The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living

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Despite everything you’ve tried over the years, isn’t it a fact that your mind still produces unpleasant pictures?” – p. 75 The word ‘happiness’ has two very different meanings. Usually it refers to a feeling: a sense of pleasure, gladness or gratification. A gem. Russ Harris provides the most approachable primer to what you will learn in a long course of ACT, one of my favourite modes of therapy. This book is geared slightly more toward the clients and patients than the therapists, but contains so many exercises that can be used in session. It looks at upping awareness of the pernicious cycles we get bogged down in, while nudging us in the direction of a value-driven life, as opposed to a goal-driven one. For me, it’s the perfect combination of cognitive-behavioral therapy, Eastern practices, mindfulness, emotion-focused therapy, and a big one, existential therapy. I’m not saying ACT is worthless, that all of it is stolen, or that it should be discarded in favor of more religiously and culturally traditional practices. I *am* saying that instead of distancing ACT from obvious Eastern connections, it would seem more appropriate to deliberately and respectfully highlight the connections, give credit where credit is due, and *then* point out that it’s possible to utilize some of these ancient practices with modern Western cues, in a non-religious way in service of our mental health (as Easterners figured out, like, forever ago). El presente libro es esencialmente un manual sobre cómo el lector puede implementar en su vida diaria la llamada Terapia de Aceptación y Compromiso (ACT por sus siglas en inglés). Uno de los principios fundamentales de la ACT consiste en aceptar los pensamientos y sentimientos negativos en lugar de luchar contra ellos, o de utilizar estrategias de control de forma excesiva. Para poder fundamentar sus explicaciones, el autor utiliza la dicotomía entre el yo pensante y el yo observante: el primero es esa parte nuestra que está continuamente generando pensamientos y contándonos historias, evaluando todo cuanto nos sucede y cuanto nos rodea; mientras que el segundo se limita a percibir el mundo tal y cómo es, a leer y sentir, y en definitiva, observar todo cuanto vivimos en le momento presente.

Today’s middle class lives better than did the Royalty of not so long ago, and yet humans today don’t seem very happy.” – p. 2 I also agree that the majority of the suggested techniques associated with ACT are beneficial for many people. There’s a lot of really easy-to-try (sometimes oversimplified) techniques that make sitting with unpleasant emotion a little easier and more accessible to folks who have spent a lot of time and energy trying to control emotion rather than accept it. In the book, The Happiness Trap, as you’ve probably guessed by now, we are far more interested in the second meaning of happiness than in the first. Harris did mention several times throughout the book to take what works and leave the rest. I just hope he meant that we could leave the whole thing if necessary and determined to be clinically appropriate. As a therapist, I can’t imagine he meant anything else so I’m just going to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

ACT) آشنا می‌کند که اگر بخواهم خیلی خیلی خلاصه بگویم هدفش رسیدن به انعطاف پذیری روان‌شناختی است که با تمسک به شش استراتژی می‌توانیم به این مهم دست یابیم. Well, okay, I'm not actually struggling. Life's mostly all peach these days, but I'm (almost) always interested in self-improvement. We get one go on this globe and studying ways of living well is a worthy endeavor, no matter where we fall on the struggle/succeed scale. So let's say you're not struggling either. Or maybe struggling just in like this one area or two. Let's assume we're all arrayed somewhere along the fat median part of the continuum's arc and doing okay or pretty good or I'm-too-busy-to-even-tell, but maybe sometimes find ourselves on the far downslope, anxious or discouraged or frustrated with ourselves. Does Russ Harris's The Happiness Trap have anything to offer?

Letting the radio play on without giving it much attention is very different from actively trying to ignore it.” – p. 66 After our first session, I got instant results. Over the weekend that followed I had many changes to indulge my addiction and I had the desire, but I was able to use ACT to make values-based choices. At that point, my knowledge of the principles of ACT was rudimentary. Defusion: Recognizing thoughts, images, memories, and feelings as what they are – just words and pictures – without fighting them, running from them, or staying too focused on them The idea that emotions control your actions is a very powerful illusion.... If we consciously bring our awareness to how we are feeling and consciously observe how we're behaving, then no matter how intense our emotions are, we can still control our actions.... You can't stop yourself from feeling angry or afraid, but you certainly can control how you behave.The advice is based on a third wave CBT approach (more behavioral than cognitive) called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). If you are looking for an in depth discussion of the psychological theory and relevant research see the second edition (2011) of ACT by Hayes, Strosahl and Wilson. If you're interested in its philosophical basis see Hayes, Barnes-Holmes and Rocheand (2001) - Relational Frame Theory. Those books are not easy to read. I don't recommend them as a starting point even for professionals new to ACT, and they are completely unnecessary for readers interested in self-help. Con todo, resulta ser un buen libro de autoayuda. Tiene dos puntos fuertes que me parecen fundamentales: uno es una marcada dosis de realismo. El autor en ningún momento pretende endulzar su terapia y repite constantemente a lo largo del libro que el objetivo no es sentirse mejor o ser más feliz, sino conectar con el presente y el mundo que nos rodea y vivir una vida rica y plena. Vida que, siendo plena, implica todo tipo de experiencias y emociones, ya sean positivas o negativas. El otro punto es la flexibilidad y libertad que da al lector. Defiende que el modo en que cada persona quiere vivir su vida es una decisión meramente personal, y que aplicar los principios de la ACT, algunos de ellos o ninguno, no está ni bien ni mal. La implicación personal del autor en su exposición, presentando sus deficiencias y cómo actúa frente a ellas, le añade realismo al libro. Como punto negativo, el libro se me ha hecho bastante largo. Estando acostumbrado a devorar libros, éste es más bien de consumo relajado y ocasional. I've been thinking a lot about these things for both the big and little challenges that I face each day, and I have found them useful. This isn't a book that tells you how to be happy all the time, because that is not possible. But it does help you live a life of fulfillment, which I think is what matters most. I also believe that a fulfilling life is a joyful life--note that I do not say a "happy" or "ever-pleasant" life, as I think there is an important distinction. When I got into self-help books, I had two problems I wanted to solve: how to become likable and how to solve an addiction I'd had since I was 13-years-old. The books were able to help with the first, but nothing I tried worked with the addiction. That was until I started seeing a psychologist trained in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

First you make room for your feelings and allow them to be exactly as they are. Then you ask, "What can I do right now that is truly meaningful or important?" The main goal is to engage in meaningful activities, no matter how you feel. Dealing with conflicting values (e.g., work vs. family): sometimes you'll need to focus more on one value than another--find the best balance you can. Ask, "What's most important at this moment in my life, given all my conflicting concerns?" Then choose to act on that value, rather than wasting your time uselessly worrying about what you might be giving up or missing out on. When we take action on the things that truly matter deep in our hearts, when we move in directions that we consider valuable and worthy, when we clarify what we stand for in life and act accordingly, then our lives become rich and full and meaningful, and we experience a powerful sense of vitality. If you are willing to read just one self-help book - this is the one. Especially if you prefer advice on how to find out what you like and why you are better off behaving in a certain way, to 'just so' statements about beliefs you must adopt and the way you should think-feel-behave to achieve a specific goal / way of life some guru says is best. Sooner or later we all will come face-to-face with a crisis, disappointment and failure. This means that in one form or another, we are all going to experience painful thoughts and feelings.The book explores a number of tools you can use to accept your experience of those things and make choices that will make you feel good long-term. The end of the book is great. It teaches how to make real change that brings real happiness. Happiness comes from living according to your values. He urges us to spend REAL time discovering our values. Not our goals, or what society tells us to care about, but what we REALLY care about. Figure those values out, then set immediate, short medium, and long term goals that are congruent with your values.

I want to hate this book. It's so patronising and at times seriously flawed, logic-wise. It explains things with lots of exclamation marks! And drawn-out metaphors! And basically it's just the author going on, without drawing on any examples from the real world! Values: Clarifying what is most important to you in your life, what sort of person you want to be, and not just focusing on external goals – focusing more on the expression of those values (e.g., “I want to practice connection with people” instead of “I want to be married to a romantic partner”)Committed Action: Taking effective action in line with your values, no matter what the outcome and even if it is hard I agree with the central theory. Humans naturally and inevitably experience a whole range of emotion, including distressing emotion, and it’s much healthier to remain in a non-judgmental, accepting place as opposed to getting all wrapped up in futile attempts to push unpleasant emotion away (bottling) or simply letting it consume and paralyze you (dwelling).