Talking with Bestselling Author & Psychologist Susanna Mittermaier About How to Have a Happy Life

These days many of us want more happiness and joy in our lives, but many are wondering how to get there. Well, you don’t have to wonder any more, bestselling Author & Psychologist Susanna Mittermaier sheds some light on how to up your happiness factor in her new book  “Advanced Pragmatic Psychology,” so it is no wonder that this incredible book roared on to the bestseller list.

Over the years Mittermaier has worked with doctors and clients in Sweden, and the end result of that work along with her desire to help people move past their limitations and find true happiness was founding  Pragmatic Psychology. In this book, which she co-wrote with Gary Douglas, she shows readers how to have more fulling and joyful lives. Once you pick up “Advanced Pragmatic Psychology”  you won’t want to put it down! We are thrilled to sit down with Mittermaier to find out more about her work, and upping our happiness factor.

The word pragmatic plays a role in both your bestselling books “Pragmatic Psychology: Practical Tools for Being Crazy Happy,” and now “Advanced Pragmatic Psychology.” How does being pragmatic factor into creating the lives we want, including finding joy and, being happy?

Pragmatic means doing what works. Most of the time people are busy being dramatic rather than pragmatic, focusing on the problem and complaining about not knowing how to fix it. When you allow yourself to be pragmatic you ask, “What is actually going to work here?” and you choose that. When you ask what will work here, possibilities you had not considered before become available to you and your life gets easier.

You have developed a rather revolutionary perspective on mental illness. Can you tell our readers how you came up with this perspective and the tools included in your book?

Traditional oncology and psychiatry focuses on what is wrong with people. It gathers information and formulates a diagnosis of what is wrong. Having never been very traditional, no matter what diagnosis my clients were given, I did not see what was wrong with them. I saw their gifts, their abilities. I saw what was strong about them. This led me to look for a new way to approach mental illness; one which invites people to look at their difference as their greatness.

“Pragmatic Psychology: Practical Tools for Being Crazy Happy,”  was a bestseller, and now your new book “Advanced Pragmatic Psychology,”  which was written by you and Gary Douglas, has hit the bestseller list too.  What did it feel like when you found out your new book was a bestseller?

Very grateful. The more that people know that they can choose to go beyond what they have decided is a problem into the possibilities of a greater life and a greater future the better! Life does not have to be about suffering. It can be about joy. Having a bestseller book means more people are receiving that message.

Besides writing, what are some other activities or hobbies that help you keep your creative mojo going?

Whatever is fun in the moment – horseback riding, hiking, skiing, dancing crazily in my house and singing in the bathtub.

“Advanced Pragmatic Psychology” is currently available on Amazon.