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knspillane's review
5.0
“We can all say ‘yes’ to more positive emotion.
We can all say ‘yes’ to more engagement.
We can all say ‘yes’ to better relationships.
We can all say ‘yes’ to more meaning in life.
We can all say ‘yes’ to more positive accomplishment.
We can all say yes to more well-being.”
We can all say ‘yes’ to more engagement.
We can all say ‘yes’ to better relationships.
We can all say ‘yes’ to more meaning in life.
We can all say ‘yes’ to more positive accomplishment.
We can all say yes to more well-being.”
boundsie's review against another edition
4.0
Excellent introduction to positive psychology. The trouble with this boom is that it demands one moves on to more academic research
aprilmei's review against another edition
4.0
I found the questionnaires online to be helpful to me around what my character strengths are. Interesting stories and trials being done with the military. I think the idea of PERMA is valuable and have noted that these aspects in my own life have helped me through personal challenges.
Book coincidences between the Quantum World and this book: This book mentions Werner Heisenberg, of all people! In a psych book to mention a quantum physicist. Kind of neat.
"The goal of positive psychology follows from the gold standard--to increase the amount of life satisfaction on the planet. It turns out, however, that how much life satisfaction people report is itself determined by how good we feel at the very moment we are asked the question. Averaged over many people, the mood you are in determines more than 70 percent of how much life satisfaction you report and how well you judge your life to be going at that moment determines less than 30 percent." pg. 13
"But humans can and do solve social problems, every hour of the day. The massive prefrontal cortex that we have is continually using its billions of connections to simulate social possibilities and then to choose the optimal course of action. So the big brain is a relationship simulation machine, and it has been selected by evolution for exactly the function of designing and carrying out harmonious but effective human relationships." pg. 22
"Summary of Well-Being Theory
Here then is well-being theory: well-being is a construct; and well-being, not happiness, is the topic of positive psychology. Well-being has five measurable elements (PERMA) that count toward it:
- Positive emotion (of which happiness and life satisfaction are all aspects)
- Engagement
- Relationships
- Meaning
- Achievement
No one element defines well-being, but each contributes to it. Some aspects of these five elements are measured subjectively by self-report, but other aspects are measure objectively." pg. 24
"MAPP [master of applied positive psychology] has been magical, beyond any other teaching experience I have had in forty-five years of teaching. Here are the ingredients in summary:
- Intellectual content: challenging, personally applicable, and fun.
- Transformative: both personally and professionally.
- Calling: students and faculty are called." pg. 77
"Two good reasons that well-being should be taught in schools are the current flood of depression and the nominal increase in happiness over the last two generations. A third good reason is that greater well-being enhances learning, the traditional goal of education. Positive mood produces broader attention, more creative thinking, and more holistic thinking. This is in contrast to negative mood, which produces narrowed attention, more critical thinking, and more analytic thinking. When you're in a bad mood, you're better at 'what's wrong here?' When you're in a good mood, you're better at 'what's right here?' Even worse when you are in a bad mood, you fall back defensively on what you already know, and you follow orders well. Both positive and negative ways of thinking are important in the right situation, but all too often schools emphasize critical thinking and following orders rather than creative thinking and learning new stuff. The result is that children rank the appeal of going to school just slightly above going to the dentist. In the modern world, I believe we have finally arrived at an era in which more creative thinking, less rote following of orders--and yes, even more enjoyment--will succeed better." pg. 80
"The stand-alone positive education course at Timbertop emphasizes resilience. First, students learn the ABC model: how beliefs (B) about an adversity (A)--and not the adversity itself--cause the consequent (C) feelings. This is a point of major insight for students: emotions don't follow inexorably from external events but from what you think about those events, and you can actually change what you think. Then students learn how to slow down this ABC process through more flexible and more accurate thinking. Finally, students learn 'real-time resilience' in order to deal with the 'heat-of-the-moment' adversities that ninth graders so often face at Timbertop." pg. 89-90
"This has direct implications for how to intervene: in positive psychology, the world can be bettered not only by undoing malignant circumstances (I do not remotely advocate giving up on reform) but also by identifying and then shaping character, both bad and good. Reward and punishment shape character, not just behavior. Good events, high achievement, and positive emotions are just as legitimate objects of science for positive psychology as are awful events, failure, tragedy, and negative emotion. Once we take positive events seriously as objects of science, we notice that we do not excuse or take credit away from Sammy's brilliant performance because she was well fed, or had good teachers, or had parents who cared about learning. We care about Sammy's character, her talents, and her strengths. Finally, human beings are often, perhaps more often, drawn by the future than they are driven by the past, and so a science that measures and builds expectations, planning, and conscious choice will be more potent than a science of habits, drives, and circumstances. That we are drawn by the future rather than just driven by the past is extremely important and directly contrary to the heritage of social science and the history of psychology. It is, nevertheless, a basic and implicit premise of positive psychology." pg. 105-106
"Executive function consists of focusing and ignoring distractions, remembering and using new information, planning action and revising the plan, and inhibiting fast, impulsive thoughts and actions." pg. 112
"Let's review the elements of achievement that have emerged from the theory that achievement = skill x effort:
1. Fast. The sheer speed of thought about a task reflects how much of that task is on automatic; how much skill or knowledge relevant to the task a person has.
2. Slow. Unlike underlying skill or knowledge, the executive functions of planning, checking your work, calling up memories, and creativity are slow processes. The more knowledge and skill you have (acquired earlier by speed and deliberate practice), the more time you have left over to use your slow processes and, hence, the better the outcomes.
3. Rate of learning. The faster your rate of learning--and this is not the same factor as your sheer speed of thought about the task--the more knowledge you can accumulate for each unit of time that you work on the task.
4. Effort = time on task. The sheer time you spend on the task multiplies how much skill you have in achieving your goal. It also enters into the first factor: the more time spent on the task, the more knowledge and skill that accrete, or 'stick' with you. The main character determinants of how much time you devote to the task are your self-discipline and your GRIT." pg. 124
"The real leverage you have for more achievement is more effort. Effort is no more and no less than how much time you practice the task. Time on task acts in two ways to increase achievement: it multiplies existing skill and knowledge, and it also directly increases skill and knowledge. The best news is that effort is very malleable. How much time you devote to a task comes from the exercise of conscious choice--from free will. Choosing to devote time to an endeavor comes from at least two aspects of positive character: self-control and GRIT." pg. 125
"Negative emotions warn us about a specific threat: when we feel fear, it is almost always preceded by a thought of danger. When we feel sad, there is almost always a thought of loss. When we feel angry, there is almost always a thought of trespass. This leaves us room to pause and identify what is going on when our negative emotional reaction is out of proportion to the reality of the danger, loss, or trespass out there. Then we can modulate our emotional reaction into proportion. This is the essence of cognitive therapy, but in a preventive mode." pg. 139
"By knowing how they [positive emotions] work and what they signal, you will learn to (a) become an active participant in capitalizing on the opportunities that come from positive emotions, (b) find ways to increase the number of instances and the duration of positivity, and (c) be a good citizen of your community." pg. 140
"Positive emotions: the resource builders. The key to taking advantage of positive emotions is to regard them as 'resource builders.' Please think of a really clear example of a time when you felt one of the positive emotions--pride, gratitude, pleasure, satisfaction, interest, hope--whether it happened today or last week. After you recall some of the details of that event, give it a name (for example, 'thinking about the future'), and specify which emotion it was.
Now that you have an example to keep in mind, let's go back to what we know about emotions: the feeling (the emotion) works for us in two ways, by (1) drawing attention and (2) coordinating a response. Positive emotions shine a light on things that are going particularly well for us or that have the potential to do so--that is, situations that are congruent with our goals. These can be thought of as opportunities for resources to be built; for example, if you are interested or inspired, or if you feel that someone has been particularly kind.
Let's take some examples:
- If you feel admiration toward someone, it means you think they did something to display great skill or talent. As a paragon on success (at least in that domain), if you pay attention to this individual, you may pick up on how he or she performs that skill. It would certainly save you a lot of trial-and-error time to do so. Your admiration alerts you to the chance to rapidly learn a culturally valued skill.
- If you feel great joy, it means that you have gotten (or are getting) what you desire. Perhaps you received a promotion, had your first child, or are simply enjoying the company of good friends at dinner. Joy represents a satisfied state, which provides the opportunity for growth. In that moment, you are not worried about other things, you are feeling safe and open. Your joy alerts you to opportunities for new experiences.
- If you feel pride, it means that you believe you have personally demonstrated some culturally valued skill or talent. Pride gets a bad reputation because, like too much of anything, people can get carried away with their pride, and it becomes self-aggrandizing hubris. However, in appropriate doses, pride alerts you to your own skills and talents, allows you to take credit for them, and sets you up for future successes.
- Finally, if you feel gratitude, it means you think that someone has just demonstrated that he or she cares about you as a person and will be there for you in the future. Gratitude marks opportunities to solidify relationships with people who seem to care.
Having established that positive emotions can be very useful, it is critical to pause and draw attention to the fact that people often do not know that they have such power within them. You have the power within you to figure out what inspires you, what makes you laugh, or what gives you hope, and to cultivate those emotions. . . This can help you optimize your life by setting up moments of genuine positivity for yourself. Do not underestimate the benefits of doing this. These moments can help you to build your own personal and social resources that can be drawn upon in the future. Moreover, the positive effects of your emotions can spread to other people. As you become happier and more satisfied with your life and the things in it, you will have more to give to others." pg. 140-142
"The First Amendment of the Constitution forbids the government from establishing religion, and so in this module, spiritual fitness is not theological but human. It takes no stand on the validity of religious or secular frameworks. Rather it supports and encourages soldiers to search for the truth, self-knowledge, right action, and purpose in life: living by a code that is rooted in belonging to and serving something the soldier believes is larger than the self." pg. 150
"The soldier's spiritual core forms the foundation of the human spirit and is comprised of an individual's most central values and beliefs concerning purpose and meaning in life, truths about the world, and vision for realizing one's full potential and purpose. . .
Self-awareness involves reflection and introspection to gain insights into life's pressing questions. These questions pertain to identity, purpose, meaning, truth in the world, being authentic, creating a life worth living, and fulfilling one's potential. . .
Sense of agency refers to the individual's assumption of responsibility for the continuous journey to develop one's spirit. This requires people to accept their shortcomings and imperfections and to realize that they are the primary authors of their lives. . .
Self-regulation involves the ability to understand and control one's emotions, thoughts, and behavior. . .
Self-motivation regarding the human spirit entails the expectancy that the individual's path will lead to the realization of one's deepest aspirations. . .
Social awareness refers to the realization that relationships play an important role in the development of the human spirit . . . Particularly important is the recognition that other people have the right to hold different values, beliefs, and customs, and that one must, without giving up one's own beliefs, show others due consideration and openness to alternate viewpoints." pg. 150-151
"At West Point, we found that more than 90 percent of cadets had heard of post-traumatic stress disorder, which in reality is relatively uncommon, but less than 10 percent had heard of post-traumatic growth, which is not uncommon. This is medical illiteracy that matters. If all a soldier knows about is PTSD, and not about resilience and growth, it creates a self-fulfilling downward spiral. Your buddy was killed yesterday in Afghanistan. Today you burst into tears, and you think I'm falling apart; I've got PTSD; my life is ruined. These thoughts increase the symptoms of anxiety and depression--indeed, PTSD is a particularly nasty combination of anxiety and depression--which in turn increases the intensity of the symptoms. Merely knowing that bursting into tears is not a symptom of PTSD but a symptom of normal grief and mourning, usually followed by resilience, helps to put the brakes on the downward spiral." pg. 158
"The [Post-Traumatic Growth PTG] module begins with the ancient wisdom that personal transformation is characterized by renewed appreciation of being alive, enhanced personal strength, acting on new possibilities, improved relationships, and spiritual deepening, all of which often follow tragedy." pg. 161
"The module teaches soldiers interactively about five elements that are known to contribute to post-traumatic growth. The first element is to understand the response to trauma itself: shattered beliefs about the self, others, and the future. This is, I want to emphasize, the normal response to trauma; it is not a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, nor does it indicate a defect of character. The second element is anxiety reduction, which consists of techniques for controlling intrusive thoughts and images. The third element is constructive self-disclosure. Bottling up trauma likely leads to a worsening of physical and psychological symptoms, so soldiers are encouraged to tell the story of the trauma. This leads to the fourth element: creating a trauma narrative. The narrative is guided, with the trauma seen as a fork in the road that enhances the appreciation of paradox. Loss and gain both happen. Grief and gratitude both happen. Vulnerability and strength both happen. The narrative then details what personal strengths were called upon, how some relationships improved, how spiritual life strengthened how life itself was better appreciated, and what new doors opened. Finally, overarching life principles and stances that are more robust to challenge are articulated. These include new ways to be altruistic, accepting growth without survivor guilt, creating a new identity as a trauma survivor or a newly compassionate person, and taking seriously the Greek ideal of the hero who returns from Hades to tell the world an important truth about how to live." pg. 162-163
". . .the skills of enjoying positive emotion, being engaged with the people you care about, having meaning in life, achieving your work goals, and maintaining good relationships are entirely different from the skills of not being depressed, not being anxious, and not being angry. These dysphorias get in the way of well-being, but they do not make well-being impossible; nor does the absence of sadness, anxiety, and anger remotely guarantee happiness. The takeaway lesson from positive psychology is that positive mental health is not just the absence of mental illness.
It is all too commonplace not to be mentally ill but to be stuck and languishing in life. Positive mental health is a presence: the presence of positive emotion, the presence of engagement, the presence of meaning, the presence of good relationships, and the presence of accomplishment. Being in a state of mental health is not merely being disorder free; rather it is the presence of flourishing." pg. 182-183
"We wanted to find out who never became helpless, so we looked systematically at the way that the people whom we could not make helpless interpreted bad events. We found that people who believe that the causes of setbacks in their lives are temporary, changeable, and local do not become helpless readily in the laboratory. When assailed with inescapable noise in the laboratory or with rejection in love, they think, It's going away quickly, I can do something about it, and it's just this one situation. They bounce back quickly from setbacks, and they do not take a setback at work home. We call them optimists. Conversely, people who habitually think, It's going to last forever, it's going to undermine everything, and there's nothing I can do about it, become helpless readily in the laboratory. They do not bounce back from defeat, and they take their marital problems into their jobs. We call them pessimists." pg. 189
"The influence of Dutch optimism was a continuous trend, with more optimism associated with fewer deaths along the entire dimension. These findings show that the effect is bipolar: high optimists die at a lower rate than average, and high pessimists die at a higher rate than average. Recall here the thrust of Paul Tarini's question: Are there health assets that protect, and not just risk factors that weaken, the body? Optimism, in this study, strengthened people against cardiovascular disease when compared to the average person, just as pessimism weakened them compared to average.
Is depression the real culprit? Pessimism, in general, correlates pretty highly with depression, and depression, in many studies, also correlates with cardiovascular disease. So you might wonder if the lethal effect of pessimism works by increasing depression. The answer seems to be no, since optimism and pessimism exerted their effects even when depression was held constant statistically." pg. 193
Book coincidences between the Quantum World and this book: This book mentions Werner Heisenberg, of all people! In a psych book to mention a quantum physicist. Kind of neat.
"The goal of positive psychology follows from the gold standard--to increase the amount of life satisfaction on the planet. It turns out, however, that how much life satisfaction people report is itself determined by how good we feel at the very moment we are asked the question. Averaged over many people, the mood you are in determines more than 70 percent of how much life satisfaction you report and how well you judge your life to be going at that moment determines less than 30 percent." pg. 13
"But humans can and do solve social problems, every hour of the day. The massive prefrontal cortex that we have is continually using its billions of connections to simulate social possibilities and then to choose the optimal course of action. So the big brain is a relationship simulation machine, and it has been selected by evolution for exactly the function of designing and carrying out harmonious but effective human relationships." pg. 22
"Summary of Well-Being Theory
Here then is well-being theory: well-being is a construct; and well-being, not happiness, is the topic of positive psychology. Well-being has five measurable elements (PERMA) that count toward it:
- Positive emotion (of which happiness and life satisfaction are all aspects)
- Engagement
- Relationships
- Meaning
- Achievement
No one element defines well-being, but each contributes to it. Some aspects of these five elements are measured subjectively by self-report, but other aspects are measure objectively." pg. 24
"MAPP [master of applied positive psychology] has been magical, beyond any other teaching experience I have had in forty-five years of teaching. Here are the ingredients in summary:
- Intellectual content: challenging, personally applicable, and fun.
- Transformative: both personally and professionally.
- Calling: students and faculty are called." pg. 77
"Two good reasons that well-being should be taught in schools are the current flood of depression and the nominal increase in happiness over the last two generations. A third good reason is that greater well-being enhances learning, the traditional goal of education. Positive mood produces broader attention, more creative thinking, and more holistic thinking. This is in contrast to negative mood, which produces narrowed attention, more critical thinking, and more analytic thinking. When you're in a bad mood, you're better at 'what's wrong here?' When you're in a good mood, you're better at 'what's right here?' Even worse when you are in a bad mood, you fall back defensively on what you already know, and you follow orders well. Both positive and negative ways of thinking are important in the right situation, but all too often schools emphasize critical thinking and following orders rather than creative thinking and learning new stuff. The result is that children rank the appeal of going to school just slightly above going to the dentist. In the modern world, I believe we have finally arrived at an era in which more creative thinking, less rote following of orders--and yes, even more enjoyment--will succeed better." pg. 80
"The stand-alone positive education course at Timbertop emphasizes resilience. First, students learn the ABC model: how beliefs (B) about an adversity (A)--and not the adversity itself--cause the consequent (C) feelings. This is a point of major insight for students: emotions don't follow inexorably from external events but from what you think about those events, and you can actually change what you think. Then students learn how to slow down this ABC process through more flexible and more accurate thinking. Finally, students learn 'real-time resilience' in order to deal with the 'heat-of-the-moment' adversities that ninth graders so often face at Timbertop." pg. 89-90
"This has direct implications for how to intervene: in positive psychology, the world can be bettered not only by undoing malignant circumstances (I do not remotely advocate giving up on reform) but also by identifying and then shaping character, both bad and good. Reward and punishment shape character, not just behavior. Good events, high achievement, and positive emotions are just as legitimate objects of science for positive psychology as are awful events, failure, tragedy, and negative emotion. Once we take positive events seriously as objects of science, we notice that we do not excuse or take credit away from Sammy's brilliant performance because she was well fed, or had good teachers, or had parents who cared about learning. We care about Sammy's character, her talents, and her strengths. Finally, human beings are often, perhaps more often, drawn by the future than they are driven by the past, and so a science that measures and builds expectations, planning, and conscious choice will be more potent than a science of habits, drives, and circumstances. That we are drawn by the future rather than just driven by the past is extremely important and directly contrary to the heritage of social science and the history of psychology. It is, nevertheless, a basic and implicit premise of positive psychology." pg. 105-106
"Executive function consists of focusing and ignoring distractions, remembering and using new information, planning action and revising the plan, and inhibiting fast, impulsive thoughts and actions." pg. 112
"Let's review the elements of achievement that have emerged from the theory that achievement = skill x effort:
1. Fast. The sheer speed of thought about a task reflects how much of that task is on automatic; how much skill or knowledge relevant to the task a person has.
2. Slow. Unlike underlying skill or knowledge, the executive functions of planning, checking your work, calling up memories, and creativity are slow processes. The more knowledge and skill you have (acquired earlier by speed and deliberate practice), the more time you have left over to use your slow processes and, hence, the better the outcomes.
3. Rate of learning. The faster your rate of learning--and this is not the same factor as your sheer speed of thought about the task--the more knowledge you can accumulate for each unit of time that you work on the task.
4. Effort = time on task. The sheer time you spend on the task multiplies how much skill you have in achieving your goal. It also enters into the first factor: the more time spent on the task, the more knowledge and skill that accrete, or 'stick' with you. The main character determinants of how much time you devote to the task are your self-discipline and your GRIT." pg. 124
"The real leverage you have for more achievement is more effort. Effort is no more and no less than how much time you practice the task. Time on task acts in two ways to increase achievement: it multiplies existing skill and knowledge, and it also directly increases skill and knowledge. The best news is that effort is very malleable. How much time you devote to a task comes from the exercise of conscious choice--from free will. Choosing to devote time to an endeavor comes from at least two aspects of positive character: self-control and GRIT." pg. 125
"Negative emotions warn us about a specific threat: when we feel fear, it is almost always preceded by a thought of danger. When we feel sad, there is almost always a thought of loss. When we feel angry, there is almost always a thought of trespass. This leaves us room to pause and identify what is going on when our negative emotional reaction is out of proportion to the reality of the danger, loss, or trespass out there. Then we can modulate our emotional reaction into proportion. This is the essence of cognitive therapy, but in a preventive mode." pg. 139
"By knowing how they [positive emotions] work and what they signal, you will learn to (a) become an active participant in capitalizing on the opportunities that come from positive emotions, (b) find ways to increase the number of instances and the duration of positivity, and (c) be a good citizen of your community." pg. 140
"Positive emotions: the resource builders. The key to taking advantage of positive emotions is to regard them as 'resource builders.' Please think of a really clear example of a time when you felt one of the positive emotions--pride, gratitude, pleasure, satisfaction, interest, hope--whether it happened today or last week. After you recall some of the details of that event, give it a name (for example, 'thinking about the future'), and specify which emotion it was.
Now that you have an example to keep in mind, let's go back to what we know about emotions: the feeling (the emotion) works for us in two ways, by (1) drawing attention and (2) coordinating a response. Positive emotions shine a light on things that are going particularly well for us or that have the potential to do so--that is, situations that are congruent with our goals. These can be thought of as opportunities for resources to be built; for example, if you are interested or inspired, or if you feel that someone has been particularly kind.
Let's take some examples:
- If you feel admiration toward someone, it means you think they did something to display great skill or talent. As a paragon on success (at least in that domain), if you pay attention to this individual, you may pick up on how he or she performs that skill. It would certainly save you a lot of trial-and-error time to do so. Your admiration alerts you to the chance to rapidly learn a culturally valued skill.
- If you feel great joy, it means that you have gotten (or are getting) what you desire. Perhaps you received a promotion, had your first child, or are simply enjoying the company of good friends at dinner. Joy represents a satisfied state, which provides the opportunity for growth. In that moment, you are not worried about other things, you are feeling safe and open. Your joy alerts you to opportunities for new experiences.
- If you feel pride, it means that you believe you have personally demonstrated some culturally valued skill or talent. Pride gets a bad reputation because, like too much of anything, people can get carried away with their pride, and it becomes self-aggrandizing hubris. However, in appropriate doses, pride alerts you to your own skills and talents, allows you to take credit for them, and sets you up for future successes.
- Finally, if you feel gratitude, it means you think that someone has just demonstrated that he or she cares about you as a person and will be there for you in the future. Gratitude marks opportunities to solidify relationships with people who seem to care.
Having established that positive emotions can be very useful, it is critical to pause and draw attention to the fact that people often do not know that they have such power within them. You have the power within you to figure out what inspires you, what makes you laugh, or what gives you hope, and to cultivate those emotions. . . This can help you optimize your life by setting up moments of genuine positivity for yourself. Do not underestimate the benefits of doing this. These moments can help you to build your own personal and social resources that can be drawn upon in the future. Moreover, the positive effects of your emotions can spread to other people. As you become happier and more satisfied with your life and the things in it, you will have more to give to others." pg. 140-142
"The First Amendment of the Constitution forbids the government from establishing religion, and so in this module, spiritual fitness is not theological but human. It takes no stand on the validity of religious or secular frameworks. Rather it supports and encourages soldiers to search for the truth, self-knowledge, right action, and purpose in life: living by a code that is rooted in belonging to and serving something the soldier believes is larger than the self." pg. 150
"The soldier's spiritual core forms the foundation of the human spirit and is comprised of an individual's most central values and beliefs concerning purpose and meaning in life, truths about the world, and vision for realizing one's full potential and purpose. . .
Self-awareness involves reflection and introspection to gain insights into life's pressing questions. These questions pertain to identity, purpose, meaning, truth in the world, being authentic, creating a life worth living, and fulfilling one's potential. . .
Sense of agency refers to the individual's assumption of responsibility for the continuous journey to develop one's spirit. This requires people to accept their shortcomings and imperfections and to realize that they are the primary authors of their lives. . .
Self-regulation involves the ability to understand and control one's emotions, thoughts, and behavior. . .
Self-motivation regarding the human spirit entails the expectancy that the individual's path will lead to the realization of one's deepest aspirations. . .
Social awareness refers to the realization that relationships play an important role in the development of the human spirit . . . Particularly important is the recognition that other people have the right to hold different values, beliefs, and customs, and that one must, without giving up one's own beliefs, show others due consideration and openness to alternate viewpoints." pg. 150-151
"At West Point, we found that more than 90 percent of cadets had heard of post-traumatic stress disorder, which in reality is relatively uncommon, but less than 10 percent had heard of post-traumatic growth, which is not uncommon. This is medical illiteracy that matters. If all a soldier knows about is PTSD, and not about resilience and growth, it creates a self-fulfilling downward spiral. Your buddy was killed yesterday in Afghanistan. Today you burst into tears, and you think I'm falling apart; I've got PTSD; my life is ruined. These thoughts increase the symptoms of anxiety and depression--indeed, PTSD is a particularly nasty combination of anxiety and depression--which in turn increases the intensity of the symptoms. Merely knowing that bursting into tears is not a symptom of PTSD but a symptom of normal grief and mourning, usually followed by resilience, helps to put the brakes on the downward spiral." pg. 158
"The [Post-Traumatic Growth PTG] module begins with the ancient wisdom that personal transformation is characterized by renewed appreciation of being alive, enhanced personal strength, acting on new possibilities, improved relationships, and spiritual deepening, all of which often follow tragedy." pg. 161
"The module teaches soldiers interactively about five elements that are known to contribute to post-traumatic growth. The first element is to understand the response to trauma itself: shattered beliefs about the self, others, and the future. This is, I want to emphasize, the normal response to trauma; it is not a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, nor does it indicate a defect of character. The second element is anxiety reduction, which consists of techniques for controlling intrusive thoughts and images. The third element is constructive self-disclosure. Bottling up trauma likely leads to a worsening of physical and psychological symptoms, so soldiers are encouraged to tell the story of the trauma. This leads to the fourth element: creating a trauma narrative. The narrative is guided, with the trauma seen as a fork in the road that enhances the appreciation of paradox. Loss and gain both happen. Grief and gratitude both happen. Vulnerability and strength both happen. The narrative then details what personal strengths were called upon, how some relationships improved, how spiritual life strengthened how life itself was better appreciated, and what new doors opened. Finally, overarching life principles and stances that are more robust to challenge are articulated. These include new ways to be altruistic, accepting growth without survivor guilt, creating a new identity as a trauma survivor or a newly compassionate person, and taking seriously the Greek ideal of the hero who returns from Hades to tell the world an important truth about how to live." pg. 162-163
". . .the skills of enjoying positive emotion, being engaged with the people you care about, having meaning in life, achieving your work goals, and maintaining good relationships are entirely different from the skills of not being depressed, not being anxious, and not being angry. These dysphorias get in the way of well-being, but they do not make well-being impossible; nor does the absence of sadness, anxiety, and anger remotely guarantee happiness. The takeaway lesson from positive psychology is that positive mental health is not just the absence of mental illness.
It is all too commonplace not to be mentally ill but to be stuck and languishing in life. Positive mental health is a presence: the presence of positive emotion, the presence of engagement, the presence of meaning, the presence of good relationships, and the presence of accomplishment. Being in a state of mental health is not merely being disorder free; rather it is the presence of flourishing." pg. 182-183
"We wanted to find out who never became helpless, so we looked systematically at the way that the people whom we could not make helpless interpreted bad events. We found that people who believe that the causes of setbacks in their lives are temporary, changeable, and local do not become helpless readily in the laboratory. When assailed with inescapable noise in the laboratory or with rejection in love, they think, It's going away quickly, I can do something about it, and it's just this one situation. They bounce back quickly from setbacks, and they do not take a setback at work home. We call them optimists. Conversely, people who habitually think, It's going to last forever, it's going to undermine everything, and there's nothing I can do about it, become helpless readily in the laboratory. They do not bounce back from defeat, and they take their marital problems into their jobs. We call them pessimists." pg. 189
"The influence of Dutch optimism was a continuous trend, with more optimism associated with fewer deaths along the entire dimension. These findings show that the effect is bipolar: high optimists die at a lower rate than average, and high pessimists die at a higher rate than average. Recall here the thrust of Paul Tarini's question: Are there health assets that protect, and not just risk factors that weaken, the body? Optimism, in this study, strengthened people against cardiovascular disease when compared to the average person, just as pessimism weakened them compared to average.
Is depression the real culprit? Pessimism, in general, correlates pretty highly with depression, and depression, in many studies, also correlates with cardiovascular disease. So you might wonder if the lethal effect of pessimism works by increasing depression. The answer seems to be no, since optimism and pessimism exerted their effects even when depression was held constant statistically." pg. 193
bimblinghill's review against another edition
2.0
I was a bit disappointed by this book. I think Seligman is onto something, and this book would have been much better if it had been a focused description of his thesis. As it was, it was a bit of a ramble through various things that he and others have done.
tortaorca's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
As I continue my research in understanding positive psychology for work, I've found that many of these books fail to strike that delicate balance of academically digestible, yet not overly pandering. Most of the time you'll see the latter, with loads of lengthy anecdotes explaining why such and such is the case, with these examples almost exclusively focusing on the top 1% of any field. When you cut these stories out, you're left with the same thesis repeating itself ad nauseum for the entire book. My ratings reflect this: even if the theory is exceptional, I cannot forgive how watered-down and overly self-help-y these books tend to be. It's all juice and no pulp.
Flourish by Martin Seligman is not one of those books.
Each chapter shows a unique application for positive psychology rich with intriguing data and the occasional personal story. Refreshingly, these are not about somebody climbing Everest or beating all of Wall Street. Although Seligman is a titan in his field, he does not stray away from the little wins about his walking club, or how gardening with his family. All of this makes Flourish a far more relatable book with less emphasis on how to win life and more so on contemplating it. The contents positive psychology reaches in this book range from insider secrets around psychiatry, the benefits of exercise, and even our mindset around policy-making at the federal level.
Overall, Seligman proves in this book that what he's talking about here is way more impactful than a basic pep talk. He refuses to sacrifice the academic foundations of his research for a higher page count, and the implications of his life's work are at bare minimum, groundbreaking. Give this one a read, it's a rarity in this genre.
Flourish by Martin Seligman is not one of those books.
Each chapter shows a unique application for positive psychology rich with intriguing data and the occasional personal story. Refreshingly, these are not about somebody climbing Everest or beating all of Wall Street. Although Seligman is a titan in his field, he does not stray away from the little wins about his walking club, or how gardening with his family. All of this makes Flourish a far more relatable book with less emphasis on how to win life and more so on contemplating it. The contents positive psychology reaches in this book range from insider secrets around psychiatry, the benefits of exercise, and even our mindset around policy-making at the federal level.
Overall, Seligman proves in this book that what he's talking about here is way more impactful than a basic pep talk. He refuses to sacrifice the academic foundations of his research for a higher page count, and the implications of his life's work are at bare minimum, groundbreaking. Give this one a read, it's a rarity in this genre.
em1616's review against another edition
2.0
This was not at all what I expected, but had a couple of interesting nuggets.
motokom's review against another edition
3.0
Read for the Institute for Ethics and Leadership department summer read after a recommendation from leaders of a workshop on student well-being. While there are some useful takeaways for curriculum development, the majority of the book was so specific to Seligman's experience and research it almost became not relevant.
lizzie_potter's review against another edition
2.0
This book was a gift and I just couldn't get into it when it was given to me a few years ago, but since I've been on a self-help kick lately, I picked up this book again. I never made it to the second chapter. I felt like I was forcing myself to read homework and I'm just not into forcing myself to read things that can't keep my attention, especially since I'm not getting graded on this book.
There were a few exercises suggested, which I'd heard of before so I'm sure they work. I might consider checking out the website he continually references but after 3 years of trying to read this, I'm officially giving up.
There were a few exercises suggested, which I'd heard of before so I'm sure they work. I might consider checking out the website he continually references but after 3 years of trying to read this, I'm officially giving up.
hurricanejoe's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed reading Shawn Achor's book on The Happiness Advantage, so when a friend recommended this book to me, I readily added it to my list. While I like the message and information in Flourish, I found the book to be somewhat dry. I also found the author to be a bit self-gratifying of his endeavors to advance Positive Psychology. There are some really good bits of information in the book and am happy that I read it for those reasons alone. Martin Seligman has done some groundbreaking work in a very interesting field overlooked and dismissed by many. Go ahead and give it a read.