Steven C. Hayes is Nevada Foundation Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada. His career has focused on an analysis of the nature of human language and cognition and the application of this to the understanding and alleviation of human suffering. He is the developer of Relational Frame Theory, an account of human higher cognition, and has guided its extension to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or Training (ACT in either case), a popular evidence-based form of intervention that uses mindfulness, acceptance, and values-based methods to foster psychological flexibility.
He is currently working to develop a process-based approach to evidence-based intervention more generally. ACT is sometimes used in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy because of the close correspondence between known change processes in psychedelic therapy and psychological flexibility processes, including that of a socially and temporally expansive “contextual self”. Google Scholar (www.webometrics.info/en/node/58) and Research.com data rank him among the most cited psychologists in the world. His work has been recognized by several awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy.
