“”Positive thinking” has turned happiness into a duty and a burden, says a Danish psychologist”

“Happiness is simply not the appropriate response to many situations in life, says Brinkmann, whose Danish bestseller Stand Firm: Resisting the Self-Improvement Craze is published in English by international publisher Polity this month. Even worse, faking it can leave us emotionally stunted.

“I believe our thoughts and emotions should mirror the world. When something bad happens, we should be allowed to have negative thoughts and feelings about it because that’s how we understand the world,” he says…

“I think this is a dark side of positivity. Our feelings tend to become commodities and that means we’re very easily alienated from our feelings.””

"Positive thinking" has turned happiness into a duty and a burden, says a Danish psychologist

Why does it feel so much like this needed to be said? This is not a difficult concept.