The power of positive thinking has been around a long, long time.
But even though it’s well-intentioned, and for decades has been promoted, in some form, by behavioral therapists trying to help their patients, it’s becoming outdated.
Some even believe it can hurt patients more than help.
Steven Hayes, a clinical psychologist, and researcher at the University of Nevada-Reno, is considered the foremost expert on a different way of getting people to change their mindset.
Next week, he’ll be the keynote speaker in San Francisco at an annual gathering of those who study and treat anxiety and depression disorders.
The treatment he pioneered, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, was born of his own misery as he dealt with the stultifying effect of a severe anxiety disorder.
Hayes says the key is not to run away from your fear, from the thing that hurts most-- but to face it, to try to view it objectively, to see it for what it really is.
“When you take perspective on your own problems, when you get out of the automatic push-pull, click-click of your logical, analytical problem-solving mind, which is only one part of you and instead bring a sense of open awareness to your own experience you see other possibilities there,” Hayes said.
In that way, he said, he's seen many patients overcome anxiety and depression.
(Editor's note: This story originally aired March 2017)
Steven Hayes, University of Nevada-Reno professor of psychology
