Hayes, S. C. (2008, Dec.). Interview with Steven C. Hayes, by Sokratens Njordur Viborg (pp. 2-11). Helsingborg, Sweden: Sokraten.
(Sokraten) It is a great honour to have the opportunity to do yet another interview with you Professor Hayes. Some years have passed since Sokraten first did an interview with you and it would therefore be interesting to hear something about the most recent developments in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), including new RCT:s. Furthermore, how does ACT (and Relational Frame Theory (RFT)) relate to more experimental and scientific areas of psychology, like cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology and emotion science, and how does RFT relate to modern learning theory?
(Steven C. Hayes) – First, I would like to thank Sokraten for their interest in the work and I welcome this opportunity to continue the dialogue with psychologists and others throughout Sweden. I’ve said before that I consider some of the work going on in Sweden as among the most important work in the behavioral and cognitive therapies, and so it is a pleasure to be supportive of it.
The first two questions that you are asking focus on the relationship of ACT and Relational Frame Theory to various areas of psychology, including modern learning theory, cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology and emotion science. I will answer those questions, but first I need to put my answer into context.
As an empirically supported behavioral and cognitive therapy, ACT is not in and of itself a part of basic psychology, but ACT is part of a larger effort which we call contextual behavioral science which does indeed include a basic science aspect. What we mean by contextual behavioral science is a modernization of the strategy originally underlying behavior analysis. It links together a number of assumptions and strategic decisions about how to best go about attempting to build a comprehensive psychology that
accomplishes what we might want of an integrated approach within the discipline.
In the empirical clinical psychology wing I don’t think we have been sufficiently careful about our strategic assumptions. Often we seem to have assumed that we can build a progressive discipline merely on careful specification of syndromal entities and careful
manualisation of techniques. That is very unlikely, in my view.
There are problems on both sides of that....
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SFKBT
Svenska foreningen for kognitiva
och beteendeinriktade terapier
Sokraten
www.sfkbt.se