The Third Wave of Therapy

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For a time, in the 1990s, we seemed to think that curing mental illness was a matter of manipulating a couple of brain chemicals. But after decades of side effects and the recent debate over whether antidepressants carry suicide risk for teens, we have seen only marginal gains in public mental health. A 2002 study in Prevention & Treatment found that approximately 80% of the response to the six biggest antidepressants of the '90s was duplicated in control groups who got a sugar pill. So we may be ready for something different.

Hayes will have to do a great deal of research to show that ACT, like cognitive therapy, not only solves problems in the short term but prevents relapse. Hayes and his team believe they will get there, but even if they do, it seems likely that for ACT to go mainstream, it will have to shed its icky zealotry and grandiose predictions. ("We could get Muslims and Jews together in a workshop," Hayes said in Washington. "Our survival really is at stake.") Even so, Hayes may be crazy enough to pull it all together.