On the afternoon of January 30th, 2008, room 109 in Disque Hall was filled with open ears as about a hundred people awaited a seminar entitled "Mindfulness and Acceptance: New Developments in Cognitive Behavior Therapy." Dr. James D. Herbert of the Department of Psychology took the podium after being introduced by the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Donna Murasko.

Herbert started his lecture by giving an abbreviated history of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), which has gone through three major generations. The first generation covered the theories and methods of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. The second marked the introduction of behavior therapy, which, in short, helps people by confronting them with whatever it is that they fear (i.e. – someone who's afraid of mice would be put in the same room as one).

The third and newest generation is called acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). It's just been developed in the last ten years or so and shows a great deal of promise in the effort to help troubled individuals deal with their problems. In the older theories, therapists and patients alike were both working toward the goal of eliminating the problem, whatever it may be. But ACT approaches the problems differently.

As Herbert explained, the patient's goal in ACT is not to eliminate the problem, but rather to simply acknowledge that there is a problem and learn to live with it. "Many problems are due to our failure to accept those experiences that we can't change," he explained. "Trying to change the symptoms is not the goal. In fact, if you try to change them, you're going to make it even harder to change." He suggested that the patients should instead come up with a set of values and try to live by those values, and in time, that should make the symptoms dissipate.

Herbert then backed up these theories with a description of a recent study where a number of people were asked to put their hand in a bucket of ice water and hold it there for as long as they could. After a short while, the ice water will begin to inflict pain. Half of the group was asked to do anything possible to keep their mind off of the pain and to see how long they could keep their hand in the water. The other half of the group was asked to "go into the pain" and to acknowledge the fact that they were feeling it. The results of the study showed that the people who focused on their pain in their hand were able to keep their hand in the water longer. This was a small microcosm of the theory that ACT is trying to make mainstream.

Through the use of simple diction and a clever explanation of the new developments in cognitive behavior therapy, Dr. Herbert held the interest and enthusiasm of the audience throughout his presentation.