Steven C. Hayes has spent fifty years asking a single question: what is the smallest set of psychological processes that does the most good for the most people in the most circumstances? His answer became Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), now supported by nearly 1,500 randomized trials, and the psychological flexibility model that underlies it.
In this conversation with host Dmitrij Achelrod, Hayes explains why human language, the same capacity that lets us plan, connect, and create, also lets us manufacture psychological pain almost without limit. He walks through why pain is not optional but suffering is, unpacking the etymology of "suffering" itself to explain how identical pain can be carried lightly or crushingly. From there, the conversation moves through cognitive defusion, the "witnessing self" behind our thoughts, and the startling evidence that trauma can be carried epigenetically across generations, before landing on a World Health Organization trial in which a simple, cartoon-illustrated ACT self-help book cut the onset of new mental disorders by half among Syrian refugees who had survived war.
Together, Hayes and Dmitrij explore what it actually means to take responsibility (not blame) for how we carry pain forward, why curiosity and willingness to learn from failure predict a thriving life better than almost anything else, and why, at nearly 78, Hayes still calls the work "exciting as hell."
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