Acceptance and Commitment Therapy holds that psychological suffering arises primarily from the mind's battle with its own contents — thoughts, feelings, memories — rather than from the contents themselves. The cure is not changing thoughts but changing the relationship to them: defusion from the story, acceptance of internal experience, and commitment to values-based action regardless of what the mind is producing. The Sutras anticipate this precisely: the witness does not fight the vṛttis but observes them, and from observation comes the freedom to act from choice rather than compulsion.
Patan