Hecht believes that, "the basic modern assumptions about how to be happy are nonsense." In a review of her book, "The Happiness Myth" for "The New York Times", Alison McCulloch summed it up, "What you think you should do to be happy, like getting fitter and thinner, is part of a 'cultural code' — 'an unscientific web of symbolic cultural fantasies' — and once you realize this, you will perhaps feel a little more free to be a lot more happy." Similarly, in an interview on the "Point of Inquiry" podcast in 2007, she said "I'm not trying really to get somebody out of depression, but I sure am trying to get people to not be so worried, so anxious over things that really don't matter."