|
"As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to
live." - Goethe
"The good life is one inspired by love and guided by
knowledge." - Bertrand Russell
The essence
of addiction management is to find a path that limits or
eliminates addictive behavior and maximizes opportunities
for living life to its fullest. The two goals are not
independent, but inversely related. The more you live the
life you want, the less desire and need there is for
addiction. Those who never utilize professional treatment
often successfully change their behavior for the very reason
that they begin to lead a life they want. I have often felt
that most treatment programs focus far too heavily on the
pathological, ignoring the benefits of enhancing clients
positive attributes. It has only been within the past decade
that the field of psychology has taken seriously the notion
of optimal living. First, how do we define it? What is the
"good life"?
To date,
much like the field of addiction, there is no universally
understood way of defining optimal living. However, we may
soon find that researchers will provide some significant
assistant in this area (and in fact already have). Most of
the work being done falls under the fairly new field of
positive psychology. There is good consensus that we must
understand optimal living from different perspectives
including those that involve positive experiences both
individually and collectively. Considerable research already
tells us that the essence of a good life is found in our
relationships with others. We are social beings by nature,
and when we are connected with others intimately, we are
enriched far beyond any life fueled by materialism. In
addition, there are life experiences (work, hobbies, sports,
etc.) that under particular conditions provide a "flow" to
life that helps us define the elusive idea of optimal
living.
The following sites provide a portal into the world of
positive psychology and optimal living. There is no one
right recipe for living an optimal life. You will discover
after visiting these sites, that the answer is not found in
the vast self-help literature or latest gimmick on how to be
happy. Instead, the optimal life sprouts from doing the work
of the other four dimensions discussed on this site, and a
deep commitment to oneself and the lives of others.
Positive
Psychology Center: This is
the primary academic site maintained by Dr. Martin Seligman, the
psychologist who is the driving force behind this movement.
He also maintains the
Authentic Happiness Website that offers a
number of useful resources related to positive psychology.
Dr. Ed
Diener's Web Site on Subjective Well-Being:
Dr. Diener is the expert on how people evaluate their lives.
His research is helping to tease out just what it is that
contributes to a life well lived. For a nice summation of
his work in layman's terms see the
Q & A
section of his web site.
The concept of
Flow,
researched and written about extensively by
Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,
is provide significant clues as to how to optimize life. For
a great overview of this topic read his best selling book
Flow:
The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
|
