Booknotes:
Authentic Happiness
Martin Seligman
Free Press, 2002
Being introduced as a psychologist is not always an honor. Because the discipline has been identified with ferreting out trouble and devising methods for fixing it, psychologists are often asked if they analyze people and see their neurosis,. Even in its more practical applications, such as advertising and education, psychology has been linked to methods of mind-control and the power to make people do what experts want them to do.
Martin Seligman, more than any other figure in the discipline, has been able to separate psychology from a preoccupation with illness and abnormality. He started out studying the link between helplessness and depression, and he did ground-breaking research that altered theories of depression and the treatment of persons who suffer from it. But, at a significant point in his career Seligman determined that psychology was too focused on the down-side and had neglected identifying sources of happiness. He determined to change this.
Seligman is not only a dreamer; he is a doer. He determined that it is not enough to be a spreader of cheer; he also wanted his ideas to be scientifically sound. Once convinced of the importance of developing a science of happiness, Seligman assembled a team of top flight researchers to join him, and they founded a movement in psychology called Positive Psychology. Over a decade they have put forward daring ideas, and they have backed them with careful research.
In Authentic Happiness Seligman sorts out myths about happiness. He gathers convincing evidence that we cannot make ourselves happy with wealth, education, luxuries, and pleasure. He is not opposed to pleasure, but he is clear that by itself pleasure is not the formula for lasting happiness. What is even more striking about Seligman’s research is the evidence that illness, hardship, or disadvantage do not by themselves condemn anyone to unhappiness.
Evidence from laboratory research, individual interviews, and large group surveys suggests that lasting happiness is strongly linked to factors over which we have voluntary control. In identifying sources of enduring happiness Seligman highlights the distinction between pleasure and gratification. Pleasure he suggests is experienced through the senses and associated with positive emotions. It’s fun to laugh. Chocolate is yum. Some people get a rush riding roller-coasters. And a warm hug is nice. Gratification by contrast rises out of living in a way that expresses personal strengths and leads to virtue. Sometimes gratification is not dependent on positive emotions at all, but rather on an abiding sense of purpose and awareness of meaning.
Seligman’s exploration of virtue is built around a core set of characteristics recognized throughout history by ethicists and promoted by world religions. After extensive research he is convinced that they fall into six categories: Wisdom/knowledge, courage, love/humanity, justice, temperance, and spirituality/transcendence. Examples of what this might mean are teased out in Seligman’s discussions of work, love, and child-rearing.
The Positive Psychology movement offers relief to therapists who have found themselves muzzled when clients begin talking about values when what they really mean is unconsidered impulses. Every therapist has had the experience of listening silently, trying to be non-judgmental, while a client forms an intent that sounds more like a plan to self-destruct than a plan to thrive. Of course there is no justification for therapists using their client’s trust as an opportunity to control them. Therapists are helpers, not masters. Nonetheless, Positive Psychology is optimistic in suggesting that the search for a full and satisfying life is more than a pattern of random discovery. It is something we can choose.
In addition to being a major spokesperson for psychology as a science and as a profession, Seligman has changed his field. He has made it possible for serious scientists to explore virtues and the good life. This has moved psychology beyond its preoccupation with the pleasure principle. Seligman has boldly asserted that it may be pleasurable to drink champagne and drive a Porsche, but that this is not the means to achieving lasting gratification. Contrary to public opinion, the good life is found not through pleasure alone, but through using personal strengths to good ends.
The boldest of Seligman’s assertions are those concerning the meaningful life. This is an area that psychologists, in their effort to remain neutral and objective, have tended to neglect. But Seligman has boldly put his own gift of eloquence to a good end in suggesting that the meaningful life is found by putting personal strengths to the service of something greater than self. By daring to be visionary, Seligman has been able to produce solidly scientific books that have become best sellers because they take seriously the modern hunger for spirituality.
http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/
http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/
