Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Interpersonal Problems: Using Mindfulness, Acceptance, and Schema Awareness to Change Interpersonal Behaviors

by Matthew McKay PhD, Avigail Lev PsyD, Michelle Skeen PsyD, Steven C. Hayes PhD (Foreword by)

Overview

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Interpersonal Problems presents a complete treatment protocol for therapists working with clients who repeatedly fall into unhealthy patterns in their relationships with friends, family members, coworkers, and romantic partners. These clients may blame others, withdraw when feeling threatened, react defensively in conflicts, or have a deep-seated sense of distrust—all interpersonal problems that damage relationships and cause enormous suffering.

This book presents an acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) approach—utilizing a schema-based formulation—to help these clients overcome maladaptive interpersonal behavior. First, clients learn how schema avoidance behavior damages their relationships. Second, clients face “creative hopelessness” and practice new mindfulness skills. Third, clients examine what they value in their relationships and what they hope to gain from them, and translate their values into clear intentions for acting differently in the future. And lastly, clients face the cognitive and emotional barriers standing between them and values-based behavior in their relationships. By learning to act on their values instead of falling into schema-influenced patterns, clients can eventually overcome the interpersonal problems that hold them back.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781608822898
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	06/01/2012
Pages:	216
Sales rank:	1,166,067
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Matthew McKay, PhD, is a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. He has authored and coauthored numerous books, including The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook, Self-Esteem, and Couple Skills, which have sold more than a million copies combined. He received his PhD in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, and specializes in the cognitive behavioral treatment of anxiety and depression.


Avigail Lev, PsyD, is a psychotherapist and executive coach in San Francisco, CA. She works with couples and individuals who struggle with interpersonal problems, anxiety, trauma, and mood disorders. Lev specializes in integrating acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and schema therapy to strengthen relationships. She is coauthor of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Interpersonal Problems and The Interpersonal Problems Workbook. Lev presents her research at regional and international conferences, and provides consultation, trainings, and workshops on utilizing evidence-based treatments. For more information, visit www.bayareacbtcenter.com.

Michelle Skeen, PsyD, has a doctorate in clinical psychology. She is author of Love Me, Don’t Leave Me and six other books. Her passion is coaching individuals in creating and maintaining healthy relationships by bringing awareness to core beliefs and the related patterns of behavior, which often work unconsciously to limit connections with others. Michelle believes that an early introduction and education in core values and healthy communication are essential life skills for success. To that end, Michelle and her daughter, Kelly, coauthored Just As You Are and Communication Skills for Teens.
 
Skeen completed her postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco. She codeveloped an empirically validated protocol for the treatment of interpersonal problems that resulted in two books: Acceptance and CommitmentTherapy for Interpersonal Problems and The Interpersonal Problems Workbook. Michelle’s books have been translated into thirteen languages, and her work has appeared in more than thirty publications around the world. To find out more, visit her website at www.michelleskeen.com.


Steven C. Hayes, PhD, is Nevada Foundation Professor in the department of psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has been president of numerous professional organizations, is author of forty-five books and nearly 650 scientific articles, and is among the most cited living psychologists. He has shown in his research how language and thought leads to human suffering, and is originator and codeveloper of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT): a powerful therapy method that is useful in a wide variety of areas; relational frame theory (RFT): an empirical program in language and cognition; and process-based therapy (with Stefan G. Hofmann).

Editorial Reviews

This intensely practical book offers a cutting-edge evidence-based framework for mental health professionals seeking to more effectively address the myriad interpersonal problems that individuals seeking psychotherapy face in their daily lives. It is the first book of its type to bridge the more cognitive notions of schemas with newer mindfulness and acceptance-based behavior therapies such as acceptance and commitment therapy. The authors know both worlds intimately, and offer a straightforward approach that gets to the heart of patterns of unhelpful interpersonal behavior that ultimately damage significant social bonds. The book is full of practical exercises, worksheets, and even a full-length protocol outlining its use in either an individual or group therapy format. This book is a must-read for any mental health practitioner who takes seriously the significant social and interpersonal problems faced by those they serve.”
—John P. Forsyth, PhD, professor of psychology at University at Albany, SUNY, and director of its anxiety disorders research program

“Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Interpersonal Problems is a user-friendly guide to helping your clients employ ACT to manage the pain and suffering caused by unhelpful schemas that contribute to the relationship distress that often accompanies the personal disorders they bring to their sessions with you. This book will guide you through a step-by-step process for helping your clients accept schema-related pain in the service of values-based interpersonal behavior. Highly recommended.”
—Richard Blonna, EdD, author of Stress Less, Live More

“Interpersonal difficulties are a common focus of clinical work, either as a primary presenting problem or one that further complicates other issues that clients bring with them to therapy. This book skillfully integrates schema theory with acceptance and commitment therapy. Matthew McKay, Avigail Lev, and Michelle Skeen guide the reader through a systematic program emphasizing mindfulness and compassionate acceptance of thoughts, feelings, and urges that typically result in interpersonal difficulties, along with the clarification of personal values to inform alternative ways of relating to others. Numerous handouts and forms throughout, as well as an appendix with a session-by-session protocol, provide an easy-to-follow set of empirically-supported guidelines. This book should be a welcome addition to the library of all mental health professionals who struggle in working with clients who find their relationships with loved ones, friends, and coworkers more often a source of psychological pain than fulfillment.”
—Robert D. Zettle, PhD, professor of psychology at Wichita State University and the author of ACT for Depression

“Mental health professionals interested in new horizons in evidence-based treatments will find this book to be a valuable first step in the direction of integrating acceptance and commitment therapy into their work. This book offers a unique journey through the ACT material by integrating the vernacular of traditional cognitive behavior therapy. The authors dare ACT therapists to broaden the scope of their conceptualizations while challenging CBT therapists to apply mindfulness and acceptance to their toolbox of interventions.”
—D.J. Moran, PhD, BCBA-D, founder of Pickslyde Consulting and the MidAmerican Psychological Institute

“While chronic interpersonal problems are often the most difficult to address clinically, this book provides new hope for the clinician. It is simple, practical, sound, and evidence-based.”
—Kirk Strosahl, PhD, co-founder of acceptance and commitment therapy and coauthor of The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Depression and Brief Interventions for Radical Change

“Over the years, different therapy approaches have attempted to help clients struggling with interpersonal problems. Despite showing some benefits, none of these approaches made a significant difference in these clients’ lives. Finally, ACT for Interpersonal Disorders offers readers an alternative that is not only innovative, but also based in research. This book sets a gold standard for how to integrate ACT and schema therapy and shows us step by step how to make real changes in the lives of clients struggling with their relationship to their own pain and relationships with the people they care about.”
—Patricia Zurita Ona, PsyD, clinical supervisor at the Berkeley Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Clinic and the Wright Institute’s behavioral medicine training program

“McKay, Lev, and Skeen present a successful, innovative combination of ACT and a schema-based approach to help clients with interpersonal relationship problems gain more behavioral flexibility and move beyond inflexible patterns of relating. Rather than changing dysfunctional schemas or core beliefs, the authors teach readers in clear, practical steps how to help clients alter the way they relate to their thoughts so that they can choose different responses based on their chosen values. The book is based on long-term clinical and research experience that shows how clients gain greater psychological flexibility through building acceptance and defusing from unhelpful thoughts, emotions, and beliefs—including schemas. With its many worksheets and exercises, as well as a session-by-session treatment outline, this book is a great resource for any therapist who wants to help clients develop less conflict-filled, richer, and more fulfilling life.”
—Georg Eifert, PhD, professor emeritus of psychology at Chapman University

“Relying on a storytelling clinical voice, the authors articulate an innovative approach to applying ACT technology to interpersonal problems using the language of schemas (e.g., abandonment, failure) as a heuristic to identify historic thoughts, feelings, and action urges that are sources of pain and unlikely to go away. The book describes a step-by-step treatment approach wherein the clients learn to recognize old moves to avoid the emotional pain associated with these schemas and discover how to stop these behaviors that create unnecessary interpersonal suffering. It includes clear descriptions of interventions, with samples of therapist-client dialogue and handouts to use with clients. The book is based on a small randomized controlled trial in a group setting and indeed, it includes that protocol in one of the appendices; however, the material presented in this book could easily be utilized in individual and couples therapy, as well.”
—Jacqueline Pistorello, PhD, coauthor of Finding Life Beyond Trauma

From the Publisher

Reviewer: Howard A Fox, MA (Fielding Graduate University)
Description: This book provides insight into how schema and acceptance therapy, with the addition of mindfulness techniques, provide an effective approach to helping clients gain an awareness of, and to reconcile, disruptive interpersonal behaviors.
Purpose: The purpose is to provide techniques for integrating schema and acceptance-based interventions and tools together with mindfulness techniques to treat individuals who are presenting with interpersonal problems. Therapies that include mindfulness techniques seem to be at the forefront of much scholarly and nonscholarly writing. The authors provide sufficient background, examples, and tools for interested readers and practitioners to begin incorporating these techniques into their practice.
Audience: Although intended for behavioral professionals at the MA, PhD level, this book also will be helpful to graduate students and professionally trained and accredited coaches who are familiar with an evidence-based approach.
Features: The book notes the difficulties of treating individuals with interpersonal problems using commonly recognized approaches and details their shortcomings. The authors proceed to introduce the 10 schemas that are associated with interpersonal issues and present easily reproducible tools that clients can begin to use to understand their specific situation and their method for coping. The book goes on to provide techniques to help clients understand the schema(s) that affect them, and to introduce them to techniques for changing their long-term patterns. Techniques and tools for moving the client toward recognizing the origin of their schema and to begin the transition to acceptance commitment therapy and mindfulness skills to change their situation are then presented. What surprised me was that much of the current scholarly, evidence-based, and lay practice writing about mindfulness has acknowledged the work of Jon Kabit-Zinn, but there is no mention of him in this book.
Assessment: I found this book to be very helpful in providing an increased understanding of disruptive schema, acceptance and commitment therapy, and especially the mindfulness techniques. Books written at this level are highly accessible and serve to strengthen a belief in an evidence-based approach to serving clients.

Doody's Review Service