The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living

Are you, like milllions of Americans, caught in the happiness trap? Russ Harris explains that the way most of us go about trying to find happiness ends up making us miserable, driving the epidemics of stress, anxiety, and depression. This empowering book presents the insights and techniques of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) a revolutionary new psychotherapy based on cutting-edge research in behavioral psychology. By clarifying your values and developing mindfulness (a technique for living fully in the present moment), ACT helps you escape the happiness trap and find true satisfaction in life.

    The techniques presented in The Happiness Trap will help readers to:

   • Reduce stress and worry
   • Handle painful feelings and thoughts more effectively
   • Break self-defeating habits
   • Overcome insecurity and self-doubt
   • Create a rich, full, and meaningful life

Customer Reviews:

Warning: This book will not make you happy.

By Peter Hanley - June 5, 2008

I don't generally like books with happiness in the title. They tend to be trying to tell me how I can be happy, or otherwise they're so vague and new-age that I wonder whether the author is for real. This book was very different.

This book is practical, very well written, and genuine in its approach. It doesn't make grandiose claims. Instead, it is based on a very solid theoretical and empirical foundation, yet it doesn't get caught up in unnecessary jargon. It's also a great example of how Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can be applied to every day life. The importance it places on living a life that you value is excellent, and avoids many of the pitfalls of the contemporary cultural assumption that happiness (or lack of unhappiness) is the goal of self-help/life.

People who will find this book most helpful:
- Anyone who suffers from depression or anxiety
- Anyone who wants to be happy, but always fails to achieve it
- Anyone who wants to learn... read more

A Guide to Valued Living

By Robert D. Zettle - June 3, 2008

According to the Declaration of Independence, the "pursuit of happiness" is one of our "inalienable rights." As Russ Harris masterfully points out in this book, however, the pursuit of values over the long haul, rather than happiness, is more likely to lead to a full and meaningful life. The overall approach within the book is based upon acceptance and commitment therapy or ACT, which has increasingly been shown to be helpful in alleviating a wide range of human suffering. Rather than being a stodgy, stuffy presentation of ACT (and believe me, having written some of those myself - I know one when I see one!), the book reads more like a series of short stories which Dr. Harris presents in a conversational and engaging style to ilustrate how all of us can adopt a more kind and compassionate approach to our struggles with self-doubts, unwanted emotions, and worrisome thoughts. Indeed, the book could have just as easily been entitled "ACT for Dummies" not because it oversimplifies the... read more

One of the best self-help book for everyone

By Dung Nguyen - June 7, 2008

I recommend this book to all my clients and colleagues. In a very accessible and captivating way, Dr Russ Harris made us understand how our mind can sometimes be an enemy to living a rich, vital and meaningful life. The book is full of EFFECTIVE, evidence-based strategies to effectively respond to our distressing emotions, thus reducing their impact on us. It also gives us strategies to disentangle ourselves from self-defeating thoughts. As we are able to free ourselves from the impact of unhelpful thoughts and feelings, we stop figthing them, and can invest our energy in living our life. As I read the book, I realize that life is not about having happy, pleasant thoughts and feelings. It is about living a meaningful life consistent with our values. The Acceptance and Commitment Therapy gives us the needed tools to just do that: FREE ourselves from our MIND and have the energy to live a meaningful life.
The Happiness Trappy is the most accessible, easiest to understand book on... read more