Customer Reviews

Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After wide-reaching research across time and cultures, Martin Seligman has identified six virtues: Wisdom and learning, courage, love and humanity, justice, temperance, spirituality and transcendence. In "Authentic Happiness" he describes how to strengthen your character in order to develop these life-affirming virtues. Unlike traditional psychotherapy, which revolves around a "talking cure" and seeks to identify traumatic events in a person's past, and even to assign blame, Seligman's Positive Psychology focuses on developing your "signature strengths", and on learning what you will find genuinely fulfilling in life.

Using personal anecdotes in addition to well-documented (and in some cases, surprising) studies, he demonstrates how we can avoid being trapped by the downward spiral of negativity and depression. This is a remarkable book that defies classification. It should not be limited to the "self-help" genre, as Seligman goes far beyond that to introduce a new way of thinking about individual potential. Highly recommended.

If you are a traditional councilor or stickler to proven past behaviour analysis this book breaks the historical bonds, but as rationally as humanly possible. It would be worthless as a professional to break down the methodology here in a book review, other than say I agree in theory this is a workable therapy. Can a book bring happiness?, not at all but the methods for positive thinking definitely will hit home runs for many personalities. The one ommission here, that I experience in every case is the existence or non-existence of a God in authentic happiness. For that a book which uses positive psychology with and without God I highly recommend is SB: 1 or God by Karl Mark Maddox.

I simply cannot understand most of the other reviewers here in their adoration of this book. Primarily, the book draws on insights already expressed by others without giving appropriate credit. One example is John F. Kennedy, who defined happiness as "full use of your powers along the lines of excellence" (compare this to Seligman's defintion: "successfully using your signature strengths to obtain...gratification.)" Another example is Norman Vincent Peale who defined optimism as a "habit of mind" (compare this to Seligman's point that we can achieve optimism by routinely engaging in the "disputing of pessimistic thoughts.") Can you say Positive Thinking? Conciously or unconciously, Seligman has repackaged these thoughts and labeled the package "Positive Psychology."

The warming over of these old concepts, in itself, would not be a bad thing because the borrowed concepts have much validity. What IS bad, however, is the way Seligman padded and diluted these nuggets with a lot of personal anecdotes, self congratulation, questionnaires, and psuedo science. And he constantly uses pure trivia as his source for second guessing other great thinkers on the weightiest of subjects. For example, he implies that the enitire book was hatched as the result of an "epiphany" he experienced when his 5 year old daughter called him a grouch. Similarly, all of his self-assured recommendations on child rearing, contained in a long chapter that seems tacked on to the book, are based on the experience of raising his own kids. Seligman apparently is on his second family (his 6 kids include toddlers and near-middle-agers.) Why should I take his advice on child rearing when he admits that, until he bribed her with the offer of a Barbie Doll, he couldn't stop his youngest from hiding, day after day, where her family could not find her? He actually says we should only bribe kids this way "once or twice in a lifetime."

Finally, Seligman unlocks the mystery of God for us by engaging in his typical practice of finding answers not in the words of Aristotle, Plato, or Freud but by seeking answers in less less likely places. He goes instead to the world of sci-fi, telling us that his theory on the identity of God was inspired by an Isaac Asimov short story. He unravels this mystery for us by quoting a poolside conversation during which, as he describes it, he dazzled a brilliant writer, Bob Wright, with his profound insight on the Diety. What's the insight? "God comes at the end" but wasn't here in the beginning!

If you want to get anything useful out of this book, you have to work hard to separate the meaningful stuff from the self-important fluff. I suggest you instead seek out the thoughts of people like Kennedy and Peale, who were not only better thinkers, but a heck of a lot less arrogant.

Written by the former president of the American Psychological Association, and author of over a dozen books including the popular Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, this title is one of the better selling happiness books out there.

While this is the kind of book I could write a really long review about, I think I'll just discuss what I consider to be the best bits for those looking for ways to become happier- which I think is why most people would buy this book. Soooo.....

1) the book provides the reader with a "happiness formula", which is H = S + C + V. This works out to happiness = your genetic Set point + intervening Circumstances + factors under you Voluntary control. So, since your can't do much about changing your genetics, when it comes to becoming happier, that leaves room for improvement in the areas of circumstances and voluntary activities.

2) the book suggests that if you want to lastingly raise your level of happiness by changing the external circumstances of your life, you should: live in a wealthy democracy, get married, avoid negative events and negative emotion, acquire a rich social network, and get religion. Conversely, you needn't bother to do the following: make more money, stay healthy, get as much education as possible, or try to change your race or move to a sunnier climate. However even if you could alter all of these things, it would not do much for you as this stuff accounts for only a small part of your happiness. On to Voluntary efforts...

3) This is where most of the book spends a substantial part of its efforts showing you how to be happier, and there's a lot of "meat" to sink your teeth into, with sections on how to obtain more satisfaction with your past, what consitutes happiness about the future, and happiness in the present. Also, the book spend much time talking about how happiness can be cultivated by identifying and nurturing our traits, such as humor, optimism, generosity or kindness.

Readers who have read other happiness books will already be well familiar with the idea that the best way to increase your happiness is through intentional or voluntary activities. It makes a lot of sense, as you can't change your genetics, and circumstances are either out of your control, or make very little contributions to your happiness. Like this book, I agree that using intentional activities is the route to go when it comes to raising lasting happiness levels- and this book will help you out with that a lot. Other evidence-based books readers might be interested in that can also increase your well-being include Exercise Beats Depression.

= POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY =
Until recently psychology has mainly been working within a disease model: a strong emphasis has been placed on discovering deficits in human behavior and finding ways to repair this damage. Psychologist hardly focused on in doing studies acquiring knowledge about healthy functioning and building strengths. In other words: they have focused solely on taking away something negative (the disfunctioning) instead of adding something positive (increasing mental and behavioral health). The result: psychologist know little about healthy and happy functioning. This situation has been changing now since the rise of positive psychology a few years ago. What is Positive Psychology? It is a new movement in psychology, originated by Martin Seligman and a few other prominent psychologists among whom Mihali Csikszentmihalyi (author of FLOW). It aims to be a psychological science about the best things in life. Main topics of study are: positive emotions, positive traits and positive institutions. This book, Authentic Happiness, is the first book on positive psychology. Seligman is its main spokesperson.

= HAPPINESS =
This book mainly deals with the phenomenon of happiness. According to Seligman your enduring level op happiness results from three factors: 1) your SET RANGE ( the basic biologically determined range within which your happiness normally will be), 2) the CIRCUMSTANCES OF YOUR LIFE (some conditions - like being married and living in a democratic country- somehow seem to contribute to happiness, and 3) your VOLUNTARY CONTROL ( the things you can do to get your happiness to the upper part of your set range. Ok, then how to get this done? Before answering this question Seligman explains that happiness/positive emotion can refer to three domains: the PAST (satisfaction, contentment, fulfilment, pride and serenity), the PRESENT (joy, ecstasy, calm, zest, ebullience, pleasure and flow) and the FUTURE (optimism, hope faith, trust). Then the author comes up with suggestions to improve your happiness:

= HOW TO INCREASE YOUR HAPPINESS =
1) to be happier about your past, you need to: 1) let go of the false belief that your past negative experiences determine your present and future, 2) increase your gratitude about the good things in your past and 3) learn how to forgive past wrongs.

2) to be happier in your present, you need to distinguish between PLEASURES and GRATIFICATIONS. Pleasures are delights that have clear sensory and strong emotional components that require little if any thinking. Gratifications are flow-experiences. They are activities we very much like doing but that are not necessarily accompanied by any raw feelings at all. The gratifications last longer than the pleasures and they are undergirded by our strengths and virtues. The key to happiness in past and future lies in enhancing gratifications.

3) to be happier about your future, you need to change your explanatory style in order to become more optimistic and hopeful (for an explanation read my review of Seligman's book LEARNED OPTIMISM).

= AUTHENTIC HAPPINESS BY USING YOUR STRENGTHS =
These explanations imply what Seligman means by AUTHENTIC HAPPINESS. He says we should not rely on shortcuts like television watching, chocolate eating, loveless sex, and buying things to feel happy. He explains that positive emotion alienated from the exercise of character leads to emptiness, to inauthenticity, and to depression. So we want to feel like we deserved our positive feelings. That's why Seligman says UTHENTIC HAPPINESS comes from identifying and cultivating your most fundamental strengths (so-called SIGNATURE STRENGTHS) and using them everyday in work, love, play, and parenting. This message reminds of the one in Csikszentmihalyi's FINDING FLOW (see my review).

= CORE VIRTUES AND STRENGTHS =
Psychology has devised a classification system (language) for describing abnormal behavior and mental diseases. But it lacked a language describing human effectiveness and sanity. That is why Seligman and a team of scholars researched sources from all kinds of cultures and times in history and found that there is a strong convergence in what these traditions consider to be virtues and strengths. This led to the formulation of a classification system of virtues and strengths. SIX CORE VIRTUES: 1) Wisdom and knowledge, 2) courage, 3) Love and humanity, 4) Justice, 5) Temperance, 6) Spirituality and transcendence. Further they identified 24 strengths corresponding to these virtues. This book contains definitions of this taxonomy and some questionnaires for the reader to complete (the questionnaires can be found on the web too, by the way).

= CONCLUSION =
Some words about the form and style of the book. It is pleasantly written. Seligman writes in a rather personal and honest style which makes the book lively (for instance he exclaims on page 24: "I am a hideous example of my own theory.") I recommend this book to anyone interested in psychology and in happiness (although it is not a self-help book in the first place, I think). The book ends reflectively dealing with the relationship between positive emotions and win-win situations, and speculating that we may be on the threshold of an era of win-win games and good-felling. I enjoyed reading the book and I like positive psychology. It is in many ways reminiscent of humanistic psychology (which I always liked) but has a more scientific approach. I have a good hope it will be a success.

Coert Visser, www.m-cc.nl

Dr. Seligman's new book deserves its 5-star rating and best-seller status, for helpfulness in the wonderful tradition of the Handbook of Humanistic Psychology !! The "Authentic Happiness" book's web site for testing one's 'signature strengths' is also a real plus. The only leftover question is: What about the authenticity of negative feelings? Can anxiety, worry, and caution be authentic and even constructive parts of human experience too, as some psychologists in the book Optimism and Pessimism report. It seems that positive, humanistic psychology is helpful toward becoming authentically happy and self-actualized, as long as human negativity is also seen in its proper psychological perspective.

Here are the books I would recommend you read in your quest for happiness: What Happy People Know, Happiness Is Free, The Little Guide To Happiness, and this book, Authentic Happiness. I've read alot of book on happiness. I'm almost an expert myself now on the subject. Plus, I'm pretty darn happy. So, take my advice. Any one of these are excellent choices.

I would say that it is an interesting read on the research on happiness. There were some solid advices given on how to become happier... But it doesn't help to deal with internal conflicts of emotions... I would say that "Change your questions, change your life" by Marilee Adams is far more transformative and make a huge impact on me as a reader. By change the internal mental questions, it actually lead to greater happiness. Martin would do well to use this technique that Marilee teaches so incredibly effective.

A gentleman named Mr. Coffee wrote an excellent review here citing information by the great Dr. Denis Waitley and discusing why optimism is a tonic while pessimism is a poisin.

He also cited a review posted here by someone who said that pessimism can be good and that review actually got 34 votes. Mr. Coffee goes on to state that no doubt all 34 votes where from the reviewer who srote it. I couldn't agree more! Who could possibly think that pessimism is anything more than a illness that must be cured.

Great book by Dr. Seligman. I also recommend Dr. Waitley. And whoever wrote that review about pessimism being good for you, I submit that you need these books more than anybody!

I have always enjoyed Dr. Seligmans work and am a big fan of Learned Optimism which probably should be read before this one or at least in addition to it.

People are confused and upset today for a lot of different reasons. Are you really happy. Read Dr. Seligmans book and find out what you can do about it.

Great work Dr. Seligman.