This actually isn’t how you presented it in the post.
Fair enough. I failed at precisely communicating what I think. FWIW, I don’t think that ‘acceptance’ means that you’re forbidden from working to feel better in the future.
IOW, ACT advocacy arguments look a lot like slaying a list of straw men. Sure suppression and avoidance don’t work, duh. How does ACT compare to things that don’t suck?
I didn’t see the criticism of suppression and avoidance as a diss against other theories but rather against something that people naively tend to do by default. And even if you know some other things that don’t suck, until you become an Ultimate Master of Cognitive Restructuring, acceptance can still be useful.
Also, I kind of feel like I am being strawmanned here a bit, when you fluidly move from denying a point I made to talking about those pesky ACT advocates, right up to
(And some have even gone so far as to imply that the wounds being bandaged are a virtue—i.e., that we should be happy to have them, and that attempts to get rid of them—like attempts to eliminate death—are foolish and misguided.)
which is just stupid. Unfortunately, I have an idea where that might be coming from. One of the ideas there was that your mind’s primary job isn’t to make you happy, but to protect you from danger. So when you have an unpleasant experience, one thing you can do is to thank your mind for looking out for you (shudder). I can see how someone who doesn’t know the real, non-dumbed-down story of evolutionary psychology could get silly ideas from that.
I kind of feel like I am being strawmanned here a bit,
Not my intention; I was just trying to clarify the context in which I was interpreting your post.
I didn’t see the criticism of suppression and avoidance as a diss against other theories
Yeah, I’ve had ACT advocates email to me to warn me that eliminating bad feelings is harmful and I shouldn’t promote such a thing. So that might be why I see it differently. ;-)
Point is, I wanted to reply here so that people know there’s more to life than the false dichotomy of suppress or accept. A lot of people seem to not realize that other options are available.
Fair enough. I failed at precisely communicating what I think. FWIW, I don’t think that ‘acceptance’ means that you’re forbidden from working to feel better in the future.
I didn’t see the criticism of suppression and avoidance as a diss against other theories but rather against something that people naively tend to do by default. And even if you know some other things that don’t suck, until you become an Ultimate Master of Cognitive Restructuring, acceptance can still be useful.
Also, I kind of feel like I am being strawmanned here a bit, when you fluidly move from denying a point I made to talking about those pesky ACT advocates, right up to
which is just stupid. Unfortunately, I have an idea where that might be coming from. One of the ideas there was that your mind’s primary job isn’t to make you happy, but to protect you from danger. So when you have an unpleasant experience, one thing you can do is to thank your mind for looking out for you (shudder). I can see how someone who doesn’t know the real, non-dumbed-down story of evolutionary psychology could get silly ideas from that.
Not my intention; I was just trying to clarify the context in which I was interpreting your post.
Yeah, I’ve had ACT advocates email to me to warn me that eliminating bad feelings is harmful and I shouldn’t promote such a thing. So that might be why I see it differently. ;-)
Point is, I wanted to reply here so that people know there’s more to life than the false dichotomy of suppress or accept. A lot of people seem to not realize that other options are available.