How good are you at being unhappy? Need a little help? In his book “The Situation Is Hopeless but Not Serious: The Pursuit of Unhappiness”, psychologist Paul Watzlawick gives you all the advice you need. You can even use it to become happier, if only by smiling at all the crazy little ways humans have to keep misery alive.
What are the key ingredients in therapy that works in difficult situations? Fact and reason? Or a therapist willing to be with the client in the darkest places where we humans have to admit that we don’t know what the point is, and that we cannot fix it?
What does it mean to be in control of our lives? Is it at all possible, or desirable? Is it a better idea to try and let go of our need to control, or to find a way to exert influence at least over the meaning of our lives when bad times hit?
Should happiness and fulfillment be subjects on the school curriculum? Is this a holistic way forward, or a case of “experts colonising our internal life”?
Rather die than go to the dentist? Contemplating our own death is a lot more pleasant than contemplating dental pain, according to research which shows that reminders of death seem to provoke a kind of tuning into positive emotional information, a way of coping which is immediate, unconscious and clearly counterintuitive.
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