The Happiness Blog:

So you want to be happy?

Copyright (c) Jim Byrne, 21st August, 2010

It has been said that human beings are not wired up by nature to want to be happy, but rather to be competitive, and to enjoy defeating others.  In Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT) we say this is only half the story.  The Bad Wolf side of human nature is wired up in this way.  However, the Good Wolf side of human nature, which is also inborn in every baby, is wired up to be loving, prosocial and happy.  The problem for humans in this and all previous eras (known to us today) is that the Bad Wolf has come to dominate human society and human culture.

However, as Seneca said:

"No (wo)man can live happily who regards him/herself alone, who turns everything to his/her own advantage.  Thou must live for another if thou wishes to live for thyself".

The split nature of humanity is unchangeable.  We will always and only be split in this way, between following a set of virtues, and following a set of vices.  It does not matter if you become the most enlightened and the most holy person on the planet, you will continue to be tempted to behave badly. (Look at paedophile Catholic priests, and the bishops and cardinals who covered for them, for example).  All we humans can do is to make this commitment:

I will live my life from the Good Wolf side of my nature, and I will starve and shrink my Bad Wolf side.

Next we need to figure out how to do that.  The basic answer is this:

1. Identify the vices which tempt you, and which you currently engage in, and decide to give them up. 

2. Identify the virtues that would make your life a shining example to others, and decide to teach yourself to live from those virtues.

Next, all you have to do is train yourself, over and over and over again, day after day after day, to the end of your life, to stick to your virtues and shun the appeal of your former vices.

Perhaps you are attracted to engaging in anger and rage?  Perhaps you are prone to engage in self-pity?  Or laziness?  Perhaps you are overly self-indulgent?  Perhaps you are selfish and anti-social?  Perhaps you spend your time promoting inequality at the expense of the great mass of human beings?  (This is a popular pastime among the most immoral individuals and groups on the planet at the moment.  They love it!)  See the Equality Trust, at: http://www.equalitytrust.co.uk. 

What would it take to give up these vices, one at a time?  For example:

What would it take to change your response to frustration and difficulty from one of anger to one of acceptance?  How about the virtue of fortitude?  You could tell yourself:

If that's the way it is, that's the way it is.  And those people who frustrate me are not bad people.  Some of them don't even know I exist.  And the others are sleepwalking through their lives.  If I stick to feeling loving towards all people and the world, I will get a better outcome.

If you are selfish and greedy, and/or you promote inequality in the world, remind yourself every hour that you were born to die; that you cannot store up anything for you, for in reality you are a mere phantom, passing through a nightmare of your own making.  You are a hungry ghost, trying to eat golden leaves.

And remember what William Inge said:

"The happiest people seem to be those who are producing something; the bored people are those who are consuming much and producing nothing".

So find out how to be pro-socially productive, and make a meaningful contribution to the lives of others.  (Not a sugary drink or confection that is going to promote bad health in its consumers; but a wholesome contribution to the wellbeing of others).

Which headstone would you prefer upon you death?

"S/he figured out how to be cunning enough to become stinking rich?"

Or:

"S/he made a huge difference to the lives of other people, and reduced misery and inequality in the world by a measurable amount".

In the process of changing yourself from Bad to Good Wolf, you will discover a form of happiness that you previously could not even have suspected is available to humans:  The happiness of being the Good Wolf, as an act of intention, despite all temptations to stray; and the happiness of returning to your rightful place as one of many equally valuable berries on the bush of life.  (Please excuse my mixed metaphors! The truth is that all language is metaphorical; and you are too complex a being to be definable by a single metaphor! )

Try growing your Good Wolf and shrinking your Bad Wolf, and see what happens to your happiness level.  You'll be pleasantly surprised.  Vice is a source of huge misery.

Best wishes,

Jim

Dr Jim Byrne
ABC Coaching and Counselling Services

Jim's email address

Postscript: If you want to be happier, remember: Every night before you go to bed, make a list of three things you are grateful for from that day.  It might be something you got; something you gave; something you saw or heard; or something (bad) that did not happen!  Choose one of those three items and go to bed determined to dream about it. 

And remember to smile!

Postscript: Please take a look at the Institute for CENT.***

Also, the e-book on CENT: Therapy after Ellis, Berne, Freud and the Buddha: The birth of CENT.***

PPS: Please leave a comment below: (‘Comments').

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The Happiness Blog:

Further along the road to happiness

Copyright (c) Jim Byrne, 16th August, 2010

I am sorry for the delay in posting this week's Happiness blog.  I have been away for a wonderful 9 day holiday - a veritable Grand Tour, with Renata - seeing friends and relations.  I now feel ready for another tough year.  But perhaps this one won't be so tough.  I choose to believe that things are getting better in my life in general.

How to choose happiness

Last week I talked about choosing happiness.  I gave some quotes that should be helpful.  However, some readers might ask: How am I to choose happiness?  What specifically should I do?

At the simplest level, you could begin to affirm, silently in your mind: I choose happiness; I choose happiness; I choose happiness.  You could do this over and over again at the beginning, middle and end of each day.  That will help to focus your mind on what you want - happiness - and also alert you to wake up when you are doing things that are making you unhappy, such as picking an unnecessary fight with a friend or colleague.

At a deeper level, you could commit yourself to two virtues:

Love, and:

Gratitude.

Love is the core of the Good Wolf state of being, just as Hatred is the core of the Bad Wolf state of being.  The Good Wolf lives in a perpetual state of happiness, serenity, and, sometimes, bliss.  The Bad Wolf lives in a perpetual state of hostile misery, anxious misery and/or depressive misery.

So choosing to be happy also involves choosing to grow your Good Wolf state, and to shrink (or starve) your Bad Wolf state.  Switching from thoughts/feelings of hatred to thoughts/feelings of love will move you right into the core of the Good Wolf.

Gratitude is a fairly central virtue of the Good Wolf, adjacent to Love.  Gratitude is an acknowledgement that (1) I do not run the universe, and (2) the universe serves me well, most of the time.  And for the goodness of the universe, I should be grateful.  Also, the central people in my life serve me well, and for this I should be grateful.

So try this: Affirm the following:

I choose to be loving and grateful; I choose to be loving and grateful; I choose to be loving and grateful. 

Do this over and over again, at the beginning, middle and end of each day.

And make a serious commitment to give up anger, hatred, hostility, revenge, resentment, bitterness, bile, self indulgent depression, unnecessarily cowardly anxiety, and so on.  These are all manifestations of the Bad Wolf, and the Bad Wolf can never be happy.

So choose happiness.  Affirm this choice. And build on this by choosing to act from Love and Gratitude.  And give up anger, hatred, self indulgent depression, and unnecessarily timid anxiety.

You are a creative force in the world.  Nobody is coming on a white charger to rescue you.  You have all the power that is needed to become a faucet of love and kindness in the world.  Develop this potential and you will be endlessly happy.  This does not mean you will not have occasional upsets or frustrations, difficulties etc.  But your default position will be one of calm, serene happiness.

Best wishes,

Jim

Dr Jim Byrne

The Happiness Blog:

The royal road to happiness

Copyright (c) Jim Byrne, 4^th/6^th August, 2010

Choose happiness

Last week I talked about our ability - (all other things being equal) - to choose happiness.  This idea is well summed up in the following quote from Abraham Lincoln:

"Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be".

Of course, external events are linked to excited happiness; but calm, serene happiness is more to do with your mental attitudes towards life, including your preference:

(a) Do you want to operate from the (happiness inducing) Good Wolf side of your nature - which is loving, charitable, giving and good.  Or:

(b) Do you insist upon operating from the (unhappiness inducing) Bad Wolf side of your nature - which is angry, hateful, mean, grasping, taking and bad.

Live a good life

If you live a morally good life, you will tend to be pretty automatically happy much of the time.  Here is how George Sand expressed it:

"One is happy as a result of one's own efforts, once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness - simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and above all, a clear conscience.  Happiness is no vague dream".

Develop self discipline

If you cannot, or will not, develop self discipline, and a moral compass, then you will never be happy.  Why is this?  For the reason given by J.M. Barrie:

"The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one has to do".

Or, as Plekhanov said: "Freedom is the recognition of necessity". 

Happiness is the reward that we reap from living a good life, within the context of choosing to be happy, and of spreading happiness, facilitated by self discipline.  Or as Antoine de Saint-Exupery expressed it:

"If you want to understand the meaning of happiness, you must see it as a reward and not as a goal".

Conclusion

That's all for this week.  I will write again on Saturday 14^th August.

Best wishes,

Jim
Dr Jim Byrne
ABC Coaching and Counselling Services
jim.byrne@abc-counselling.com

See the first of the One Page Solutions, here...on depression.

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The Happiness Blog:

So you want to be happier?

Copyright (c) Jim Byrne, 30th July, 2010

The essence:

Okay, I got the message.  You may only be here for 7 seconds!  What do I have to say to you?

1. Choose happiness: Up to this moment it may have been true that you had no choice but to be unhappy.  It may also be that you have good reasons to continue to be quite unhappy.  However, it is probably also true that you engage in some unnecessary unhappiness.  Now that I have drawn your attention to these points, you must be aware that you have the option to choose to give up all unnecessary unhappiness.  Here is an example:

* Are you unhappy about your inability to control something that is clearly beyond your control?  If the answer is yes, what is that something?  Okay, now make a commitment to give up trying to control that something which is beyond your control.  Stick to your commitment.

2. Make small changes and/or create rituals: It is not easy to change behaviours.  Remember how difficult it is to make and keep a New Year's resolution.  Don't try to force huge changes in your life by dint of self-discipline.  It probably won't work.  Try these two strategies:

* Identify one thing that, if you changed it, would produce the biggest improvement in your level of happiness.  Now break that down into small easy steps, and make a commitment to begin with the first small step.  Monitor your progress.  Give yourself a little reward every time you complete that little step - day after day after day.  And drop two £1 coins, or a $5 bill, down the nearest drain whenever you fail to make that little step! J

* Create a ritual which will make you happy, such as:

+ Daily meditation for twenty minutes each morning; or:

+ Stop watching TV news, and reading bad news in the newspapers for a month, and instead, start each day by listening to 30 minutes of Mozart music.

3. Forgive others: Holding grudges and being angry with others because of their crummy behaviours is only going to hurt you, and make you unhappy.  Forgive others for their transgressions against you, once you have done whatever is practically within your power to get an apology or reparation.

That's all for this week, except:

4. There is a supplement about David Wallin's book (Attachment in Psychotherapy) on the Supplement to the Happiness Blog page.***

Best wishes,

Jim

Dr Jim Byrne
ABC Coaching and Counselling Services

Jim's email address

Postscript: If you want to be happier, remember: Every night before you go to bed, make a list of three things you are grateful for from that day.  It might be something you got; something you gave; something you saw or heard; or something (bad) that did not happen!  Choose one of those three items and go to bed determined to dream about it. 

And remember to smile!

Postscript: Please take a look at the Institute for CENT.***

Also, the e-book on CENT: Therapy after Ellis, Berne, Freud and the Buddha: The birth of CENT.***

PPS: Please leave a comment below: (‘Comments').

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The Happiness Blog:

Beyond Fred and Dora

Making sense of David Wallin's (2007) book

Copyright (c) Jim Byrne, 23rd July, 2010

Introduction

It might seem to readers of this blog that I am opposed to David Wallin's (2007) book - Attachment in Psychotherapy (Guilford Press, hardback).  Actually this is not the case.  I bought the book because of its promise.  I had begun to realize that attachment in childhood is at the very foundation of every ‘individual', and that psychotherapy offers the chance for individuals to develop a new, more secure attachment to a significant other.  Then along came David's book, which makes that case in a very detailed, scholarly way. 

The problem for psychotherapists is ‘how to' integrate attachment theory into their system of helping clients.  The more rigid a system of psychotherapy is, the more difficult it is going to be to adapt.  At its simplest level, attachment theory is quite straightforward.  As expressed by Gullestad (2001)[1]: In a documentary film made by Dr John Bowlby for the World Health Organization, he reports on "...the mental health of homeless children in post-war Europe.  The major conclusion was that to grow up mentally healthy, ‘the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment...'."

If it was this simple, then Gullestad's conclusion would be the end of the story. Looking for ways in which attachment theory could inform psychoanalysis, she concludes: "...the concept of emotional availability comes forward as a creative formulation contributing to the analyst's position in the therapeutic interaction".  Not much need for change there, then.  And humans hate change!

Chapter 5 (continued)...

Last week I looked at the implicit model of the self in David's Chapter 5.  This week, I want to continue to look at Chapter 5, which contains some very interesting and significant ideas.

The conventional view of a self is that it is a ‘separate', ‘individual', ‘discrete entity'.  However, in my CENT models, the individual is modelled as a social being, ‘connected to others' - especially the mother, and then the father, and later significant others.  (See the Institute for CENT).  And that was what I was criticizing about Chapter 5 last week.

However, there is little doubt that David's model has some significant validity.  For example, his emphasis on the ‘somatic self' as the foundation of the person seems intuitively right, and fits into the CENT model.  The emotional self is an extension and refinement of the somatic self - a self that is felt in the viscera and based in the limbic system of the brain.  David cites Fonagy et al (2002), Schore (2003) and others as proposing "...that regulation of emotions is fundamental to the development of the self and that attachment relationships are the primary context within which we learn to regulate our affects - that is, to access, modulate, and use our emotions.  The relational patterns that characterize our first attachments are, fundamentally, patterns of affect regulation that subsequently determine a great deal about the nature of our own unique responsiveness to experience - that is, about the nature of the self.  Correspondingly, in the new attachment relationship that the therapist is attempting to generate, the (client's) emotions are central and their effective regulation - which allows them to be felt, modulated, communicated, and understood - is usually at the very heart of the process that enables the (client) to heal and to grow".  (Page 64).

This is a most important area for consideration by all counsellors and psychotherapists, psychologists and psychoanalysts.  And this time, what I notice to be missing from David's presentation is how ‘good and evil' get into human behaviour.  (See my illustration below, which is from Therapy after Ellis, Berne, Freud and the Buddha: the birth of CENT).

The third element of David's model of the self is the ‘representational self', about which he says: "Bowlby argued that it was an evolutionary necessity to have a representational world that mapped the real one".  That is to say, that we have a map in our heads of the spaces in which we live, and the experiences we have had in those spaces.  "To function effectively, we needed (and still need) knowledge of the world and of ourselves, and this knowledge must be portable.  We derive such knowledge from memories of past experience, and we use this knowledge to make predictions about present and future experience.  Hence, the internal working model.  But the map, as they say, is not the territory". (Page 64). That is a very important point.  All of our stored representations are cumulative and interpretive, as shown in the CENT model.  And as I said last week our internal working models are not images or templates for individuals we have known, but rather what Douglas Hofstadter (2007)[2] called ‘strange loops' - and which I have clarified in my CENT writings as ‘strange loops of experience of encountering others' in which our sense of the other and our sense of self get braided together into one, so that at our very foundations are strange loops of experience of being changed by others and changing them, in which it is impossible to separate out an 'individual I'.

The CENT model of mind

I have recently expanded one of my CENT papers into two chapters which I am packaging as an e-pamphlet.  It is called: The social and emotional nature of the human individual.  If you would like to get a copy, please go to The social and emotional individual - A CENT pamphlet.***

The CENT model seems to somewhat overlap the position being developed by Fonagy and Wallin, but it is also significantly different.  One difference seems to be that in CENT, we see the new baby arriving with both good and bad tendencies, in potential.  Thus the baby's innate urge to attach is not its only urge.  Bowlby's biggest area of weakness was his neglect of the inner world of the child, and how to understand "...how the child builds up his own internal world...".  Holmes, 1995[3], cited in Gullestad, 2001).

Attachment theory seems to be closely related to object relations theory, both of which seem to agree that "the child's need for human contact is a human one".  (Gullestad, page 6).

Gullestad also draws attention to a controversial question, as to whether the drive towards relationship in the object relations and attachment theory approaches replaces or merely supplements the original theory of drives presented by Freud.  In CENT we take the view that drive theory is one side of the coin, and attachment the other.  This is how we model that conceptualization:

Figure 1: Attachment style complements the innate urges theory

For us in CENT, attachment is not just about security and comfort, but also about desire and a will to power.  And as shown in the e-book, both the mother and the child have a good and bad side to their nature:

Figure 8 - The good and bad wolf are inherent in human nature, and in human culture, and the proportions are variable in each individual over time, and from situation to situation

The CENT model seems quite different from the Fonagy/Wallin approach.

Conclusion

Next week I will continue to review Chapter 5, especially on the brain structures involved in affect regulation, which seems to be a very interesting presentation by David Wallin.

That's all for now.

Best wishes,

Jim

Dr Jim Byrne
ABC Coaching and Counselling Services

Jim's email address

Postscript: If you want to be happier, remember: Every night before you go to bed, make a list of three things you are grateful for from that day.  It might be something you got; something you gave; something you saw or heard; or something (bad) that did not happen!  Choose one of those three items and go to bed determined to dream about it. 

And remember to smile!

Postscript: Please take a look at the Institute for CENT.***

Also, the e-book on CENT: Therapy after Ellis, Berne, Freud and the Buddha: The birth of CENT.***

PPS: Please leave a comment below: (‘Comments').
PPPS: I have new retired from most of my front-line professional activities to write a series of three books on the theory and practice of Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT).

[1] Gullestad, S.E. (2001) Attachment theory and psychoanalysis: controversial issues.  Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, 24, 3-16

[2] Hofstadter, D. (2007) I am a Strange Loop.  New York: Basic Books.

[3] Holmes, J. (1995) ‘Something there is that doesn't love a wall'.  John Bowlby, attachment theory, and psychoanalysis.  In: Goldberg, S. et al (eds) Attachment Theory, Social Development and Clinical Perspectives (pp19-43).  London: The Analytic Press.