“Self-help books don't work. Happiness is a business ”

[Inkriql]

Edgar Cabanas (Madrid, 1985) is a Doctor of Psychology, researcher and teacher. Together with the Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz wrote the essay Happycracy: how science and the industry of happiness control our lives (Paidós). The book has been translated into 10 languages and has been a bestseller.

How many cups of Mr. Wonderfull do you have at home?

(Laughs) None. No notebooks, no shirts, no bags. I do not contribute to consume this type of childishness.

He says that happiness is a business.

There are the data. The happiness industry is very powerful, lucrative and influential: it includes self-help products, beauty, po[CENSORED]r books, conferences, courses, experts who give talks to companies ...

What is a self-help book for?

Self-help literature is widely consumed in Spain. They do not work for what they say they serve. They tell us what we want to hear with simple messages.

But doctors and psychiatrists sign it like you.

The degrees are used to provide rigor, legitimacy and seriousness to the message. Their messages are very deep because they give us a sense of power and control over our lives. They tell us that it is very easy to have a better life, that we can improve our personal relationships, that we can be more productive and, of course, offer us keys to be happy and to be better with oneself.

They are very tempting.

Clear! But what is behind is a lot of guilt. Because if what they offer you is the idea that happiness is a personal choice, then what they are telling you is that whatever suffering you have as anxiety or depression is your fault. Your messages generate a lot of frustration because they are ideas without guarantees. When one sets out to carry them out, he realizes that it is not so simple. Changing ourselves is not an easy task. You cannot change without changing your vital circumstances. It is very difficult to ask a worker to stop having stress and anxiety to reach the end of the month when he has a precarious job. There is no self-help for structural and collective problems.

But companies invest a lot in transmitting that.

The latest official data speak of billions a year worldwide. And there are even experts who are dedicated to investigate the happiness of workers. It is said that happiness is associated with greater productivity, but it must be remembered that the association between emotional and productivity is a discussion that has been open for decades and is not closed. What is sought is that workers understand that the interests of the company and their own are the same. That they grow professionally if the company does it with them. It is a useful discourse to downplay labor conditions, such as wages.

Money gives happiness.

First because it helps. No one can deny that behind money there is security or B plans when things go wrong. With money, family relationships are not eroded so much. A rich person suffers, but they do not suffer the same as a poor person.

Can a poor man be happy?

(Silence) That's what they say, precisely to take away iron to talk about the conditions in which you can be happy. I am more interested in talking about the conditions in which we can talk about happiness than happiness itself. First because we don't know what happiness is. Not even those who talk about her know it. They do not have a single definition. This is not paradoxical, it is necessary to be indefinite for each one to present their own recipes to be happier.

So what is happiness?

I do not have a definition. Happiness is a cultural issue. Self-help books tell you that happiness is like a muscle. Clear! Why do they do that? Because that way I can sell you the method to be happy. They tell you all the time that everything is in you, in your attitudes, in your thinking, that what is around you has nothing to do. It's just you and you It doesn't matter what is around.

The UN created Happiness Day on March 20, 2012.

In the happiness industry there are very influential people. Politicians and entrepreneurs issue reports of happiness. The UN responds to a social demand. But what is happiness ?, yours? It happens with everything. There are lobbies that introduce happiness in education, in companies, in hospitals. Happiness ministries have also been created in Bhutan or Saudi Arabia, where women have no rights. How does the happiness of these citizens compare with those of a Spaniard? What does it mean that they have eight points out of ten happiness?

Social networks contribute to all this.

We need to show ourselves happy. Networks are an extended identity. That positive self-image tends to be exaggerated because if you don't look like a toxic or a failure. The idea of happiness is associated with success, but there may be failed people who are happy.

You created the term Happycondriaco.

I think it reflects the obsession to be happy. The problem is that happiness does not have a goal. When they ask me if I'm happy, I say that I don't care, that it's not relevant. I do not defend sadness or depression. I think it is not a category to explain. I prefer to be asked if I do my job well.

Another new term is the emotional salary.

It is a perverse strategy. With the emotional salary, companies want to sell you that work conditions such as the environment or space influence your well-being. The problem is that the salary is given by the company as a prize, as if they care about you. No, sorry. When you sign a contract by law, it does not only mean salary, but working conditions. And they also tell you that salary is not just money. Let's see, give me the money, pay me well and whatever extra is welcome. But of course, when they do not reach the minimum wage they want to compensate in these ways.

A lot is written about the happiness that exists after overcoming cancer.

It is an absolute barbarity that you can influence with your emotions in an aspect as concrete as cancer. Some say, even, that bad thoughts cause illness. That is magical thinking and delirium. What happens is that it is now reformulated as a struggle. "You have overcome." "You have fought." "You have grown up in the face of adversity." I think that is banalizing the disease. People who have cancer have the right not to be positive and not to feel good because it is a real bad drink. You have to respect that people who want to feel good say it because it is true that if you take it well, you make it easier for all friends and family to travel the disease. This is not self help, it is common sense. But there are people who don't take it well and seem to be punished for it. First because he has cancer and second because he punishes you for feeling guilty for not feeling like trying to overcome it. You impose a double punishment. What happens? Does medical science have nothing to do with the cure of cancer? Because thanks to science you can heal, not overcome, heal.

Does anxiety heal with books?

In the long term it has no results. The reason is very simple: the self-help book tells you that your problems are emotional and you have to manage them. But what causes you anxiety is not you, but your work, your conditions, your relationships. Either you change the conditions or fall again. If the self-help books had the keys with a single book, it would be enough, but there are people who buy 50.