The book "In Search of Lost Time" by Marcel Proust begins with the following words:

Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure.

The usual translation is:

For a long time I went to bed early.

de bonne heure means "at the right time". In French, happiness is called bonheur. When things happen at the right time, on time, it's a sign of happiness. Thus, Proust's phrase could be translated as:

For a long time I went to bed happy.

Good sleep shows that one has a good life, a happy life. From the point of view of the french word, happiness is not an emotion. It's a temporal phenomenon. It names a life conducted in the right time.

And what is the right time? In an old Zen story, a student says about his teacher:

When he is hungry, he eats, and when he's sleepy, he sleeps.

And how can I tell I am hungry? It is not "I want to eat". It is not sticking to a diet plan. There comes the moment I recognize it, and I say "I am hungry". And, while eating, there comes the moment again where I sense it and I say "I had enough". If I stop earlier, the game is lost. If I keep eating, the game is lost.

The kiss between a man and a woman. There is a moment that calls for it, like when the moon emerges from a cloud and which will cover it again. A bit of a rush, and the game is lost. Some delay, and the game is lost.

Happiness: The present, which is not distorted by persisting in the past (parental over protection, frustrated expectations of children for love, recognition, reward, bad things which cannot be forgotten and call for revenge).

Happiness: The present which is not distorted by the appealing gravity of the future (what will happen, waking dreams of good and bad, the fight to adjust parents and children and partners and the world to our images of them which suit us).

Anxiety and depression could be names of unhappiness: temporal phenomena, as phenomena of wrong time. Like a song out of tune. Happiness is a song in tune.

From the point of view of the french word, psychotherapy would be, in the act of the therapeutic conversation itself, the development of a sense for the right time. This happens when the therapist brings with him a relevant climate. In this climate, in fortunate cases, to a different extent each time, his interlocutor can be acclimatized.

grace brings grace (Sophocles, Trachiniae)

I go, in a German expression "aufs Ganze", in an english expression, "all out". What I look forward to, and I hope we reach during the therapeutic encounter, is an utopia, which sometimes becomes a topos, an abode, some place of - happiness.