Your feelz. Aren’t they important, valued? Shouldn’t the world be all about them? Not according to Michael Bennett.

Toronto-born, Upper Canada College- and Harvard-educated psychiatrist Dr. Michael Bennett often found himself growing increasingly weary of the nattering — the self-obsessing by his patients, their over-belief in a cure for their problems/feelings/anxieties/behaviour if they only worked harder.

“At some point, I would say, ‘to hell with your feelings,’ ” Bennett says over the phone from his office outside Boston, Mass.

Bennett likes to curse, “in good humour,” because it shocks people out of their complacency.  After all, isn’t mindless positivity its own virtue?

Bennett is co-author, along with his comedy writer daughter Sarah Bennett, of F*ck Feelings: One Shrink’s Practical Advice for Managing All Life’s Impossible Problems, a profanity-laced takedown of the happiness-oriented self-help movement, its moralizing “one-name healers” (Oprah, Phil and Laura) and books that promise to make us brighter, shinier and happier.

According to the father-daughter duo, the joys of self-betterment are vastly overrated. Negative feelings, they argue, are seeded in our evolution, an adaptive response to warn us of danger and keep us “attached to our tribe.” Instead of trying to be more blissed out, less wrought or angry, they argue, we should assume that we’re going to have negative feelings and develop ways to behave like decent human beings despite them.

Bennett isn’t against empathy, but “superficial empathy,” the phony “you’re awesome” crap that makes brains melt in adoration.  If everybody is awesome, then no one is. If everybody is right, then nobody is right.

The ability to distinguish between thoughtful and idiotic is one that’s critical to our survival.  To salve some moron’s feelings by affirming them is to reduce us to their level.  Remember, “if Timmy jumped off the roof, would you jump off the roof?”  Maybe so, just to make sure that Timmy’s feelings weren’t hurt.

Worse still, it doesn’t work.

The darker truth, they argue, is that the more we pursue happiness, paradoxically, the unhappier we become. The higher we set up the expectation, the more we beat ourselves up if when we fail to achieve it.

While being told that there is some perfect state of happy out there, and never being able to achieve it, people are turned into miserable failures of happiness. One more Facebook like doesn’t cut it. A RT no longer fills you with validation.  Not even a supportive comment does the trick.  Because people know it’s all bullshit, phony validation exchanges for losers.

In Western cultures — particularly North America — positivity reigns, says co-author Dr. Todd Kashdan, a professor of psychology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. The message, he says in an interview, is, “If you can just have more positive emotions — be more optimistic, more cheerful — then all these other benefits will come to you: you’ll find your purpose in life, you’ll have more money, you’ll have more friends, you’ll be less likely to be divorced, you’ll have better relationships with your kids.”

Except you won’t.  In a world filled with bullshit validation, it’s rendered meaningless, and accomplishes nothing.  It’s just empty noise. While it doesn’t hurt feelings, it doesn’t help accomplishment.  At best, this pushes us to mediocrity, since few will say your question was stupid, your idea was bad, your performance sucked.

When you’re told your performance was great, even though it was awful, there is no push to do better, to improve. The desire not to suck is what drives us to do better, to actually achieve the sense of accomplishment rather than hear empty happy words as if we did.

But rather than appreciate honesty, meaningful critique, people find themselves angry by the perceived violation of their demand for positivity.

Still, “There is a not-so-hidden prejudice against negative states, and the consequence of avoiding these states is that you inadvertently stunt your growth, maturity, adventure and meaning and purpose in life.”

Your call, kids. Want to enjoy a never-ending quest for pretend validation rather than do the hard work, suffer the occasional pain, of being told that you’re really not good enough, you’re not smart enough, and doggonit, people don’t actually like you?

Ironically, should you choose to court the possibility of negativity, and actually strive to do better, you might actually come to receive meaningful praise because you’ve done something to deserve it. Imagine.  So, as Dr. Bennett says, “to hell with your feelings.” If you want to find happiness, work for it. You may not achieve it, but whatever you gain will be more than the empty praise you get now.

H/T Stephanie West Allen