# Dr Russ Harris - Acceptance & Commitment Therapy - Mindfulness **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 27, 2015, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-russ-harris-acceptance-commitment-therapy-mindfulness/741455 "2015-12-27T10:46:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2015, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-russ-harris-acceptance-commitment-therapy-mindfulness/741455/1 "2015-12-27T10:46:18Z")
A.C.T. (Acceptance & Commitment Therapy) is quite popular with mental health professionals in Australia. There is a fight between the white and black chess pieces - “be like the board” He’s written a few books including “The Happiness Trap”. Another video - about anxiety: About values vs goals: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/T-lRbuy4XtA/maxresdefault.jpg "Values vs Goals - By Dr. Russ Harris") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-lRbuy4XtA) > **[The Happiness Trap Online Program](https://thehappinesstrap.com/)** > > Overcome depression and anxiety and build genuine happiness in just 1-2 hours per week. > [@](#): > > …developed from cutting-edge research in behavioural psychology… (Note: this book steers well clear of popular but non-scientific approaches, such as ‘positive thinking’, ‘positive affirmations’ and ‘self-hypnosis’; although such techniques may make you feel good in the short term, they simply do not work in the long term.)… ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2015, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-russ-harris-acceptance-commitment-therapy-mindfulness/741455/2 "2015-12-27T14:59:30Z")
What is the question here? ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2015, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-russ-harris-acceptance-commitment-therapy-mindfulness/741455/3 "2015-12-27T15:03:27Z")
John, I believe this will become a big thing in therapy, because it actually works. ---
**Author:** ![bobkitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c67d28/32.png) [@bobkitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobkitty)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2015, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-russ-harris-acceptance-commitment-therapy-mindfulness/741455/4 "2015-12-27T18:35:09Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > John, I believe this will become a big thing in therapy, because it actually works. It’s been around for decades as part of the ‘third wave’ of behavioral therapy; it’s nearly on par with standard CBT in effectiveness, though not quite in practice. There’s nothing ground-breaking about it, and no reason to think it will become a ‘big thing’ any more than it already is. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-russ-harris-acceptance-commitment-therapy-mindfulness/741455/5 "2015-12-28T00:22:28Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > What is the question here? What do people think about the videos? I thought they went against some conventional wisdom that needs to be rethought ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-russ-harris-acceptance-commitment-therapy-mindfulness/741455/6 "2015-12-28T00:53:05Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > What do people think about the videos? I thought they went against some conventional wisdom that needs to be rethought Simplistic to the point of meaninglessness re the goal/values journey. The others re good/bad feelings and anxiety make an implicit assumption that people can easily isolate negative feelings in the moment while detaching themselves and viewing their moment to moment interactions as an outside actor. While this 3rd person analytical perspective is possible for an outside observer, or for a person reviewing their behavior after the fact, it is (in my view) not very useful as a behavioral change paradigm as being in the moment physically and interactionally and outside the moment analytically is an impossible real world state of being unless you are going through life as some sort of constant actor (in the theatrical not the sociological sense). Very few people short of sociopaths are wired that way. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-russ-harris-acceptance-commitment-therapy-mindfulness/741455/7 "2015-12-28T01:39:23Z")
Yes the videos are very simplistic but the books and courses involve a lot of techniques