Category Archives: Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice

Clinical Interviewing, Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Suicide Assessment and Intervention

A Strengths-Based Suicide Assessment and Treatment Model

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Bikes Snow 3

Over the past couple years, with feedback from workshop participants, supervisees, clients, and people with lived experiences around suicide, we’ve continued to refine our strengths-based suicide assessment and treatment model. Below is a short excerpt from chapter 1 of our upcoming book. This excerpt gives you a glimpse at the strengths-based model. You can also check out this link for an alternative description: https://johnsommersflanagan.com/2020/12/11/coming-in-january-the-strengths-based-approach-to-suicide-assessment-and-treatment-planning/

If you’re interested, the book is now available through the publisher, as well as through other booksellers: https://imis.counseling.org/store/detail.aspx?id=78174

You can get it in eBook format via Amazon.

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Seven Dimensions of Being Human: Where Does It Hurt and How Can I Help?

We began this chapter describing the case of Alina. Mostly likely, what you remember about Alina is that she displayed several frightening suicide risk factors and openly shared her suicidal thoughts. However, Alina is not just a suicidal person—she’s a unique individual who also exhibited a delightful array of idiosyncratic quirks, problems, and strengths. Even her reasons for considering suicide are unique to her.

When working with suicidal clients or students, it’s easy to over-focus on suicidality. Suicide is such a huge issue that it overshadows nearly everything else and consumes your attention. Nevertheless, all clients—suicidal or not—are richly complex and have a fascinating mix of strengths and weaknesses that deserve attention. To help keep practitioners focused on the whole person—and not just on weaknesses or pathology—we’ve developed a seven-dimension model for understanding suicidal clients.

Suicide Treatment Models

In the book, Brief cognitive-behavioral therapy for suicide prevention, Bryan and Rudd (2018) describe three distinct models for working with suicidal clients. The risk factor model emphasizes correlates and predictors of suicidal ideation and behavior. Practitioners following the risk factor model aim their treatments toward reducing known risk factors and increasing protective factors. Unfortunately, a dizzying array of risk factors exist, some are relatively unchangeable, and in a large, 50-year, meta-analytic study, the authors concluded that risk factors, protective factors, and warning signs are largely inaccurate and not useful (Franklin et al., 2017). Consequently, treatments based on the risk factor model are not in favor.

The psychiatric model focuses on treating psychiatric illnesses to reduce or prevent suicidality. The presumption is that clients experiencing suicidality should be treated for the symptoms linked to their diagnosis. Clients with depression should be treated for depression; clients diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder should be treated for trauma; and so on. Bryan and Rudd (2018) note that “accumulating evidence has failed to support the effectiveness of this conceptual framework” (p. 4).

The third model is the functional model. Bryan and Rudd (2018) wrote: “According to this model, suicidal thoughts and behaviors are conceptualized as the outcome of underlying psychopathological processes that specifically precipitate and maintain suicidal thoughts and behaviors over time” (p. 4). The functional model targets suicidal thoughts and behaviors within the context of the individual’s history and present circumstances. Bryan and Rudd (2018) emphasize that the superiority of the functional model is “well established” (p. 5-6).

Our approach differs from the functional model in several ways. Due to our wellness and strength-based orientation, we studiously avoid presuming that suicidality is a “psychopathological process.” Consistent with social constructionist philosophy, we believe that locating psychopathological processes within clients, risks exacerbation and perpetuation of the psychopathology as an internalized phenomenon (Hansen, 2015; Lyddon, 1995). In addition to our wellness, strength-based, social constructionist foundation, we rely on an integration of robust suicide theory (we rely on works from Shneidman, Joiner, Klonsky & May, Linehan, and O’Connor). We also embrace parts of the functional model, especially the emphasis on individualized contextual factors. Overall, our goal is to provide counseling practitioners with a practical and strength-based model for working effectively with suicidal clients and students.

The Seven Dimensions

Thinking about clients using the seven life dimensions can organize and guide your assessment and treatment planning. Many authorities in many disciplines have articulated life dimensions. Some argue for three, others for five, seven, or even nine dimensions. We settled on seven that we believe reflect common sense, science, philosophy, and convenience. Each dimension is multifaceted, overlapping, dynamic, and interactive. Each dimension includes at least three underlying factors that have theoretical and empirical support as drivers of suicide ideation or behavior. The dimensions and their underlying factors are in Table 1.1.

Insert Table 1.1 About Here

Table 1.1: Brief Descriptions of the Seven Dimensions

  • The Emotional Dimension consists of all human emotions ranging from sadness to joy. Empirically supported suicide-related problems in the emotional dimension include:
    • Excruciating emotional distress
    • Specific disturbing emotions (i.e., guilt, shame, anger, or sadness)
    • Emotional dysregulation
  • The Cognitive Dimension consists of all forms of human thought. Empirically supported suicide-related problems in the cognitive dimension include:
    • Hopelessness
    • Problem-solving impairments
    • Maladaptive thoughts
    • Negative core beliefs and self-hatred
  • The Interpersonal Dimension consists of all human relationships. Empirically supported suicide-related problems in the interpersonal dimension include:
    • Social disconnection, alienation, and perceived burdensomeness
    • Interpersonal loss and grief
    • Social skill deficits
    • Repeating dysfunctional relationship patterns
  • The Physical Dimension consists of all human biogenetics and physiology. Empirically supported suicide-related problems in the physical dimension include:
    • Biogenetic predispositions and illness
    • Sedentary lifestyle (lack of movement)
    • Agitation, arousal, anxiety
    • Trauma, nightmares, insomnia
  • The Spiritual-Cultural Dimension consists of all religious, spiritual, or cultural values that provide meaning and purpose in life. Empirically supported suicide-related problems in the spiritual-cultural dimension include:
    • Religious or spiritual disconnection
    • Cultural disconnection or dislocation
    • Meaninglessness
  • The Behavioral Dimension consists of human action and activity. Empirically supported suicide-related problems in the behavioral dimension include:
    • Using substances or cutting for desensitization
    • Suicide planning, intent, and preparation
    • Impulsivity
  • The Contextual Dimension consists of all factors outside of the individual that influence human behavior. Empirically supported suicide-related problems in the contextual dimension include:
    • No connection to place or nature
    • Chronic exposure to unhealthy environmental conditions
    • Socioeconomic oppression or resource scarcity (e.g., Poverty)

End of Table 1.1

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This past week Rita and I submitted the final draft manuscript to the publisher. The next step is a peer review process. While the manuscript is out for review, there’s still time to make changes and so, as usual, please email me with feedback or post your thoughts here.

Thanks for reading!

John S-F

Cool Counseling, Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Suicide Assessment and Intervention, Therapy with Adolescents, Writing

A Sneak Peek at Our Upcoming Suicide Assessment and Treatment Book with the American Counseling Association

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Spring Sunrise and Hay

Rita and I are spending chunks of our social distancing time writing. In particular, we’ve signed a contract to write a professional book with American Counseling Association Publications on suicide assessment and treatment planning. We’ll be weaving a wellness and strength-oriented focus into strategies for assessing and treating suicidality.

Today, I’m working on Chapter 6, titled: The Cognitive Dimension. We open the chapter with a nice Aaron Beck quotation, and then discuss key cognitive issues to address with clients who are suicidal. These issues include: (a) hopelessness, (b) problem-solving impairments, (c) maladaptive thinking, and (d) negative core beliefs.

Then we shift to specific interventions that can be used to address the preceding cognitive issues. In the following excerpt, we focus on collaborative problem solving and illustrate the collaborative problem-solving process using a case example. As always, feel free to offer feedback on this draft content.

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Collaborative Problem-Solving

Though not a suicide-specific intervention, problem-solving therapy is an evidence-based approach to counseling and psychotherapy (Nezu, Nezu, & D’Zurilla, 2013). Components of problem-solving are useful for assessing and intervening with clients who are suicidal. As Reinecke (2006) noted, “From a problem-solving perspective, suicide reflects a breakdown in adaptive, rational problem solving. The suicidal individual is not able to generate, evaluate, and implement effective solutions and anticipates that his or her attempts will prove fruitless” (p. 240).

Extended Case Example: Sophia – Problem-Solving

In Chapter 5 we emphasized that clinicians should initially focus on and show empathy for clients’ excruciating distress and suicidal thoughts. However, there often comes a moment when a pivot toward the positive can occur. Questions that help with this pivot include:

  • What helps, even a tiny bit?
  • When you’ve felt bad in the past, what helped the most?
  • How have you been able to cope with your suicidal thoughts?

In response to these questions, clients who are suicidal often display symptoms of hopelessness, mental constriction, problems with information processing, or selective memory retrieval. Statements like, “I’ve tried everything,” “Nothing helps,” and “I can’t remember ever feeling good,” represent cognitive impairments. Even though your clients may think they’ve tried everything, the truth is that no one could possibly try everything. Similarly, although it’s possible that “nothing” your client does helps very much, it’s doubtful that all their efforts to feel better have been equally ineffective. These statements indicate black-white or polarized thinking, as well as hopelessness and memory impairments (Beck et al., 1979; Reinecke, 2006; Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan, 2018).

Pivoting to the Positive

Picking up from where we left off in Chapter 5, after exploring the distress linked to Sophia’s suicide ideation in the emotional dimension, the counselor (John) pivots to asking about the positive (“What helps?”) and then proceeds into a problem-solving assessment and intervention strategy. One clearly identified trigger for Sophia’s suicidal thinking is her parent’s fighting. She cannot directly do anything about their fights, but she can potentially do other things to shield herself from the downward cognitive and emotional spiral that parental fighting activates in her.

John: Let’s say your parents are fighting and you’re feeling suicidal. You’re in your room by yourself. What could you do that’s helpful in that moment? [The intent is to shift Sophia into active problem-solving.]

Sophia: I have a cat. His name is Douglas. Sometimes he makes me feel better. He’s diabetic, so I don’t think he’ll live much longer, but he’s comforting right now.

John: Nice. My memory’s not perfect, so is it okay with you if I write a list of all the things that help a little bit? Douglas helps you be in a better mood. What else is helpful?

Sophia: I like music. Blasting music makes me feel better. And I play the guitar, so sometimes that helps. And volleyball is a comfort, but I can’t play volleyball in my room.

John: Yeah. Great. Let me jot those down: music, guitar, volleyball, and being with your cat. And volleyball, but not in your room! I guess you can think about volleyball, right? And how about friends? Do you have friends who are positive supports in your life?

Although the fact that Douglas the cat has diabetes includes a depressive tone, the good news is that Sophia immediately engages in problem-solving. She’s able to identify Douglas and other things that help her feel better.

Throughout problem-solving, regularly repeating positive coping strategies back to the client is important. In this case, John summarizes Sophia’s positive ideas, and then asks about friends and social support—a very important dimension in overall suicide safety planning.

Sophia: Yeah, but we’re all busy. My friend Liz and I hang out quite a bit. I can walk into her house, and it will feel like my house. But we’re both in volleyball, so we’re both really busy. But our season will end soon. Hopefully that will help.

John: Ok, the list of things that seem to help, especially when you’re in a hard place with your parents fighting: Douglas the cat, music, guitar, and volleyball, and friends. Anything else to add?

Sophia:  I don’t think so.

Often, the next step in collaborative problem-solving is to ask clients for permission to add to the list, thus turning the process into a shared brain-storming session. At no time during the brainstorming should you criticize any client-generated alternatives, even if they’re dangerous or destructive. In contrast, clients will sometimes criticize your ideas. When clients criticize, just agree with a statement like, “Yeah, you’re probably right, but we’re just brainstorming. We can rank and rate these as good or bad ideas later.”

Overall, the goal is to use brainstorming to assess for and intervene with mental constriction. During brainstorming, Sophia and John generated 13 things Sophia could do to make herself feel better. Sophia’s ability to brainstorm in session is a positive indicator of her responsiveness to treatment.

 

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Happiness

Happiness Lecture 10 — Social PPT Video

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Hi All,

This is a video that accompanies COUNSELING 195 – The Art and Science of Happiness. Due to social distancing, I’m putting my lectures online, and the Moodle shell at the University of Montana rejected the file for being too large, so I’m trying this.

The audio is wonky, but the video focuses on components of the social dimension of well-being and happiness.

Be safe. Be well. Be distant, but stay connected!

John

 

Clinical Interviewing, Cool Counseling, Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Therapy with Adolescents, Tough Kids, Tough Kids Cool Counseling

Free Video Links for Online Teaching

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JSF Travel

This past week I’ve been grateful for the many professionals and organizations (including my publisher, John Wiley & Sons) who are providing free guidance and materials to help with the transition from face-to-face teaching to online instruction. In an effort to contribute back in a small way, I’m posting 10 counseling- and psychotherapy-related videos that can be integrated into online teaching. These videos are free and posted on my YouTube channel. The links are all below with a brief description of the video content.

Some of these videos are rough cuts and all of them are far from perfect demonstrations; that’s partly the point. Although many of the videos show reasonably good counseling skills and interesting assessment processes and therapeutic interventions, none of the videos are scripted, and so there’s plenty of room for review, analysis, critique, and discussion. You can show them as efforts to do CBT, SFBT, Motivational Interviewing, administration of a mental status examination, etc., and prompt students to describe how they would do these sessions even better.

These videos are meant to stimulate learning. In an ideal world, I would include a list of discussion questions, but I’ll leave that to you. If you like, please feel free to use these videos for educational purposes. Here’s the annotated list with video links:

  1. Counseling demonstrations with a 12-year-old.
    1. Opening a counseling session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHHrMC8t6vY
    2. The three-step emotional change trick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITWhMYANC5c
    3. John SF demonstrates the What’s Good About You? informal assessment technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUhmLQUg_g8
    4. Closing a session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpuH80tf2jM
  2. Demo of assessment for anger management with a solution-focused spin with a 20-year-old client: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noE2wMMNLY4
  3. Demo of motivational interviewing with a 30-year-old client: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtN7kEk0Sv4
  4. Demo of the affect bridge technique with an 18-year-old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEtiGuc914E
  5. Demo of CBT for social anxiety with a graduate student: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfVeeGJHFjA
  6. Demo of an MSE with a 20-year-old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adwOxj1o7po
  7. A lecture vignette of a demonstration of psychoanalytic ego defense mechanisms: https://studio.youtube.com/video/E818UlgHMXY/edit
  8. The University of Montana Department of Counseling does a spoof video of The Office: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM8-I8_1CqQ

Good luck with the transition to online teaching and stay healthy!

John S-F

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Happiness, Personal Reflections, Writing

Happiness Homework: Savor Now, Feel Better Later

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Captain America

We all know how to savor chocolate or wine or the cheesecake that tastes like you’ve made it to heaven. When it comes to gustatory experiences, savoring is natural.

Funny thing, savoring successes, beautiful scenery, a poem you hear on the radio, and other potentially positive life experiences often (but not always) feels less natural. That’s too bad, because researchers have repeatedly found that taking a moment to savor the moment in the midst of a busy day can increase happiness and decrease depression. We should try to remember to savor more often.

For this week the plan is for you to pick one savoring assignment from a menu of research-based savoring activities (below). Each of these activities has research support; doing any of them might make you feel significantly more happiness or less depression. Here are your options:

  • Engage in mutual reminiscence. Mutual reminiscence happens when you get together with someone and intentionally pull up and talk about fun, positive, or meaningful memories. I was with my dad last week and did a bit of this and it was nice. Now I have memories of us remembering our shared positive memories.
  • Make a list of positive memories. After making the list, transport yourself to reminisce on one of the memories. You can do this one by yourself. Retrieve the memory. Play it back in your mind. Explore it. Feel it. Let your brain elaborate on the details.
  • Celebrate good news longer than you would. This is easy. You need to track/observe for a positive message or news in your life that feels good. Then, let your mind linger on it. Notice how you feel. What parts of the news are especially meaningful and pleasant to you? Extend and celebrate the good news.
  • Notice and observe beauty. This activity is mostly visual, but you can listen for beautiful sounds too. Let yourself see color, patterns, and nuanced beauty in nature or in art. Linger with that visual and let its pleasant effects be in your eyes, brain, and body. Notice and feel those sensations and thoughts.

As usual, write a short report to Dan and me about your experiences and put it in the appropriate Moodle bin. This report doesn’t need to be long—unless writing it is a pleasant experience for you—in which case, you can linger and write longer.

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Personal Reflections, Writing

Happiness Homework: Week 4 — Thought Monitoring

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Goldilocks and Bears

Active Learning Assignment 6 – Thought Monitoring

Humans are thinking beings. You can try arguing the opposite, but that would require thinking.

Sometime around 1637, René Descartes said it this way,

“Cogito, ergo sum.”

The English translation,

“I think, therefore I am.”

Cool stuff.

After several decades of studying psychological theory, I’m finally ready to make my own fancy Cartesian philosophical statement about human thinking. It’s less succinct than Descartes, because, well, I’m not Descartes. Here we go. First, in Latin (because even though I only typed the words into the Google Latin translator, using Latin makes me sound smarter).

“Cogito ergo sum ego possit cogitare et in tempore angustiae triumphi.”

Now, in English.

“I think therefore I am able to think myself into trouble or triumph.”

Inevitably, the more we think, the more we’re able to create personal misery. Alternatively, as we know all too well from political or romantic or employment or online relationships, we humans are also quite capable of rationalizing behaviors and describing ourselves in ways that makes us feel and sound better than we are in reality. We easily and naturally think our way toward trouble and triumph.

One popular contemporary term that speaks to miserable and unhelpful thinking is “overthinking.” Overthinking refers to excessive analysis around actions or decision-making. Overthinking is usually considered a less-than-optimal style that sometimes leads to paralysis by analysis.

Unfortunately, although life is better when we avoid overthinking, “underthinking” (although it hasn’t caught on), is equally bad. Underthinking results in impulsive and thoughtless behaviors and decisions.

As if life wasn’t already hard enough, like Goldilocks, now we have to avoid overthinking and underthinking, and find just the right amount of thinking.

All this brings us to our current happiness assignment.

  1. Using the six-column model demonstrated in class (on Feb 4), track the relationships between your situational triggers, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. One or two examples is sufficient.
  2. Write one paragraph about anything you learned about how your thoughts and behaviors affect your emotions (for the better or for the worse).
  3. Come to the lab on Thursday (Feb 6) ready to discuss anything you may have discovered about how your thoughts and behaviors affect your emotions.

Just in case you need it, here’s a longer description of how to do the six-column technique: https://johnsommersflanagan.com/2014/02/18/how-to-use-the-six-column-cbt-technique/

Good luck and may the happiness be with you.

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Happiness, Personal Reflections, Writing

Four Questions to Help Keep Your Focus on the Positive

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Brain Image

Everyone agrees that the human brain is amazing. Perhaps the most amazing quality of human brains is the ability to shift focus. In an instant and at will, you can shift your focus from a current life conundrum, to the big toe on your left foot, to your dreams for the future, and to a memory from 1st grade. You can explore all these things—at least superficially—and then move on to the meaning of existence and the possibility of life on Mars all in less than one minute. In fact, as you were reading this, I’ll bet you were able to touch on all those thoughts.

Although shifting attention can feel random, it’s a power that most of us should learn to use more intentionally.

We’re using several methods for helping students intentionally harness their attentional focus in the Art and Science of Happiness course at the University of Montana. One method involves homework. Another method involves in-class and happiness lab activities. A third method (and the one featured here), is intentional and regular use of self-reflection. To accomplish this, we ask students to answer four reflection questions every two weeks.

Here are the questions, along with a small sampling of anonymized student responses:

  1. Over the past two weeks, what lecture content stood out to you as most important to you in your life?
  • “The sleep lecture and what you can do to sleep better, and what causes nightmares and night terrors”
  • “Happiness doesn’t have to ALWAYS be present in order to be happy.”
  • “I really enjoyed the lecture about the three steps to cure nightmares.”
  1. Over the past two weeks, what classroom or lab activities do you recall as most important to you in your life?
  • “All of them have been influential . . . and hope to continue these assignments into the future.”
  • “Having a happy song playing at the beginning of class is such a great way to start class.”
  • “The hand-pushing activity about how we should go into a situation with a plan.”
  1. Over the past two weeks, what positive changes have you noticed in yourself or in your life?
  • “After doing the 3 good things activity at night I felt relaxed and in a better mood.”
  • “I’m working on my sleep schedule which has felt good.”
  • “I found the sleeping tips to be really helpful in my own life and help me to improve my sleep.”
  1. Over the past two weeks, what activities, interactions, or thoughts have you experienced (outside of class) that were especially meaningful to you?
  • “Finding something inspirational.”
  • “More positive outlook on life.”
  • “I experienced being able to change my thoughts on a negative day by looking at three good things and able to remember that even on bad days there are still good things to remember.”

As I look over the students’ responses to these questions and the homework assignments, I feel like I’m catching some positive psychology contagion. I’m grateful to be able to teach this course and inspired by the students’ efforts to apply positive psychology principles to their lives.

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Happiness, Personal Reflections, Writing

Happiness Homework — Week 3: University of Montana

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Stone Smirk

This week we’ve only got one active learning assignment (see below). That’s probably because there’s a Moodle quiz later in the week and, of course, there are things for students to watch and listen to, like these:

  1. Listen: Science vs. Podcast – All Aboard the Snooze Cruise https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/o2hx57
  2. WATCH: Hacking your brain for happiness by James Doty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4TJEA_ZRys
  3. Listen: The Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast, Episode: Teens and Depression — https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/teens-depression/id1170841304?i=1000383659996

And here’s the active learning homework for the week!

Active Learning Assignment 5 – Your Favorite Relaxation Method

As you likely recall from the Thursday, January 23 lecture, in 1975, Herbert Benson of Harvard University published a book titled, The Relaxation Response. Benson wrote that for humans to achieve the relaxation response, they needed four components:

  1. A quiet place.
  2. A comfortable position.
  3. A mental device.
  4. A passive attitude.

For this assignment, your job is to identify and practice your favorite relaxation method. The good news is that you don’t really need a quiet place and a comfortable position (although they help, they’re not essential). But you do need a mental device and a passive attitude.

Unfortunately, as it turns out, for some people, the act of trying to relax creates anxiety. This is a puzzling paradox. Why would trying to relax trigger anxiety?

The intent to relax can trigger anxiety in several different ways. For some, if you try to relax, you can also trigger worries about not being able to relax. This is a relatively natural byproduct of self-consciousness. If this is the case for you, take it slowly. Self-awareness can trigger self-consciousness and self-consciousness can trigger anxiety . . . but time and practice can overcome these obstacles.

For others, a history of trauma or physical discomfort can be activated. This is similar to self-consciousness because the turning of your attention to your body inevitably makes you more aware of your body and this awareness can draw you into old, emotionally or physically painful memories. If this is the case for you, again, take it slowly. Also, manage your expectations, and get support as needed. Support could come in the form of specific comforting and soothing cues (even physical cues), an outside support person, or a professional counselor or psychotherapist.

Trauma and anxiety are common human challenges. Although trauma and anxiety can be terribly emotionally disturbing and disruptive, the core treatment for these problems usually involves one or more forms of exposure and can be traced back to Mary Cover Jones. You can read more about Mary Cover Jones and her amazing work on my blog: https://johnsommersflanagan.com/2018/06/04/the-secret-self-regulation-cure-seriously-this-time/

Okay, that’s enough of my jibber-jabbering. Here’s your assignment:

  1. Try integrating your favorite relaxation method (no drugs please) into your daily life. You can do it for a minute here and there, or 20 minutes all at once.
  2. Write me a paragraph or two about how it went. Include reflections on (a) what helped you relax more? and (b) what got into the way of you relaxing (obstacles)?
  3. Write me a paragraph about how you might try to do more relaxing in the future—including how you will deal with those pesky obstacles.

Thanks for reading and have a fantastic Sunday.

 

 

 

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Happiness, Personal Reflections, Writing

Happiness Homework: Week 2 — University of Montana

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Peg and John Singing at Pat's Wedding

Yesterday the happiness class focused on the context of happiness and happiness habits. On my powerpoint slides, I managed to reverse the numerator and denominator of Bono’s happiness equation, resulting in my abject humiliation in front of the class. This led to my personally disclosing my most humiliating experience ever, thereby demonstrating how contextual experiences in the here-and-now can trigger memories that can then either magnify or minimize an experience of happiness or unhappiness in the moment. I’ll spare you the details of my historical humiliations, and instead, direct you toward this week’s happiness homework assignments.

By now, students have read chapters one and two in Tim Bono’s book, “When Likes Aren’t Enough: A crash course in the science of happiness.” Additionally, they listened to a Hidden Brain podcast on Creatures of Habit: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/787160734, and watched a short Forest Bathing video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0MEFNyLPag

The two take-home assignments of the week are described below:

Active Learning Assignment 3 – Three Happy Places

More often than we might think, our environment, setting, or context directly influences our mood and sense of well-being. This is most obvious when we’re in settings or environments that we find aversive.

To start this assignment, reflect briefly on environments, settings, or contexts that you find aversive. For example, some people find cloudy days, rain, smoky skies (or rooms), or particular temperatures aversive or uncomfortable. Other people might find churches, gyms, or libraries aversive.

Now, consider the opposite: What environments, settings, or contexts do you find pleasurable, comforting, or energizing? As you may have noticed in the short “Forest bathing” video, there’s evidence that, in general, more time in the outdoors is linked to increased feelings of well-being. For this assignment, don’t worry about what “should” be your happy place. . . but if the outdoors is a happy place for you, be sure to include it.

After reading and reflecting on the above, write a few words (short answers) in response to the following prompts:

  1. List three settings that usually trigger negativity or discomfort in you.
  2. List three settings that usually trigger happiness and wellbeing in you (and be specific). These are your happy places
  3. What can you do to prepare for or cope with challenging settings that usually cause you discomfort? (Other than avoiding them)
  4. What can you do to increase the frequency of time you spend in environments that contribute to your feelings of wellness?
  5. What can you do to create places or spaces in your mind that you can use (anywhere and anytime) to increase your sense of comfort and wellness in the moment?

Active Learning Assignment 4 – Three Good Things

Perhaps the most basic and well-known evidence-based happiness assignment is Martin Seligman’s Three Good Things activity.

Here’s Seligman’s description: Write down, for one week, before you go to sleep, three things that went well for you during the day, and then reflect on why they went well.

Just in case you want to hear it from the horse’s mouth, here’s a one-minute video of Seligman describing the activity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOGAp9dw8Ac

For this assignment, you should do the Three Good Things activity for a week, as prescribed by Seligman. Dan and I don’t need to see all 21 good things from your whole week, but we would like you to share the following with us:

  1. Three ESPECIALLY good things from the week (think of these of as your Good Things Highlights). We’re very excited to hear about these.
  2. The most common (summarized) explanations for why these 21 good things happened. We’re very interested in what’s happening (or what you’re doing) to create the good things in your day-to-day lives.

 

 

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Happiness, Personal Reflections, Writing

Happiness Homework: Week One – University of Montana

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IMG_3098

In the friendly confines of a psychological laboratory, happiness is created rather easily. In the real world, happiness is more elusive.

Whether researchers have college students hold pens with their teeth or write down three good things or express gratitude, mood is boosted. In the real world, sometimes you have to force yourself to smile, and even still, you may not experience happiness.

You might wonder, do the small behaviors that improve mood in the lab result in sustained positive moods into the future? Martin Seligman, the contemporary psychologist most closely linked to the positive psychology movement (and author of Authentic Happiness and Flourishing) says yes. Although I’m less sure about this than Dr. Seligman, I am sure that many small behaviors over time—the sorts of behaviors that become positive habits (or positive routines)—can, for many, result in improved moods sustained over time.

Instead of assuming that everything Martin Seligman or other researchers say is true, in our University of Montana happiness class (COUN 195: The Art and Science of Happiness) we’re all about directly testing evidence-based happiness strategies. Part of the reason we’re testing these strategies is because we’re replicating nomothetic scientific findings in idiographic contexts. The true originator of positive psychology, Alfred Adler, would be happy about this. That’s because Adler believed we can never know if group scientific findings generalize to individuals, until we try them out with individuals.

In the spirit of positive psychology, and in an effort to develop and maintain healthy habits in college students, I’m giving small weekly homework assignments in the UM happiness class. Sometimes these assignments are verbatim (or nearly so) from published scientific research. Other times they’re assignments that Dan Salois (my TA) and I have created just for the class. This week’s assignments are home cooking.

I’m including these assignments on my blog so you can follow along with the class and experience different approaches to creating positive moods and psychological wellness. These assignments aren’t stand-alone miracles; they’re brief and simple behaviors purposely designed to elicit positive emotions and prompt you (and the happiness students) to reflect on the nature of positive emotions and wellness-oriented behaviors. They might work as intended, or they might not. I hope they work.

You have two assignments for this week.

Active Learning Assignment 1 – Happy Songs in Your Life

Music in general, and songs in particular, can trigger happiness, sadness, other emotions, and life memories. Sometimes our emotional responses to music are all about the music. Other times, our emotional responses are about the personal links, associations, or memories that songs trigger. For example, when I listen to “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night, I’m transported back to positive memories I had playing 9th grade basketball. The song, “Put the Lime in the Coconut” will forever take me back to a car accident that happened with my sister in 1973. It’s not unusual for us to turn to music to help regulate our emotions or to heighten particular feelings.

For this assignment, do the following:

  1. Select a song that has triggers positive emotions for you.
  2. Listen to the song twice in a row and just let the song do its work. You can do this with a friend or by yourself. Don’t WATCH the song. If it’s a music video, shut your eyes and listen.
  3. After you’ve listened twice and let the positive feelings come, respond to the following prompts, and then upload your responses to Moodle.
    1. Write the name of the song and the musical artist (so we know the song).
    2. What emotion does the song bring up?
    3. What’s your best guess (hypothesis) for why the song brings up those particular emotions? (Share the lyrics or the links to life events that make the song emotionally important to you).
    4. Do you usually listen to that song to intentionally create a particular emotional state, or do you wait for the song to randomly pop into your life?
    5. Optional: share the song with someone and tell that person why the song triggers positive emotions for you.

Active Learning Assignment 2 – Witness Something Inspiring

Inspiring things are constantly happening in the world.

Martin Luther King Day is coming. Martin Luther King was a source of great inspiration for many. Over this coming long weekend you could watch a video recording of King’s “I have a dream” speech and feel inspired. You could also go on the internet and find something inspiring on social medial. But instead, just for fun (and for this assignment), we want you to watch for and observe something inspiring that’s happening in the real world.

The inspiring event that you notice may be small or it may be big. The key part of this assignment is that it involves intentionally watching for that which will inspire. Keep all your sensory modalities open for inspiration. Then, write Dan a short note (about 200 to 300 words) describing what you experienced. Your note should include:

  1. What it was like to intentionally pay attention to things that might inspire you.
  2. A description of what you observed.
  3. Reactions you had to the inspirational event.
  4. Anything else you want to add.

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Try these assignments for yourself (or not). If it strikes your fancy, you can post your reactions on this blog (or not).

I hope the remainder of your Martin Luther King weekend is fantastic.