Therefore, a question arises – What about the healthy? Could Psychology help psychologically healthy people to become happier and achieve more in life? The answer is no, until a new branch of knowledge was founded – Positive Psychology, by Prof. Martin Seligman, who was just elected as the President of American Psychological Association, in 1998.
According to Prof. Seligman, there are 3 ways to happiness
1. Having a Pleasant Life (life of enjoyment): Have a life that is full of enjoyment and getting as much gratification as possible. This may be the life of hedonists. However, should one choose this path, be careful of the trap called the hedonic treadmill (the more we seek enjoyment, the harder it is to get gratification) and another called habituation (the sensation of having experienced something too many times, i.e.; eating ice cream, at the first bite we would get maximum gratification, but at the twentieth we could feel nausea). However, at the right measurements, this path could be very gratifying; with the reward of happiness.
2. Having a Good Life (life of engagement): in Aristotle’s words called eudemonia, getting involved in labour, relationship of activity that makes us experience “flow”. Being absorbed in that activity, one can feel that time slows down; one even feels nothing due to the intense concentration to that activity. This phenomenon was researched specifically by Seligman’s colleague, Mihaly Csikzentmihayli; and it gives us 7 criteria in “flow” condition:
As my level of understanding does not go beyond its practical usage, I simply cannot explain its inner workings yet. However, personally I have tried it on two voluntary smokers, on two separate occasions; both of whom wished to put an end to their affair with addiction.
The first person had been a cig addict for three years. He hated smoking before, he hated it because his father smoked. However, pressure from his family and work made him escape to smoking. Initially, after sniffing on an unlighted cig in my office, his urgency rating to smoke a puff was put as a considerable 7. After a few cycles of tapping, he said it only went down to a mere 6.
I asked the question again, after a couple of cycles later. He said it went from initially after sniffing, "I have to smoke you now!" - and after the last cycle and sniffing the cig, to a mellow "I can live without smoking."
I then shifted focus to the stress he felt with his family, asking him to replay any specific incident that may cause the negative emotion. After a few cycles it went from an intensity rating of 8 to 5. Then we stopped.
As for the second person, he had no emotional problems related to his cig addiction. He just started smoking in his teens because it made him feel macho which he grew out of. This time I had him sniff the cig and asked how delicious it feels -and got an intensity rating of 8. After 3 rounds or so, I asked him to sniff and rate it again. The result - he felt nauseated. I continued for another 2 rounds and the result went down to intensity of 4, and he felt that he could not smoke the cig. However, he has a history of being able to put off smoking for some time until the addiction kicks in. So, we stopped at that and I told him to call me whenever he feels the worst of it.
Please note that all the numbers involved are interpretations of the person themselves, not a number I pulled out of my hat. So far, I am happy that I could help, but believe if I had known a better approach these sessions could end up a bit more happier for me and them.
