A203 Applying the Science of Happiness: Finding Flow in Your Life and Practice

Groundbreaking innovators like Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi have developed a set of practical, research-based principles that can guide us toward happier, more engaged, and deeply meaningful lives. This course will focus on a series of experiential exercises to enhance satisfaction with the past, optimism in the future, and happiness in the present, paying particular attention to the implications of Csikszentmihalyi's concept of flow and to integrating it into our lives.

Meet The Instructor

Reid Wilson, Ph.D., is the author of Don't Panic and Facing Panic, and co-author with Edna Foa of Stop Obsessing. He's Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

Course Contents

Session 1: Why Bother to be Happy? • Intellectual broadening and building • Building physical resources • Creating social resources • How to get there

Session 2: Satisfaction about the Past, Part 1 • General happiness scale • Satisfaction with life scale • The hedonic treadmill • The gratitude survey • Sweet dreams • Gratitude

Session 3: Satisfaction about the Past, Part 2 • Forgiveness • Transgression motivation • How to forgive • Gratitude for being forgiven • The apology letter • The forgiveness letter

Session 4: Optimism about the Future • Optimism test • Explanatory styles: Permanence and pervasiveness • Despair vs. hope

Session 5: Happiness in the Present • Pleasures vs. gratifications • Six techniques that prolong the pleasures • Habituation and the loss of pleasure • Shortcuts and longcuts

Session 6: Your Signature Strengths • Signature strengths survey • Building and using your highest strengths • The good life, meaningful life and full life

Session 7: Finding Flow, Part 1 • The psychic entropy of boredom and anxiety • The eight traits of flow • The complex personality: A self that can weather change and maintain its serenity

Session 8: Finding Flow, Part 2 • Flow and the making of meaning in the work setting • Creating flow during pleasurable activities • Flow and athletics

Learning Objectives

1. List the benefits of happiness
2. Explain an approach to achieving satisfaction about the past
3. Describe the explanatory styles that promote optimism over pessimism
4. Describe the benefits of seeking gratifications over pleasures
5. Identify six techniques to enhance pleasures
6. Name the five C's of the complex personality