Big Think Interview With Steven Hayes | Big Think
CBT is based on animal models. It’s still relevant today but creators thought that there have to be a better way of dealing with cognition. That’s why there was a need to develop 3rd wave frameworks which are based on human models.
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I think one dangerous definition of it is to think of happiness as kind of a warm, joyful, feeling in your heart that you have to pursue and grab and hold onto for fear that it'll go away.
but we know, the evidence shows, them more intent you are on having those feelings and chasing those feelings, that's a butterfly that flies away the more you chase it.
Yeah, you might feel good, but it doesn't live well. If you just have another martini or even more severe forms of substance use, yeah, it might feel good, but it doesn't live well. And if you escape into kind of a materialism — the right car, the right woman, the right house, the right trip, the right place, the right job, the right praise — you know, these things -- all of the folks who are wise in our culture, over the history of our culture, have written about the dangers of trying to define a meaningful life that way.
this cheap-thrill version, this sort of ease definition, the feel-good definition of happiness is an empty promise. And the culture in the West I think has done a particularly bad job of indulgence in that vision of what happiness is and encouraging people to chase it.
A better way to think about happiness that actually is something that I think you can reach towards is, is living in accord with your values and in a way that is more open and accepting of your history as it echoes into the present, that's more self-affirming, self-validating and values-based. The Greeks had a word for it; they called it eudaimonia
Defined as a values-based life of integrity and fidelity to yourself and what you most deeply want to stand for, that definition of happiness -- man, that's the kind of life I want to live and I think that … that definition is something that will empower human lives.