"The Happiness Trap Cards" by Russ Harris is a valuable and empowering resource for anyone seeking to break free from the cycle of negative thoughts and behaviors and embrace a more fulfilling life. Based on the principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), this card deck offers 50 prompts, practices, and reflections designed to help individuals overcome depression, anxiety, and insecurity.

What sets this card deck apart is its accessibility and ease of use. Each card provides a practical tool or technique that can be easily integrated into daily life, making it ideal for anyone looking for in-the-moment solutions to common challenges. From handling painful thoughts and feelings to building better relationships and improving performance at work, the cards cover a wide range of themes that are relevant to personal growth and development.

Russ Harris's approachable writing style and the clear instructions make it easy for readers to engage with the material and apply it to their own lives. Whether you're dealing with panic, insecurity, or fear, "The Happiness Trap Cards" offer valuable insights and strategies to help you navigate difficult emotions and find greater peace and fulfillment.

Overall, "The Happiness Trap Cards" are a valuable addition to anyone's self-help toolkit. Whether you're new to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or looking for new ways to enhance your well-being, these cards provide practical and effective tools for living a more meaningful and fulfilling life.

To be fair, I think that having the actual cards in hand, rather than an ARC of digital version, might make these more user-friendly. I did not read the author's book that these are made to accompany, and this also may have made them more user-friendly for me. I was hoping to preview to see if these would be good for me to utilize with clients. I felt the language on some of the cards was not user-friendly for my clients. Some of the cards would be good to use, while others I felt were not especially valuable.

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These are a great set of cards. The happiness trap is a great resource and these cards make the information even more accessible - particularly for people who might be struggling to read whole books due to their mood.

3.5/5

Thank you to Shambhala Publication Inc and NetGalley for this ARC.

I think ACT is such a fantastic tool and The Happiness Trap Cards provide a valuable companion to Russ Harris's The Happiness Trap book. I don't feel the cards on their own would be as beneficial without previously reading The Happiness Trap or knowing something about ACT. Russ Harris always presents well and writes in easy to understand and relatable metaphors. A worthwhile tool if you find ACT helpful.

I love the idea of these cards. There's a good variety of different situations that can help someone with mental health, growth, self and personal development, and just everyday life. A good description of how to actually implement things with the 'Practice' side of the cards.
ARC provided by NetGalley

I think these are a nice, approachable way for someone unfamiliar with these practices to learn about them, but I don't think there is enough depth here to further someone along who is already aware of these concepts. For them, I suppose it may be beneficial to have a daily reminder or to use them to engage with certain practices that they might tend to avoid if based solely on personal choice.

Dive into a transformative journey with "The Happiness Trap Cards," a dynamic deck inspired by the bestselling classic on escaping the happiness trap. Featuring 50 Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)-based prompts, this deck offers practical tools and empowering reflections to liberate you from the clutches of depression, anxiety, and insecurity. Embrace a richer, more meaningful life by incorporating the profound insights of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy into your daily routine.

Unlock the secrets to fulfillment with each card, presenting strategies like "Thanking Your Mind," "Dropping Anchor," and "Noticing and Naming." Tackling themes from handling painful thoughts to building better relationships, these cards provide in-the-moment solutions for panic, insecurity, and fear. Enhance your life by breaking self-defeating habits, improving performance at work, fostering self-compassion, and navigating loneliness and loss. Packaged in a stylish playing card-style box, this deck is a convenient and accessible resource that has positively impacted millions, offering a fresh perspective on living a truly fulfilling life. I would recommend any of Russ' work, including this one!

Insightful prompts that could be used with clients or for personal development. I enjoyed the ACT books by this author and the cards are an even more accessible format for utilizing the tools.

This is a set of 50 cards based on the book of the same name. Each card has a brief description of an ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) principle on the front and a short practice on the back.

This deck is a nice introduction to ACT, even for people who haven't read the book. If someone picks up the deck without having any prior knowledge of ACT terminology or practices, I think they might struggle a bit with some of the cards' instructions. As an example, the 'hooking' and 'unhooking' terms come up quite a bit, but aren't explained or introduced. Some of the earlier cards I read had a snippet along the lines of "If a difficult thought arises during this, notice and unhook". I think if those were some of the first practices someone was doing, they might be a bit lost about how to continue without pulling another card or referencing the original book/other outside material. Working their way through the whole deck will probably explain enough to be able to complete the practices though.

Overall I liked the variety of practices in this deck and the way the cards are formatted. It's a great add-on for those who found The Happiness Trap helpful, and a nice, quick introduction for those who haven't read it but are interested in ACT.

Russ Harris’s book ”The Happiness Trap” is one of my favorite self-help books. After reading it, I became so interested in this method that I attended an ACT workshop. It really did change my life and I incorporate different elements from this therapy in my thoughts and behaviors on a daily basis. Like any new behavior, though, it is easy to go back to old ways of acting. So it’s a brilliant idea to take many of the concepts from this book and have them on a deck of cards. This method has to be practiced continuously to have effect, and I can imagine, for example, pulling one card a day as a way of reminding oneself of the different concepts and actions that are an important part of this therapy.

A great idea!