Can We Cure Cheap Happiness?

Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.
What do popular T-Shirt slogans tell us about our current notions of happiness? According to Big Think’s new guest, Steven Hayes, they signal that mass, commercial culture has cheapened our conception of bliss, making it overly emotional, ambitious, and riddled with a host of unattainable vagaries.
For Professor Hayes, who is developing a system of psychology known as ACT, a large part of remedying our conception of happiness lies in therapy itself, by establishing a type of doctor-patient relationship that is less normative and works to establish a more open acknowledgment of all of our feelings—even the worst.
Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.