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The Happiness Trap - Stop Struggling, Start Living (2007)

by Russ Harris(Favorite Author)

4.05 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0908988907 (ISBN13: 9780908988907)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Exisle Publishing Limited

review 1: I had been hearing about ACT here and there and was mildly curious, but decided to pick up this inexpensive book at the encouragement of one of my students. I'm happy I did.ACT takes a refreshing approach to negative feelings. Stop struggling against them, says the theory. They're part of life. The more you fight them, the worse it is. After using a lot of CBT with mixed results, I appreciated an alternative to arguing with negative cognitions.ACT is based on six principles: Defusion, or the importance of recognizing that your thoughts are just thoughts and not absolute reality; Expansion, or making room for unpleasant feelings instead of struggling to push them away; Connection, or engaging fully on whatever you're doing right now instead of focusing on the past or ... morefuture; the Observing self, or getting in touch with the part of your mind that simply observes without judging; Values, or the need to clarify and connect with what's important to you; and Committed Action, or creating a meaningful life through taking action guided by your values. According to ACT, the combination of mindfulness, values, and action leads to psychological flexibility, or the ability to adapt to a variety of situations in life.I had some mixed feelings about the book's tone. On the one hand, the simplicity makes it very user-friendly. On the other hand, some aspects sometimes seemed gimmicky and cutesy and I could see my more critical clients being pretty turned off.I would encourage readers who are turned off by the book's tone, though, to persevere and try to separate the tone from the content. Although I haven't yet used this approach with clients (I fully intend to start), the theory resonates with me and I'm hoping that it will be as sensible in practice as it sounds in theory.
review 2: I read this book during a pretty difficult time in my life, psychologically speaking, as it was highly recommended by a lot of people. Despite the saccharine language, repetition (what else should I have expected in a self-help book?), and parental tone, there are some good tools in here that help to reduce acute psychological suffering.The gist: thoughts are just thoughts, connect with the present moment to draw yourself out of rumination, and live according to your values. To his credit, Harris offers some very useful strategies for accomplishing those things.But I disagree with Harris' assertion that we suffer from negative thoughts, phobias, compulsions, etc, just because our biologically primitive brains are programmed to recognize danger. The mind is a complicated thing, and I think it's useful (necessary, maybe) to understand what's going on under the surface and where the suffering comes from on a deeper level (childhood, relationship with parents, trauma, attachment to suffering, etc). This book is a good place to start, but by no means a place to end. less

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