Episode 8: Pain Avoidance and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy with Andrew Kerbs

In this episode, therapist Andrew Kerbs and I chat about about pain avoidance, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, target fixation, and values. We also touch briefly on religious trauma. In our conversation, Andrew and I…

• reveal that most people live from a place of pain avoidance
• discuss the limiting paradigm of symptom reduction as a measure of success in mental health treatment
• discuss the over-prescribing of psychiatric medication, especially to young boys, and how meds potentially prevent us from feeling the very things we want to feel
• speculate on humans’ reduced ability to cope with trauma and discomfort
• discuss the weaknesses of popular therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
• talk about target fixation
• discuss how we can do what we want, stay aligned with our values, AND simultaneously feel like shit
• speak to toxic positivity and how we cannot think our way out of discomfort
• touch on religious trauma and how religion perpetuates pain avoidance
• reveal the “miracle question” every person can ask themselves to stay aligned with their values even in the midst of discomfort

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