comunicarnos o entender el mundo requiere derivar relaciones entre acontecimientos: por ejemplo, si A=B y A=C, entonces B=C. La teoría del marco relacional sostiene que esas interpretaciones son el núcleo de cualquier psicología del lenguaje y la cognición. Desde una edad muy temprana, los seres hu...

El lenguaje humano y el uso que hacemos de él para comunicarnos o entender el mundo requiere derivar relaciones entre acontecimientos: por ejemplo, si A=B y A=C, entonces B=C. La teoría del marco relacional sostiene que esas interpretaciones son el núcleo de cualquier psicología del lenguaje y la cognición. Desde una edad muy temprana, los seres hu...

Objectives: The “Report of the ACBS Task Force on the Strategies and Tactics of Contextual Behavioral Science Research” is a white paper that aims to guide our efforts in CBS research field globally form now on. Therefore, it is of extreme importance that the ACBS community gather forces to broaden as much as possible the availability of such a w...

A worsening trend of critical shortages in senior health care workers across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in sub-Saharan Africa has been documented for decades. This is especially the case in Ethiopia that has severe shortage of mental health professionals. Consistent with the WHO recommended approach of task sharing for mental health c...

Response to Julio C. de Rose’s comments: “Will the Wing Fly Away from the Body? A Commentary on Steven Hayes’ Chapter, Contextual Behavioral Science.”

Contextual behavioral science (CBS) is a distinct form of behaviorism that extends traditional behavior analysis in terms of its philosophy of science, basic science of cognition, relationship between basic and applied knowledge development, applied theory, and vigor of nesting behavioral thinking within an extended evolutionary synthesis afforded...

Relational Frame Theory (RFT) is the simplest form of operant theory since it claims nothing more than a particular type of behavior, arbitrarily applicable derived relational responding, is an operant. While the theory is simple, its implications are not, and adoption has been slow until recently. RFT was first formally described in 1985 and in th...

Executive Summary Throughout its history the strategy and tactics of contextual behavioral science (CBS) research have had distinctive features as compared to traditional behavioral science approaches. Continued progress in CBS research can be facilitated by greater clarity about how its strategy and tactics can be brought to bear on current challe...

We conducted an empirical examination of derived relational responding as a generalized operant and concurrently evaluated the validity and efficacy of program items contained in the Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge - Equivalence (PEAK-E) curriculum. A first study utilized a multiple-baseline across-skills experimental arrangement to d...

The last five decades have seen a proliferation of psychological packages designed to treat psychiatric syndromes. Despite millions of dollars invested evaluating and comparing complex interventions, progress has been limited. Increasingly, research is shifting toward evaluating evidence-based processes of change instead of packages. There is also...

This article presents on how evolutionary principles constitute a rich framework for the everyday practice of psychotherapy. We propose that psychological issues constitute adaptations to restricted parts of the environment. The article presents concrete ways for practitioners to effectively use evolutionary science in their clinical work and to he...

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a process-based approach to psychological intervention that fosters acceptance and mindfulness processes, and commitment and behavior change processes, in order to build client psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility helps clients direct behavior toward positive habits of values based action,...

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the gold standard evidence-based treatment for psychological disorders. The general scientific approach of CBT has been defined in terms of developed validated protocols focused on syndromes. This approach is now rapidly changing. A process-focus is now emerging within the larger family of CBT models. This appr...

The present article examines whether it is appropriate for applied behavior analysts to use Acceptance and Commitment Training or Therapy (ACT) as part of their professional practice. We approach this question by briefly examining the behavioral history of ACT and then considering ACT through the lens of the requirements of applied behavior analysi...

The contributions of Murray Sidman to the field of behavior analysis have helped to put the field on a progressive path. In this paper we describe three areas as examples, drawn from the larger set of his notable contributions: the analysis of stimulus equivalence in a way that has fostered a behavior‐analytic approach to derived stimulus relations...

For half a century, the dominant paradigm in psychotherapy research has been to develop syndrome-specific treatment protocols for hypothesized but unproved latent disease entities, as defined by psychiatric nosological systems. While this approach provided a common language for mental health problems, it failed to achieve its ultimate goal of conce...

Historically there has been only a limited relationship between clinical psychology and evolutionary science. This article considers the status of that relationship in light of a modern multi-dimensional and multi-level extended evolutionary approach. Evolution can be purposive and even conscious, and evolutionary principles can give guidance and p...

Historically speaking, the behavioral tradition advanced functional analysis as a method of applying existing principles to novel situations. In the more than half a century since that idea was advanced, functional analysis has either fallen into disuse, as in most of applied psychology, or has been used but modified to a point that is virtually in...

Open Access coViD-19 is the relevant disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (sars-coV-2) transmitted via close contact between persons. on march 12th, 2020, Who announced coViD-19 outbreak a pandemic, in view of its worldwide escalation. as the pandemic disease explodes, a parallel outbreak of fear and worry is also s...

High reappraisal and low suppression are generally seen as desirable outcomes of therapy, but this combination may not benefit those who typically use reappraisal and suppression together. A daily diary study (N=187; Mage = 23.9; 71% females; 3,852 days; M=20.59 days/person) showed that the group-level correlation between reappraisal and suppressio...

Few clinical scientists would disagree that more research is needed on the underlying mechanisms and processes of change in psychological therapies. In the dominant current approach, processes of change are studied through mediation. The study of mediation has been largely structured around a distinction between moderation and mediation first popul...

The third-wave cognitive behavioral therapies (CBTs), such as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), have been shown to be effective treatments for individuals with substance use disorders (SUD). Given their conceptual and methodological heterogeneity, however, it is difficult to categorize these third-wave...

Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) provides practitioners a personalized functional guide to enable athlete’s tangible success, through the use of Values, and a behavioral path, with Committed Action. This article introduces ACT, and provides some practical guides for integrating and tracking Values and Committed Action in a mindfulness pract...

We will briefly examine the implication of a multi-dimensional and multi-level view of evolution for addressing the role and function of survival circuits in the context of human cognition, and the underlying emotional, memory, and behavioral processes both impact. It is our contention that human cognition can partially direct and channel these mor...

A new paradigm in clinical psychology is emerging. This paradigm is questioning the validity and utility of the medical illness model of evidence-based therapy, which assumes that latent disease entities exist that should be targeted with specific therapy protocols. A new generation of evidence-based care has begun to move toward process-based ther...

We are pleased indeed to read the opinions of such an excellent group of clinical scholars. Each commentary provided a thoughtful and suitable analysis that is likely to be a reflection of the field at large. There were some notable similarities but also interesting difference between these views. Each commentary agreed with our basic message: Inte...

This letter makes several excellent points that carry the arguments for process-based therapy (PBT) in the right direction. We have begun to detail these implications in our target article and elsewhere (e.g., Hayes & Hofmann, 2017), but we appreciate this opportunity to agree with the points being made by our colleague, and to amplify them. Real p...

For decades the development of evidence-based therapy has been based on experimental tests of protocols designed to impact psychiatric syndromes. As this paradigm weakens, a more process-based therapy approach is rising in its place, focused on how to best target and change core biopsychosocial processes in specific situations for given goals with...

Experiential avoidance, the tendency to rigidly escape or avoid private psychological experiences, represents one of the most prominent transdiagnostic psychological processes with a known role in a wide variety of psychological disorders and practical contexts. Experiential avoidance is argued to be based on a fundamental verbal/cognitive process:...

Research has demonstrated that values and acceptance interventions can increase distress tolerance, but the individual contribution of each remains unclear. The current study examined the isolated effect of a values intervention on immersion time in a cold pressor. Participants randomized to Values (n = 18) and Control (n = 14) conditions completed...

We previously developed a distress tolerance (DT)-based treatment that showed promising results for smokers with a history of early lapse. In the current study, we conducted a randomized controlled trial of this DT treatment for a general population of smokers not limited to those with a history of early lapse. We randomized 116 participants (41% f...