{"id":329,"date":"2018-01-12T14:53:57","date_gmt":"2018-01-12T04:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/?p=329"},"modified":"2018-01-12T14:53:57","modified_gmt":"2018-01-12T04:23:57","slug":"free-self-help-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/2018\/01\/12\/free-self-help-library\/","title":{"rendered":"Free self-help, from the library!"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I think ‘University Library’, I remember the hours I spent in the library photocopying journal articles for psychology papers.<\/p>\n

But things have got a lot more fancy since I was studying. Everything is electronic. That includes research papers, but also other books that might be helpful to you during your time as a student.<\/p>\n

And that includes self-help books.<\/p>\n

[As a brief aside: self-help books get a bad name because often we overestimate the impact these books will have in our lives. I think the value of self-help books lies more in gaining new and alternative perspectives on life, and over time, learning which of those perspectives is most helpful in your life. Don’t expect a single self-help book to transform your life or fix every problem you have. Rather see it as you sampling different perspectives on life, in your journey towards refining your own views<\/em>]<\/p>\n

\"Happiness<\/p>\n

The Happiness Trap<\/a> is arguably the most popular self-help book written for the general public about the ideas of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and how to apply them in your own life.<\/p>\n

The reason is, the author, Dr Russ Harris<\/a>, has both a white man afro, and also a long history of teaching ACT to professionals and the general public. He is very good at it.<\/p>\n

I don’t want to spoil the content of book, but briefly:<\/p>\n

The ‘A’ in ACT – Acceptance, refers to how we approach the often challenging internal world of our minds – how we deal with difficult thoughts, feelings and sensations.<\/p>\n

The ‘C’ in ACT – Commitment, refers to honing in on the things that give our lives meaning and purpose, and pursuing them with focus.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The original, more text-heavy version of the Happiness Trap is still a very easy book to read, but I do like the combination of text and illustrations in the Pocketbook version. It reminds me of those excellent Youtube videos that use animations to describe complex concepts (e.g. minutephysics<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Although it is 17 chapters, I was able to read through the whole book in under an hour. That being said, I don’t recommend reading it this quick. That was just to confirm that it is not an onerous read.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Typically, a love of self-help books and programs means a hit to the wallet. Books are certainly cheaper these days, but it can still be very expensive to indulge a love of self-help books.<\/p>\n

The awesome thing about being a student however is you have access to a library and they, through what I believe is a combination of subscriptions and black magic, have access to a lot of cool stuff!<\/p>\n

The Happiness Trap Pocketbook edition, for example, can be read for free, using your Flinders account<\/a>. Thank you library \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I’ll leave you now to go have a look at the book, but I will highlight some other excellent self-help resources from the library in future posts.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, have a read of the Happiness Trap Pocketbook<\/a> and throw a tweet to the library to thank them for having access to all these wonderful books \ud83d\ude42 – @FlindersLib<\/a><\/p>\n

Also, let me know how you find the book. If it is helpful, we can explore other ideas from ACT in future posts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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