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to the archived web site of Will Joel Friedman, Ph.D.
Psychologist (1950-2013) California License
No. PSY 10092 |
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Specializing in Presence-Centered Therapy balancing mind and heart, body and spirit
Now in memoriam - This website is no longer being updated |
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Links: Resources for Life | Search Links Acknowledgment, Gratitude, Self-Compassion and Happiness Presence / Ego-Mind / Self-Compassion | Blogs, Therapy Effectiveness, Telepsychology, Acknowledgment, Gratitude & Self-Compassion | Happiness Research, Articles and Relationship of Happiness to Money Presence: Cost of Not Being Present / a Wandering Mind Not being present, or a wandering
mind, is associated with a lower mood: According to November 2010 research
findings from Harvard University (published in Science as an article "A
Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy mind" by Matthew Killingsworth & Dan Gilbert)
tracking how frequently 2,250 U.S. adults reported their mind wandering and how
their moods changed according, participants self-reported being significantly
less happy when their minds wandered than when they were focused on the task at
hand. Specifically people spend 46.9% of their lives thinking about something
other than what they're actually doing. This is not only a quite inefficient and
ineffective use of one's mind, it actually seems to make people unhappy. Thinking
about the past or future, along with daydreaming, even about pleasant things,
were consistently associated with a lower mood. The embedded videos provide
an overview. There is really nothing like being present. Given that almost all
studies are conducted with undergraduates attending universities in the western
world, the use of an iPhone application in this study can help expand the traditional
data set for research into happiness and many other topics. The iPhone application
used in this research study was "TrackYourHappiness" and is found at
TrackYourHappiness.org. Carlos Castaneda: "Stopping the world" & "Not Doing" "Stopping
the world" and "Not-doing" are powerful approaches offered in the
writing of anthropologist Carlos Castaneda. An article by Alan Gullette from
a philosophy class in 1975 provides an excellent summary of these approaches.
Jungian analyst Gary Toub also delves into "Stopping the World and Seeing"
in his article "Stopping The World." Both are highly recommended as
offering very helpful ways to see beyond the ego-mind, come to your senses and
be who you truly are Blogs: Beyond Ego Blog by Luís Martins Simões entitled
"Observe, Acknowledge and Accept Facts" explores the value of intuition
and acknowledging "what is" in this moment, and witnessing the "ego"
and letting it be, in being Who I AM. Recommended. "Ego-ing"—Author
Peter Russell's IONS (Institute of Noetic Science) article "There Is No Such
Thing as an Ego" points out that a separate individual self, some "thing"
in the mind, simply does not exist. He strongly suggests that instead of using
the term "ego" as a noun, implying some object or "thing,"
it is far more accurate and helpful to describe the thought of ego as a mental
process by using the verb "ego-ing." An excerpt: "Rather than
berate myself (or my imagined ego) when I notice myself caught up in egoic thinking,
I can notice instead what is going on and step back from it. This doesn’t
mean I have eliminated that way of thinking—it will surely return. But when
it does, I can choose to step out of it again. Transcending the ego thus becomes
an ongoing practice rather than a far-off goal."
Presence / Ego-Mind / Self-Compassion | Blogs, Therapy Effectiveness, Telepsychology, Acknowledgment, Gratitude & Self-Compassion | Happiness Research, Articles and Relationship of Happiness to Money Blogs: Psychology Blog by Luís Martins Simões
entitled "Observe, Acknowledge and Accept Facts" explores the value
of intuition and acknowledging "what is" in this moment, and witnessing
the "ego" and letting it be, in being Who I AM. Recommended. "Ego-ing"—Author
Peter Russell's IONS (Institute of Noetic Science) article "There Is No Such
Thing as an Ego" points out that a separate individual self, some "thing"
in the mind, simply does not exist. He strongly suggests that instead of using
the term "ego" as a noun, implying some object or "thing,"
it is far more accurate and helpful to describe the thought of ego as a mental
process by using the verb "ego-ing." An excerpt: "Rather than
berate myself (or my imagined ego) when I notice myself caught up in egoic thinking,
I can notice instead what is going on and step back from it. This doesn’t
mean I have eliminated that way of thinking—it will surely return. But when
it does, I can choose to step out of it again. Transcending the ego thus becomes
an ongoing practice rather than a far-off goal."
The
April 2008 ScienceDaily article "Is Happiness Having What You Want,
Wanting What You Have, Or Both?" concludes "The researchers found
that people who want more of what they have tend to be happier than those who
want less of what they have. However, people who have more of what they want tend
to be happier than those who have less of what they want." Therapy Effectiveness Research Findings 2009 research shows
that short-term psychological therapy could be 32 times more cost effective at
making you happy than simply obtaining more money—Reseachers compared
large data sets where 1000s of people had reported on their well-being and at
how well-being changed due to therapy in regard to getting sudden increases in
income. They found that a 4 month course of psychological therapy had a large
effect on well-being and showed that the costs of the therapy would take a pay
increase of 32 times that amount to achieve an equivalent increase in well-being.
So this research demonstrated that psychological therapy could be 32 times more
cost effective at making you happy than simply obtaining more money. Chris Boyce,
the lead researcher on the article, states, "Often the importance of money
for improving our well-being and bringing greater happiness is vastly over-valued
in our societies. The benefits of having good mental health, on the other hand,
are often not fully appreciated and people do not realise the powerful effect
that psychological therapy, such as non-directive counselling, can have on improving
our well-being." Psychotherapy
reduces repeat ER trips—Emergency room "intensive, short-term dynamic
psychotherapy" by a staff psychologist provided relief to three out of four
patients whose physical symptoms have no medical explanation: Research published
in November 2009 and released in January 2010 by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
addressed patients arriving at the emergency department of a Health Sciences Centre
in Halifax with chest pain that doctors could find no physical reason for it after
a barrage of tests. In an average treatment course of 3.8 sessions, in which the
person recognized the link between their physical symptoms and their stress or
emotions, resulted in a 69 per cent drop in repeat visits to the emergency room
and hospital visits dropped from an average of almost 4.6 visits a year to 1.4
visits a year. An 80 per cent drop in panic attacks resulted from a single interview
in many cases. Dr. Allan Abbass, director for the Centre, said that for every
100 people seen by the staff psychologist, there will be 300 fewer emergency visits
a year, which adds up to a huge savings and reduction in unnecessary tests. Also
patients reporting a high degree of satisfaction. Also
read Dr. Friedman's compilation of research on the benefits of effects of therapy:
"Research on the Effectiveness of Therapy and How Therapy Can Change Brain
Structure" Telepsychology / Telemedicine Obtaining
therapy via teleconference is just as effective as face-to-face sessions:
March 2010 research shows that that the teletherapy participants and the control
group receiving face-to-face therapy equally benefited from their therapy according
to a study by Stéphane Guay, a psychiatry professor at the Université
de Montréal. He also cites previous studies showing that phobia therapy
via teleconferencing was just as effective as face-to-face contact. Telepsychology
is on the rise: The March 2010 issue of Monitor on Psychology, published by the
American Psychological Association, reported that psychologists are increasingly
using telephone and e-mail to provide services including psychotherapy, counseling,
consulting and supervision—E-mail use has more than tripled among practicing
psychologists between 2000 and 2008 with about 10 percent of providers using it
weekly or more in 2008. Practitioners' use of videoconferencing increased from
2 to 10 percent during the same time period. All data were from the 2008 APA (American
Psychological Association) Psychology Health Service Provider Survey. Acknowledgment of Yourself and Others Article "Connect With Your
Strengths" by Self-Care Coach Linda Dessau supports self-acknowledgment Article
"Positive Thinking - Acknowledging Others" by Wendy St.Germain looks
at how showing interest in other people helps them "step out of the thought
process of the problem," is "the equivalent of a momentary meditation,"
and helps all parties be uplifted. Gratitude: Benefits to Health Article "Psychological Research:
Gratitude--Positive Psychology in Practice From Studies on Happiness"
gives a helpful introduction to how gratitude is associated with good health along
with practical ways to bring it into your daily life and work. Researcher Sonja
Lyubomirsky's twelve specific activities for intentionally raising happiness are
also summarized. A
2009 article summarizes recent research by Tod Kashdan published online in the
Journal of Psychology showed that women are much more likely to feel and
express gratitude than men. He names meaningful relationships, gratitude,
and living in the present moment as the three elements essential for creating
happiness and meaning in life. Article
"Counting Your Blessings: How Gratitude Improves Your Health" summarizes
results of research by Robert Emmons that found that those who practice grateful
thinking "reap emotional, physical and interpersonal benefits." Further,
people who regularly keep a gratitude journal report fewer illness symptoms, feel
better about their lives as a whole, and are more optimistic about the future.
Five simple practical actions are presented to increase the level of gratitude
in your life. Another article by University of California, Davis professor of
psychology Robert Emmons presents "The New Science of Gratitude" and
highlights from his research project on gratitude and thankfulness. Also see the
2007 interview of Dr. Emmons Several
articles review the beneficial results of cultivating gratitude from "positive
psychology" researchers Grateful People Are Happier and Healthier: A growing
body of research suggests that maintaining an attitude of gratitude can improve
psychological, emotional and physical well-being. The
Summer 2007 issue of the magazine Greater Good published by the University
of California, Berkeley provides PDF downloads of four articles from a fairly
recent symposium on gratitude Compassion for Yourself / Self-Compassion Self-Compassion website
is a wonderful resource to aid the development of self-compassion, defined by
Kristin Neff, Ph.D., Associate Professor in Human Development at the University
of Texas at Austin, as having the three components of self-kindness, common
humanity and mindfulness. In other words, self-compassion is extending
compassion to one's self in instances of perceived inadequacy, failure, or general
suffering. See the videos by Kristin Neff, Ph.D. and Duke University Professor
of Psychology and Neuroscience Mark Leary, Ph.D. that help clarify the difference
between self-compassion and self-esteem. All resources well worth exploring in
depth. Video:
youtube.com/watch?v=tAifaBhh2xo Go
easy on yourself in the area of self-compassion—how kindly people view
themselves, according to a February 2011 New York Times article reviews
a new wave of research.In the article it is mentioned that Dr. Neff has a new
book being published in March 2011 called Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself
Up and Leave Insecurity Behind. Presence / Ego-Mind / Self-Compassion | Blogs, Therapy Effectiveness, Telepsychology, Acknowledgment, Gratitude & Self-Compassion | Happiness Research, Articles and Relationship of Happiness to Money Happiness: Research Findings are Revealing Different
views and research on happiness from Wikipedia are intriguing, as is a recent
Time article on the paradox of happiness, including the notion that happiness
cannot be acquired directly, only indirectly or as a side benefit of living a
satisfying, fulfilling, contributive and inspiring life. A July 2010 research
article drawing upon worldwide data found that material prosperity predicts life
evaluation (i.e., "...a reflective judgment on people's lives compared with
what they want them to be"), whereas psychosocial prosperity predicts positive
feeling (such as the fulfillment of psychological needs like learning, using one's
skills, respect, autonomy, and the ability to count on others in an emergency). American's
happiest man and the 2010 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index: The New York
Times contracted with Gallup to come up with a statistical composite for
the happiest man in America. Gallup's answer released March 2011 was he's
a tall, Asian-American, observant Jew who is at least 65 and married, has children,
lives in Hawaii, runs his own business and has a household income of more than
$120,000 a year. Actually a few phone calls later...they came up with Alvin
Wong, a 5-foot-10, 69-year-old, Chinese-American, Kosher-observing Jew, who's
married with children and lives in Honolulu, runs his own health care management
business and earns more than $120,000 a year. Indeed, Mr. Wong said he was a very
happy person and credited "my life philosophy is, if you can't laugh at yourself,
life is going to be pretty terrible for you." Also look at the Gallup-Healthways
Well-Being Index to find the results over the last three years of calling 1,000
randomly selected American adults each day and asking them about their emotional
status, work satisfaction, eating habits, illnesses, stress levels and other indicators
of their quality of life. Click on the two boxes on the left side to see some
of the most interesting findings. Experiences
create greater happiness than possessions: A recent poll (late December 2009)
shows that people are putting shared experiences with family and friends ahead
of buying goods and services. Psychologists have long said that shared experiences
lead to more long-term happiness, as shown in a CNNhealth.com article from February 2009. Happiness polls show that most Americans (84%) are
"very satisfied" with their lives according to a December,2007 Gallup
Poll. Family, friends and greater education are linked to happiness more than
money according to a Harris Interactive poll from April 2009. While this may only
end up being a short-term blip on the radar, it also could signal a shift in direction
for how people value sharing their lives with loved ones and friends over material
things. Happiness
as people usually think if it—the experience of pleasure or positive feelings--is
far less important to physical health than the type of well-being that comes from
engaging in meaningful activity, according to research findings released in
March 2011: Thus the most recent evidence suggests that people who give their
attention and activity to living with a sense of purpose as they age are more
likely to remain cognitively intact, have better psychological/mental health and
live longer than people who focus on achieving feelings of happiness. Happy
people live longer, February 2011 research published in Science finds:
Social scientists Diener and Chan showed that many kind of studies, using different
methods, conclude that happiness has a positive causal effect on longevity
and physiological health. An excerpt: "For example, a meta-analysis based
on 24 studies estimated that happy people live 14% longer than persons who
report that they are unhappy. In a survey of people living in industrial countries,
happier people enjoy an increased longevity of between 7.5 and 10 years. Happier
people are also less likely to commit suicide, and they are less often the victims
of accidents." Degree
of one's charity depends on happiness more than wealth: A Gallup poll released
in September 2010 reveals that it's not money that buys happiness so much as
giving does. Three key charitable acts were surveyed in 153 countries with
some countries being very stingy in giving (e.g., former Soviet bloc nations)
and others being very generous in one area while stingy in another (e.g., Liberians
giving very little money to charity or religious groups and being the world's
most generous people in helping strangers). The top ten countries based on the
highest percentages of people who answered yes to all three categories were: Australia
(57%); New Zealand (57%), Ireland (56%), Canada (56%), Switzerland (55%), USA
(55%), Netherlands (54%), United Kingdom (53%), Sri Lanka (53%) and Austria (52%).
The survey found that overall 20% of the world's population had volunteered time
in the month prior to interview, 30% had volunteered their time, and 65% had helped
a stranger. Further it found that 60% of Americans had donated money to an organization,
39% had volunteered their time, and 65% had helped a stranger. One way to understand
the findings is that the survey was conducted only in urban areas, where generosity
is less than in rural areas of the U.S. Can
Seeking Happiness make People Unhappy? Under certain circumstances, such as in
positive contexts in which expectations for happiness are high and it's difficult
to attribute failure to be happy to one's circumstances, valuing happiness may
be self-defeating, leading people to value happiness more made them feel less
happy, according to an article published in May 2011 in the highly regarded journal
Emotion. Another article (in press), "A Dark Side of Happiness? How,
When, and Why Happiness Is Not Always Good" by Gruber, Mauss and Tamir provides
the research review and theory for the later research paper. Original
Articles: Boomers
are happy and suicidal in midlife according to recent research findings: The
boomers generation starting at age 50 showed a sharp rise in the level of happiness
from self-report data according to a 2008 Gallup telephone poll. At the same time,
based on 2007 data collected from the latest federal Center for Disease Control
and Prevention survey of violent deaths in 16 states, results found for the second
year in a row that the group between ages 45 and 54 had the highest rate of suicide,
a surprising reverse of historical trends. Past trends show that traditionally
people over 80 had the highest rates. Also since 2003, the rates for the elderly
and for 16- to 19-year-olds, another vulnerable age group, have lowered. Opinions
are offered to help understand these findings. A
May 2009 Boston Globe article entitled "Perfectly Happy" presents
a balanced overview of happiness as a concept and key research regarding happiness,
including "the best known 1978 study by the psychologists Philip Brickman,
Dan Coates, and Ronnie Janoff-Bulman. They compared the self-reported happiness
levels of lottery winners, paralyzed accident victims (both paraplegics and quadriplegics),
and people who were neither. What they found was that lottery winners didn't report
themselves appreciably happier than the control group, and while the paralyzed
did report themselves less happy than the controls, the difference was not as
dramatic as the researchers had expected. More recent and rigorous studies have
yielded results broadly similar: getting married or getting a raise or a new house
all give a boost to our happiness, but eventually we drop to levels near where
we were before." Recommended. A March 2010 article in The New Yorker
magazine reviews recent books on happiness and what policymakers can learn from
happiness research. A late August 2010 article in Financial Times summarizes
research findings into "The seven secrets of a happy life", including:
1) money buys you little happiness; 2) friends are worth more than a new Ferrari;
3) winning the lottery won't make you instantly happy; 4) losing your job makes
you unhappy—but less so when others have too; 5) fat friends make you happier
than thin ones; 6) divorce can make you happy; and 7) happiness is contagious.
All recommended. Also peruse the original research article "Lottery
Winners and Accident Victims: Is Happiness Relative?" from the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1978). The
relationship between money and happiness is explored in several articles with
predictable and surprising results. September 2010 research findings from Princeton
University's Woodrow Wilson School analyzing responses of 450,000 Americans polled
by Gallup and Heathways in 2008 and 2009 revealed that 85% felt happy every
day regardless of their annual income, nearly 40% also reported feeling stressed
(not mutually exclusive with happiness), and 24% had feelings of sadness.
Further, there are actually two types of happiness: 1) your changeable, day-to-day
mood (whether you're stressed or blue or feeling emotionally sound; and 2) a deeper
satisfaction you feel about the way your life is going. Researchers found that
people who make $75,000 a year or more say they feel their life is working out
on the whole (happiness # 2 above), although it doesn't make them any happier
or more jovial in the mornings. The report found that no matter how much more
than $75,000 a year people make, they don't report any greater degree of happiness. World's
happiest countries are the least religious: An August 2010 report by the Religious
News Service announced that among the five happiest countries—Denmark,
Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, three of these five nations are among
the top 10 least religious nations in the world according to a Gallup poll. Happiness: Articles An August 2010 article in The New York Times
looks at "emotional efficiency" (or reaping the most happiness for
your money) and how it is aided by uplifting experiences which trump material
objects in terms of happiness and moving from conspicuous consumption to calculated
consumption. Having
a sister is associated with happiness: An October 2010 essay by linguist
Deborah Tannen cites a study that found that adolescents who have a sister
are less likely to report such feelings as "I am unhappy, sad or depressed"
and "I feel like no one loves me." Other studies come to a similar conclusion
that having a sister makes you happier. She speculates in a new book that it
points to talk or conversation itself, that is, having longer talks, sometimes
about feelings / one's personal life, and sometimes about the meaningful details
of daily living. Beyond
Happiness is "Well-Being" or "Flourishing": A May 2011
New York Times article points beyond happiness. Martin Seligman, Ph.D.,
the psychologist who was a co-founder of the subfield positive psychology and
who now regrets that title since that concept has certain limitations, is looking
at a feeling of accomplishment in contributing to what the ancient Greeks called
eudaimonia, meaning "well-being" or "flourishing."
Dr. Seligman's new book Flourish explores this concept and he created his
own acronym, Perma, for what he defines as the five crucial elements of well-being,
each pursued for its own sake: positive emotion, engagement (the feeling of being
lost in a task), relationships, meaning and accomplishment. Economist Arthur
Brooks in his book Gross National Happiness (2008) asserts that what is crucial
to well-being is not how much money you make, not how cheerful you feel, but rather
the meaning you find in life and your "earned success"—the belief
that you created value in your life or others' lives. Interview
with Daniel Kahneman on Wellness (December 16, 2010): Psychologist (and Nobel
laureate in economics) Daniel Kahneman of Princeton has taken the lead in studying
a specific type of emotional and behavioral prediction called "Behavioral
Economics." "Prospect theory," developed by researchers Amos
Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, allows one to describe how people make choices in
situations where they have to decide between alternatives that involve risk. Two
key findings are "Loss Aversion" or people's tendency to strongly
prefer (by two times) avoiding losses to acquiring gains, along with the "Endowment
Effect" or people often demanding much more to give up an object than they
would be willing to pay to acquire it. The interview is a remarkable opportunity
to hear from one of the most influential and articulate researchers in the field
of wellness. In the interview he is asked about the most important wellbeing-related
finding from his research and he mentions the 2010 research finding that 'experienced
happiness' in the United States levels off around $70,000 - $75,000 income per
annum, while life satisfaction continues to go on increasing. The
article "Are You Happy?" from the April 3, 2008 issue of The
New York Review of Books reviews several prominent books on happiness in a
thoughtful intelligent discussion Happiness and Money The relationship between money and happiness
is explored in several articles with predictable and surprising results. September
2010 research findings from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School analyzing
responses of 450,000 Americans polled by Gallup and Heathways in 2008 and 2009
revealed that 85% felt happy every day regardless of their annual income, nearly
40% also reported feeling stressed (not mutually exclusive with happiness),
and 24% had feelings of sadness. Further, there are actually two types
of happiness: 1) your changeable, day-to-day mood (whether you're stressed or
blue or feeling emotionally sound; and 2) a deeper satisfaction you feel about
the way your life is going. Researchers found that people who make $75,000
a year or more say they feel their life is working out on the whole (happiness
# 2 above), although it doesn't make them any happier or more jovial in the mornings.
The report found that no matter how much more than $75,000 a year people make,
they don't report any greater degree of happiness. World's
happiest countries are the least religious: An August 2010 report by the Religious
News Service announced that among the five happiest countries—Denmark,
Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, three of these five nations are among
the top 10 least religious nations in the world according to a Gallup poll.
© Copyright 2013 by Will Joel Friedman, Ph.D. |
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