Steve Hauptman

Steve Hauptman is a psychotherapist and author who has practiced on Long Island for more than thirty years. Trained in Gestalt therapy and influenced by Buddhist psychology, he has spent much of his career exploring a central paradox of human behavior: that our efforts to control life often create the very suffering we are trying to escape.

His book Monkeytraps: Why We Try to Control Everything and How We Can Stop, now in its Second Edition (2026), explores how the need for control shapes our emotional struggles, relationships and everyday lives, and how we can free ourselves from its traps.

Hauptman writes for both general readers and psychotherapists. His articles have appeared in Tiny Buddha and publications of the American Psychological Association's Division of Psychotherapy. His other writing projects include Monkeytraps for Therapists, Monkeytraps in Everyday Life, and Monkeytraps for Adult Children.

He is also the creator of Bert, the anxious inner monkey whose struggles with control offer a humorous and revealing portrait of the human condition.