An acknowledged leader of the "third wave" of cognitive psychotherapy, which holds that we should accept even our negative thoughts as an integral part of life, rather than trying to eliminate them, psychologist Steven Hayes has written 300 peer-reviewed articles and 27 books, including Get out of Your Mind & into Your Life. He's also the innovator behind Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which has proven effective with problems as diverse as depression, psychosis, and drug addiction. In his luncheon talk, he'll speak about how, through mindfulness, acceptance, and psychological flexibility, we can dismantle the automatic mental processes, built into human cognition, that get in the way of true compassion and human connection. As he puts it, "In an era when hatred threatens our ability to live safely on this planet, compassion is far more important than bullets to ensure human survival."