Living Beyond Your Pain: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Ease Chronic Pain. This item is unavailable.Living Beyond Your Pain: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Ease Chronic Pain

A rich and rewarding life is possible for those of us who live with chronic pain. Based on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), one of the most promising and fastest growing psychotherapies being practiced today, this book breaks with conventional notions of pain management. These "feel good" approaches-including the use of pain-killing medication-all work to prevent painful sensations. The ACT approach, however, begins with the assumption that pain is a normal part of living that teaches us a lot about the state of our bodies and minds. Attempts to avoid it often cause more harm than good. By accepting and learning to live with pain, you limit the control it exerts over you. Mindfulness exercises, in particular, help you transform pain from a life-defining preoccupation to a simple experience. From this strong position, you can make choices that will lead to the life you've always wanted. Committed action is the way to make it happen.

JoAnne Dahl, PhD, is professor of psychology at Uppsala University, Sweden. JoAnne is a clinical psychologist specializing in behavior medicine. She is coauthor of the The Art and Science of Valuing in Psychotherapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Chronic Pain, Living Beyond Your Pain, and ACT and RFT in Relationships.


Tobias Lundgren, MS, is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in cognitive behavior therapy and ACT. He is an active clinician and a researcher in the areas of behavior medicine, psychometrics, and self-destructive behavior. Lundgren is affiliated with the psychology department at the University of Uppsala in Sweden, and has conducted research in many developing countries.

Steven C. Hayes, PhD, is Foundation Professor Emeritus at the University of Nevada, Reno; and president of the Institute for Better Health. Author of forty-eight books and more than 700 scientific articles, he has been president of numerous professional organizations and is among the most cited living psychologists. He has shown in his research on relational frame theory (RFT) how and why language and symbolic thought leads both to human achievement and to human suffering, and has guided the extension of RFT to ACT.