Positive Psychology: take a short survey, learn simple techniques how to be happier.
There are many simple ways to improve the quality of our lives and to live a more meaningful and fufilling life. With the growing research in POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, maintaining our mental stability and satisfaction from, and gratefullness for, various events that we come across are made easy.
In many cases, there is no need to visit a professional once or twice a week to obtain external help for dealing with our daily problems, burdens, or worries.
We are usually stronger than we think we are. If we just trust ourselves enough, to get to the roots of our problems, most of us will be surprised. Our minds and hearts know what is best for us much better than any psychologist or psychiatrist, or other professionals. We just need to be taught to listen to ourselves.
I am a psychology student, and always have been and always will be in the exciting endless journey of discovering my innest self, and to help others discover theirs. POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY is a movement that tries to balance people's strengths and disadvantages, rather than todays traditional philosophy of exploring the negatives only. The idea is to gain better insight into what we are really good at, and direct ourselves to achieve goals that are consistent with our strengths.
Working through our strengths was found to lead to success in relationships, work, studies, and self exploration. Knowing our strong traits and talents tend to lead to a more meaningful life, with deeper appreciation and greater fullfilmet. Positive Psychology techniques and interventions were found to be extremely beneficial for our phisical health (for anyone who is interested inacademic reference for that, I am happy to provide it).
Positive psychology techniques can be done at home, in your own time, and takes anything from two minutes to one hour, or more. There are some simple taskes that can be taught in just moments, and I strongly recommend ANYBODY to try to take part in a few. It is appropriate and beneficial for all ages, ill or healthy, sad or happy, at any stage of one's life.
For my honours project at Monash University - Melbourne, Australia, I have structured a survey that, among other aims, is teaching two positive psychology techniques. I am trying to explore what types of people will benefit from one techniques better than the other. It is about 20-30 minutes long, and it could be a good start if you are interested to have a taste of what it is like. The survey will run until the end of September 2008.
For more links and information please write to this blog.
To take part in the short survey, please log into
www.med.monash.edu.au/spppm/surveys/annabela
WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY LIFE
Never stop exploring and getting to know yourself better. We are wonderfull creatures - ALL OF US.
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Comments
Positive psychology vs self obsession
I read with interest your blog, and respect what you are trying to achieve, however, I feel it necessary to challenge some of your ideas. Specifically I am concerned with the suggestion that happiness is obtained through a focus on self discovery.
This is a really common idea within our culture and one that I've never really understood. For starters what is it to "know yourself", does that mean being honest with yourself about your motivations and reactions? Or is there something else going on?
The other aspect which concerns me is the extent to which your blog suggests a focus on the personal experience of the world and the individual as the source of happiness. I've lived in a couple of different countries and been fortunate enough to participate in different cultural practices, and I'm not convinced our obsession with personal happiness and fulfillment is actually paying dividends either at a personal or a social level within our own culture.
I see some merit certainally in mindfullness approaches as per cognitive behavior therapy, although I think it is important to combine these with an approach which asks the individual to consider the thoughts feelings and needs of others as well.
I believe there's a lot of truth in the notion that the basis of happiness is - something to do, someone to love and something to look forward to - and also believe much unhappiness comes from a simple lack of gratitude for what others have done for you.
I spend a lot of time with kids in their teens, and I find those with the most problems are the ones who are not grateful for what they've been given, and not thankful for what others do for them. Many messed up teens (and adults) struggle with an unjustified sense of entitlement which ultimately works against them. My concern with approaches such as the one you describe here is that it again focusses on the individual and their own happiness, rather than the way they relate to others.
I am not a phychologist and not able to offer an alternative to what you suggest here, and as such I'd be very interested to read your response.
western world concept...
Hi Douglas. Thank you very much for taking the time to read my thoughts.
And thank you even more for replying to it. I will take it as a compliment. I love being challenged, this is the best part about voicing your opinion. And I must say that I do appreciate the opinions of an experienced person, or a passionate, or a curious person, even more than those of a professional psychologist. Psychologists are, to some extent, being persuaded at times towards one side of the coin. In extreme cases you can call it brain-washed...
Sorry for the late reply too. I will do my best to address all of the interesting points you brought up.
One important point I would like to make, is that there is over-focus on western societies when we talk about psychological theories and the concept of happiness, and in academic research as a whole. These things belong to western, individualistic societies, because this is where it stems from. In "Individualistic" cultures, people are encouraged to choose their own way, and the opportunities for a unique independent future for individuals are sometimes endless. This is typical to the western world. This is inherently different to "Collectivistic" societies, where people are encourages to contribute to their surroundings, and work together as a group. In these cultures, people typically care less about themselves and their independent personal growth, and believe they flourish through contribution to their group.
(I apologize if you are familiar with those terms, I didn't take the risk)
I must say that I am pretty extreme when making the distinction between the two types of cultures. I don't believe that traditional OR contemporary psychology can be applied on collectivistic societies. Naturally, the people that invented psychotherapy, and the people that research the effects of some methods and interventions on people's well-being, are primarily western. I do not claim that this difference can be bridged. I don't even claim to be able to understand what the concept of "happiness" means to people from such a different background to my own.
Most psychologists and psychology mentors will disagree with me, and will proudly suggest that we can learn how to approach people from diverse backgrounds. I don't think this is possible at this stage. And this is a topic for a completely different discussion....
So you asked whether "Know yourself" means to be honest about your motives and reactions. I think, yes, this is a part of it. But more than that - "know yourself" means to know what makes you feel good and what makes you feel bad. Know what your real talents and disadvantage are. And accept them all, or improve what you can.
I believe that separating between social norms and the expectations from the environment, and highly appreciated values (e.g. status, altruism) on the one hand, and the person's REAL source of happiness, real aspirations, and the true path that leads to their best balance - is a much harder process than we think.
I think (but not sure) I understand what you mean when you say that the more messed-up people are the ones that are overly focused on their own happiness and forget that other people exist around them. I don't agree that focusing on your own happiness necessarily conflicts with being grateful to others. I do believe that if teenagers are given TOO MUCH freedom and TOO MANY opportunities at a too early stage, it will be confusing. Unfortunately, this is usually the case.
And I definitely absolutely do not believe that freedom=happiness.
(especially not when you are in your teens, and do not know yourself at all yet...)
One of the main practices in positive psychology by the way, is expressing gratitude, or sometimes called "counting blessings". being grateful to events and to people is one of many ways of getting to know yourself better, and know what kind of things you do appreciate, and what things you are not attracted to.
I cannot see how knowing yourself can be seen as self-obsession. Perhaps I am naive to think that inherently, most of us will gain pleasure from helping others and communicating well with others (research do suggest that though). I think people become hostile and anti-social, when they are forced (by themselves or by others) to be in a situation that they are uncomfortable in. And I do believe, that by "knowing ourselves" and accepting our soft spots, we can minimize those awkward situations. If we fulfill our talents, and direct ourselves to do what we are good at, we might feel less threatened and less fearful (from ourselves - to let ourselves down when not achieving something we though we could, and from others - when we feel not competent and exposed in a bad moment).
I also had the privilege to have lived in two countries. And it is amazing how much I have learnt from that. More than any study book could ever say.
I would love to hear your feedback about my comment. I feel I haven't answered everything. I would love to hear more about your experience with different cultures and your experiences with trouble teens, and more of your reservations from self exploration.
Thanks again for a wonderful comment.
Enjoy your day.
Does individualism stem from affluence?
Some interesting points - by and large I think we are in vigourous agreement, especially in terms of the relative importance we award to social norms and values - and the way the balance between the two seems to have been lost.
I too am very concerned about the tendancy to provide young people with too many choices and a lack of direction, and I suspect that in some ways acitivities which contribute to personal growth have been subsitiuted with activites which lead to increased material wealth.
I'm wondering what your qualified opinion might be in terms of affluence, and individualistic societies.
I have a lot of contact with young Chinese students studying in Australia. One would assume they come from collectivistic society, however the dedication some of these kids show to consumption apparently knows no bounds, they seem to be totally disinterested in volunteer or community work and would rather avoid learning anything about history, or culture if possible. It has to be noted that the kids who come to Australia often come from extremely wealthy families, and a many have had limited contact with their parents through their childhood - many were sent to bording schools from a very young age (from the age of 3 is not uncommon) - I don't know how relevent this is but I thought it might be worth mentioning.
However, I see a similar dedication to self and consumption amongst Australian kids (from whatever cultural background) that were brought up in a materially wealthy environment, but culturally bereft. And it dosn't seem to have much to do with the actual wealth of the family - obviously in order to shower your kids with toys, and install a dvd in their room, and so on you need a certain income, but I also know many families who could afford to provide more diversion but choose not to, focussing insted on sports, outdoors play, cultural pursuits and so on...
Anyway - without getting too far off track, I suspect collectivism and individualism are largely determined by material affluence rather than culture, and these kids seem to demonstrate that.
I suspect that a lot of happiness just comes from being content with what you have, while much of our culture encourages to be unhappy with what we have, and want more even if we don't need it. There's also a focus on fulfilling ourselve through posessions rather than knowledge, skills or social interaction.
If you have the time and the interest I'd be really interested to read a blog of yours on this whole collectivism, individualism, affluence area as well.
And please keep us up to date with the results of your questionaire.
is it political?
Very interesting, as usual...
I must set things straight first by saying that I am no expert and am not yet qualified. I am studying to be a psychologist and finishing my 4th year now, which places me at about ... mid way through. I do have strong opinions though towards some issues, and I have researched them, and talked to the right people that could give me more expert opinions.
But by no means the things I argue for here are fully based, or proven, unless I say I have the source and am able direct you to it..
Regarding affluence... I have not deeply explored issues related to that yet. I do tend to think a lot about who created the high importance of wealth and material comfort and why. It is a very complicated area, but I suspect it all has to do with politics. Therefore, yes, individualistic societies probably created that need, so that the country could get richer and stronger, and also, to distract the people from other social (socially ill) matters. When people are entirely focused on their wealth (or... constant lack of wealth in advanced western countries), there is not much time to think about and fight for other things. And governments can rule more smoothly...
But this is just a simple way of putting things out briefly. It would be far more complicated than that. Unfortunately, academic studies are mainly generated from western countries by western authors that are already infected with this importance of material wealth...
I don't know much about chinese consumption culture. I do see it around, fashion especially, and electronics is a big thing among some asian-background individuals. And everyone knows that China is the number 1 in manufacturing and exporting of goods to the world these days. I tend not to include extremely rich families in the statistics, but according to what you say, affluence became a global "disease".
I wonder, why YOU think it is the case. And when and why has it started? maybe MEDIA?? - this is a strong point there, since media is global and infected all types of societies. But it doesn't answer the question why?? Why did someone (or some organization) decided that wealth should be so important? or if its not politics, like I think..... did it just happened?
I do not agree the individualism-collectivism is determined by wealth though... It would be more a chicken-and-egg kind of explanation. Think about Hamish.. or Jewish yeshiva communities..
About toys...
I think people are just lazy today (and busy). As simple as that. It is much easier to buy a toy and let children keep themselves busy than to escort them to a sport game, or read them a story, or so something creative together inside or out...
People feel they don't have enough time for themselves as it is, and you can see the averge age for a first child is rising, partly because of that.
This is a completely different topic here, not less interesting... I do blame the changing family structure though... If women could afford to stay at home and raise the kids, rather than pursuing a career - I personally think, families will be much healthier. and less materialistic!!!
And happiness DOES come from being satisfied with what you have and what you have accomplished. We definitely agree on that. Unfortunately, societies create fake needs, that results in that we are NEVER in a comfortable place. We can never be satisfied.
Positive psychology is good for that, because is directs you to look into yourself - and KNOW YOURSELF enough to be grateful for the things you already have. If you know yourself, and you know what are the important things for YOU personally, you know that money and possesions and status, although seem important to everyone else, may not necessarily be your main aspirations. People can realize that they are happy just for having a good relationship with their family for example, or for being healthy and active, or for being kind and helping others. Depends what does it for them.
So many studies have found no relationship what so ever between wealth and happiness.
Relationships are the main contributor to happiness.
Curiosity and knowledge, surprisingly enough, is not a factor as well. I assume they are a mean rather than an end.
Gratitude, Hope, and passion are the main factor for happiness at this stage, according to literature.
The definition of happiness though, may differ between cultures slightly.....
I would love to here more of your thoughts regarding the differences between Chinese and Australian cultures. The best way to learn is to speak with people like yourself that were priveliged to have personal contact with both sides.
Thank you for the inspiration.
Annabel.
My POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY website: FoolQuest.com