Review | Psychology

Three force of psychology

The first force was behaviorism: B. F. Skinner, John B. Watson, Edward Thorndik.

The second force was psychoanalysis (精神分析學): Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler.

The third force, humanistic psychology came as a reaction (異議) to it.

Reaction to behaviorism. Behaviorism looks at the human entity, at the person as basically a collection of behaviors as a box, like a billiard ball (撞球) knocked around by reinforcements, by punishment, by reward. And what humanistic psychology said was that we have spirit, we have a soul. We have cognitions and thoughts that matter. Its not just behavior that is important for understanding as well as improving life (不能只靠行為觀察).

Reaction to psychoanalysis. The psychoanalysis is about basically understanding mostly through the subconscious (潛意識分析): thats how you understand it; thats how you improve the quality of life. There are defense mechanisms, there are biological instincts, neurosis-- and if you understand these very often dark forces, were better able to deal with life: understand as well as improve the quality of life (理解防衛和本能). Humanistic psychology says human beings are much more than biological instincts, much more than neurosis. We need to value much more the human being. We need to give much more dignity and freedom to the person.

But humanistic psychology is said lacked the rigorous methodology.

Rollo May. Carl Rogers.

Abraham Maslow introduced this humanistic psychology in 1954. He wrote a chapter, called "Toward the Positive Psychology". goodness and happiness and optimism.

Karen Horney was initially a psychoanalyst. She said we also, not only but also have to focus on what is working on human organism. We have to work and look at the fine qualities and cultivate those. Because part of being human is being those things as well.

Aaron Antonovsky introduced a new concept "salutogenesis": saluto--(which is) health; geneis (which is) origin. The origin of health. So instead of just studying pathologies, we should also study the origin of health.

Common sense is not that common.

Thank you for reminding me of something that Ive already known.

Most of education today is about information. What is information? So we have a container, which is our mind. And information is about taking data, taking science, taking information and putting it inside the form. That is information. Now when this form is filled, thats when we are educated. More information, more data, better. Not enough. Because its not just information that determines our wellbeing, our success, our self-esteem, our motivational level, the relationship and the quality of our relationships.

Transformation is about taking this form and changing it.

Its not just the information that goes in. Its also the shape, the interpretation, the perception, the focus. And that is determined by the shape of the form.

Its over-promising and under-delivering. A life, a fulfilling life, a rich life includes ups and downs, includes pain and getting up again, includes failure and getting up again. It includes success and celebrating it.

What is wrong is not the great discoveries of science-- information is always better than ignorance, no matter what information or what ignorance. What is wrong is the belief behind the information, the belief that information will change the world. It wont.

External refers to information. Internal refers to the transformation, the changing of the form.

Its about chipping away the excess stone. Its about getting rid of limitations, of barriers, whether its the fear of failure, something that we didnt have as kids. But today most people in our culture have it. Its about chipping away perfectionism that is debilitating (使虛弱) and often hurts us.

Soul grows more by subtraction than by addition.

Two things along mattered in terms of determining who will be the extraordinarily successful and the rest:

The extraordinarily successful groups really believe in themselves. They thought they could do well. They were driven. They were motivated. The sense of the confidence.

They were always asking questions, --always asking questions, initially of their boss, later of their employees, of their partners, children, parents, friends. They were always at the state of curiosity. Always looking up, opening up, wanting to understand the world the more.

Happiness resides on a continuum. So my answer to this question-- "am I happy?" is today Im happier than I was 15 years ago when I started focusing on this pursuit. Happiness is lifelong pursuit.

Of course youll look at research and read research about other people, about large sample sizes. But Im going to encourage you more than anything to look inside yourselves. To study yourselves.

Because as Carl Rogers says, "What is most personal is most general." And as Maslow adds, "We must remember that knowledge of ones own deep nature is also simultaneously knowledge of human nature in general." When we understand ourselves better, when we identify ourselves, we are better able to identify with others.

For every paper that youll read, youll always be thinking, "Ok, how can I take these ideas and apply them to my life? How can I apply them to my relationship? How can I apply them to my community?" Two levels. The academic. Applied.

"Replay might constitute a general mechanism of learning and memory". Both learning, understanding, as well as memory retention (記憶保留). When we reflect, when we replay the material, we are much more likely to retain, to remember what we have just been through. So the importance of time aside cannot be over-emphasized.

Words are not the sole medium of exchange in teaching and learning. We educate with silence as well. Silence gives us a chance to reflect on what we have said and heard. In authentic education, silence is treated as a trustworthy matrix for the inner work students must do, a medium for learning of the deepest sort.

Resilience, a class of phenomena, characterized by patterns of positive adaptation in the context of significant adversity or risk.

These were ordinary kids with ordinary characteristics that led to extraordinary results.

1. Optimistic, -- not optimistic in the detached Pollyannish sense, -- optimistic in that they believe in things that would work out well. "Well, it may not work well this time. It will work out later. I have learned from what had just happened."
2. They had faith and sense of meaning in life. It was doing something that they really believed in. Many of them were idealistic.
3. Pro-social behavior, helping other people, shifting from helplessness to helpfulness. It doesnt just only help others, it also helps ourselves. And we enter an upward spiral between self-help and other-help.
4. They focused on their strength rather than primarily deficiencies.
5. They were future-oriented, not just thinking about how bad things are today perhaps, but also thinking about "this is where I wanna be 5 years or 10 years from now."
6. They had a role model.
7. They did not bowl alone. They had social support. They did not say : "well I am tough enough to do it by myself." Rather they said :"Im tough enough to reach out for help."
8. Admit weaknesses.

The consequences of the ability to focus that is not always good its not always helpful.

The only thing well see in ourselves are weaknesses and deficiencies. The good things-- our strengths, our passions, our virtues-- the wonderful things within us do not exist.

"Appreciate". Two meanings:

1. To say thank you for something, not to take it for granted. And thats a nice thing to do. We shouldnt take for granted our virtues, our successes.
2. To grow. Money appreciates in the bank. When we appreciate the good, the good appreciates-- the good grows. When we dont appreciate the good, when we take it for granted, the good depreciates.

"We see what we look for and we miss much of what we are not looking for even though it is there. Our experience of the world is heavily influenced by where we place our attention."

Change

Whatever the change you want to introduce to in your life, there are certain pattern. Certain approaches that work. Certain approaches that dont work. What we are going to is differentiate what works and what doesnt so that you can apply it to your life.

Sometimes its a single sentence that makes a difference to their entire life. They are the exceptions. But the questions are no longer whether or not change is possible. The question is "how is change possible".

Lets go micro here. Lets go to the brain level. How does change actually look like? What happens in our brain when change occurs?

Neuroplasticity (神經可塑性) are neurons are plastic- they change. Not only do the pathways change in the brain, but also theyve come up with another concept, which is neurogenesis (the growth of new neurones). The brain turns out in many ways is like muscle: use it and you dont lose it.

There are millions of channels inside, some are very thin, they are relatively new. Some are much thicker, much more established.

New neutrones are created constantly. Initially its very thin.

If I hear the word once and never again, the neural pathway will disintegrate (破裂), will disappear.

Every time a connection is made between neurones- in other word, your thought pattern follows a certain path. That path grows.

There is no work being done in the neuron, it shrinks a little bit.

Established neural pathway attracts more action and it attracts more action and gets thicker.

And this is what habits are. When something is reinforced over and over again, it becomes a habit.

Here is the key aspect for understanding how we can change our thought, how we can change our wellbeing ultimately. Think about it: when it rain, when there is a down pour.

That is why if we want to remember something, its very good to make connections to other thing, to existing neural pathway, to existing memories.

In our brain there are both healthy and unhealthy pathways. So for example, some of the negative channels may be one of the constant worrier, constantly worrying about things. Even good things very often.

The world is not just the external world. Its also the internal world.

The change process can be as enjoyable as the outcome.

The acute change happens immediately. But takes a lot of preparation.

Martin Seligman: 「The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to gratification (滿足) and bypass (繞過) the exercise of personal strengths and virtues is folly (蠢). It leads to legions (團) of humanity who are depressed in the middle of great wealth and are starving to death spiritually."

The important thing to keep in mind with both forms of changes, with all form of lasting change (not just the spike and the return to base level) that is that neither is quick-fix.

And the expectation of the quick-fix that is one of the reasons why levels of the depression are so high today, because people are frustrated. They are disappointed. They think theres something wrong with them when they dont succeed in the quick-fix.

It was only once I understood that for me these two things go hand in hand, I was able to unpack them, to distinguish them. I want to keep one not the other.

So our subconscious prefers to keep us unhappy, so that we dont lose the other things that we value highly, things such as ambition, having an edge, hard work. Now of course when we look at them we know that they dont necessarily have to go hand in hand.

Were gonna discuss three distinct but interconnected pathways to change— the ABCs of psychology.

• A is the affect, the emotion.
• B is the behavior, the action.
• C is the cognition, the thought.

For each one were going to talk about the gradual change approach and the acute change approach. These six approaches to change are interconnected. Its important to connect them.

John Dryden, 「we first make our habit and then our habits make us.」

According to researchers led by the lights of Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ed Diener, happiness comprises three factors.

1. The genetic set range, not genetic set point, its a range. About 50 percent of our levels of well-being of the variance in explaining happiness cant be accounted for by genes. We have a lot of control what we do with these genes.
2. External circumstances. However, in general, external circumstances beyond the extremes make very little difference, about 10% of the total variance.
3. The rest of the 40% is accounted for by intentional activities (what we do, how we act, what we think about, how we interpret the world, what we focus on).

A

The A is a more logical connection, linguistic connection between emotion, motivation, motion. We need emotion in order to move.

The gradual change is mindful meditation. Mindful meditation is arguably (可認證的) the most powerful intervention for bringing about calm and equanimity (鎮靜).

The spiral of mindfulness.

"Cultivating mindfulness can lead to the discovery of deep realms of relaxation, calmness and insight within yourself. The path to it in any moment lies no farther than your own body and mind and your own breathing."

"All of us have the capacity to be mindful. All it involves is cultivating our ability to pay attention in the present moment."

"Mindfulness means seeing things as they are, without trying to change them. The point is to dissolve our reactions to disturbing emotions, being careful not to reject the emotion itself." This is what permission to be human is all about.

Even if this is gradual change, within as little as 8 weeks of regular meditation, our brain actually starts to change its form to transform. This is gradual, slow, hopefully something that youll take up as a life time, life long intervention.

The acute change. More people experience growth as a result of a trauma (精神創傷) than post, than PTSD. Most people are extremely resilient able to withstand trauma. Things dont happen for the best. But some people are able to make the best of things that happen. Post-traumatic growth, it happens when people begin to focus on the benefit.

Is there a positive equivalent to trauma, something that is so powerful yet positive that will change the way our brain functions in an instance like a sledgehammer? The peak experience: "its a generalization for the best moments of the human being, for the happiest moments of life, for experiences of ecstasy, rapture, bliss, of the greatest joy. I found that such experiences came from profound aesthetic experiences such as creative ecstasies, moments of mature love, perfect sexual experiences, parental love, experiences of natural childbirth, and many others." Feeling so good so complete like you dont need anything else.

One of the greatest barriers in our culture, time. Its very difficult to experience peak experiences when were on the rush, when were stressed and anxious.

How do we enhance the likelihood of PPEO once we have experienced peak experience?

1. Replaying an image.
2. Writing about it, describing it, not analyzing it.
3. Taking action.

B

After the workshop or class, not at the end of the semester, they dont wait and say "ok, after this course is over, Ill reevaluate my life and see how I do." Immediately introducing real behavioral change, doing exercises that we talked about in class, taking risks that they havent before immediately, not waiting.

Very often behavioral change is gradual.

The acute change is about coping (應對). When we cope, the important thing its to take risks. Its about exiting our comfort zone and entering our stretch zone. The key is optimum levels of discomfort. And why? There is no other way to change. I can think about it all day long. Nothing will happen unless we bring about real actual behavioral change, real actual behavioral action.

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