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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.

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“The abruptness of hearing a psychiatrist who is supposed to be a patient listener, who is supposed to say, ‘Please, tell me more about that,’ and, ‘Oh, that must have been awful,’ instead saying, ‘So, what are you going to do about it?’ … It really got the conversation jumpstarted.”

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.