tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/self-help-7687/articlesSelf-help – The Conversation2024-02-26T19:00:43Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2074262024-02-26T19:00:43Z2024-02-26T19:00:43ZThe Secret promises we can ‘manifest’ what we want. But if that’s true, why aren’t we all rich and famous?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576648/original/file-20240220-26-k72tyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5991%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mikhail Nilov/Pexel</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Our cultural touchstones series looks at influential books.</em></p>
<p>Imagine you really wanted something and all you had to do was ask the universe and you would get it. That’d be awesome, right?! </p>
<p>I present this to my students in my first-year Research Methods in Psychology course, in the first session of the semester. Then I ask them what they think. </p>
<p>The first respondent is usually bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. They say something like: “Absolutely! You can achieve anything you want if you put your mind to it!” Emboldened, a handful of others express similar sentiments. Naturally, there are also sceptical students, but at this point it doesn’t suit my agenda to give them much oxygen. </p>
<p>Next, I tell the students I presume they’d all love to achieve High Distinctions in my course. I tell them it is, in fact, possible, and I’m going to share how it can be done. At this point, even the most sceptical students are intrigued. </p>
<p>I tell them all they need to know is … The Secret. </p>
<h2>A self-help megaseller</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52529.The_Secret">The Secret</a> is a 2006 feature-length film and then book created by Australian Rhonda Byrne, who was a television executive when she came up with it. </p>
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<p>The book has sold more than 35 million copies and been translated into more than 50 languages. Byrne has gone on to produce several related books, including The Greatest Secret, and associated merchandise, like a card deck. </p>
<p>It was even adapted as a romantic drama film, <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-secret-dare-to-dream-movie-review-2020">The Secret: Dare to Dream</a>, starring Katie Holmes and released in 2020. (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/30/the-secret-dare-to-dream-review-hokey-wish-fulfillment-soap">The Guardian described it</a> as “inoffensively middling […] with nothing of note other than a few laughably dumb moments”.)</p>
<p>Others have also got in on the act. For example, there’s a DVD titled <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Secret-Behind-Abraham/dp/B000O76WTW">The Secret Behind The Secret</a>, in which a self-help guru purports to channel a spiritual being called Benjamin. </p>
<p>The Secret’s fundamental claim is that a law of attraction operates within the universe: we become or attract what we think about most. In effect, positive things happen to positive people and negative things happen to negative people. Importantly, we are not passive recipients of our outcomes. Rather, we manifest our outcomes by actively thinking about them. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Secret: Dare to Dream, the 2020 adaptation starring Katie Holmes, was described as ‘inoffensively middling’.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Oprah Winfrey, who <a href="https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1944527_1944528_1944309,00.html">lavishly embraced The Secret</a>, devoting two episodes of her talk show to it in 2006, said it embodied the message she’d been trying to share for 21 years: “you are responsible for your life”.</p>
<p>As others have pointed out, these ideas are not a secret and they’re not new. </p>
<p>The Secret is effectively a repackaging of the “power of positive thinking” <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-pop-psychology-can-it-make-your-life-better-or-is-it-all-snake-oil-158709">pop psychology</a> from recent decades – and, centuries earlier, the quackery of the metaphysical movement. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-avoid-toxic-positivity-and-take-the-less-direct-route-to-happiness-170260">How to avoid 'toxic positivity' and take the less direct route to happiness</a>
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<h2>Victim blaming</h2>
<p>Much <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0033-2909.131.6.803">empirical psychological research</a> suggests thinking and feeling positively is likely to be associated with more positive outcomes. </p>
<p>But there’s a stark gap between the blithe blanket statements of The Secret and the <a href="https://people.clas.ufl.edu/shepperd/files/moderators.pdf">empirical studies</a> that have tested the qualifications and nuances of the effects of positive expectations. </p>
<p>It’s in that gap where The Secret becomes an easy target.</p>
<p>For instance, The Secret is good news for anyone fortunate enough to be blessed with an eternally sunny disposition, but less so for anyone struggling with chronic depression. The Secret suggests depression and its consequences are the fault of the victim. If only they could think more positively! </p>
<p>Taken on face value, the principles espoused in The Secret should mean the end of poverty and war. Perhaps we’re not wishing hard enough? </p>
<p>Elsewhere, The Secret has <a href="https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/is-the-secret-law-of-attraction-considered-quantum-physics-do-you-support-it.397994/">offended physicists</a> with its misappropriation of quantum physics principles to explain the “law of attraction” (in itself a pseudoscientific idea). </p>
<p>And yet … people love this stuff. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-causes-depression-what-we-know-dont-know-and-suspect-81483">What causes depression? What we know, don’t know and suspect</a>
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<h2>An alluring fiction</h2>
<p>On Amazon, more than 40,000 customers have taken the time to review the book. The average rating is 4.6/5. Perhaps this should not be surprising. </p>
<p>The Secret (superficially) taps into a spiritual realm and research demonstrates that spirituality <a href="https://downloads.hindawi.com/archive/2012/278730.pdf">nurtures and comforts many</a>. The Secret speaks to a search for meaning and we know feeling a sense of purpose in life <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.141">provides a measure of happiness</a>. The Secret proposes the individual has the power to control their own destiny – and research demonstrates the role a <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-4276-5_19">sense of personal control</a> has in people’s lives. </p>
<p>And The Secret encourages <a href="https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1348/026151004772901140">magical thinking</a>, which some people may be prone to more than they realise. The Secret promises the alluring fiction that – just for once – things in life might be easy. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Chaser’s War on Everything questioned The Secret’s ability to deliver almost 15 years ago.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Back in the classroom, in <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-america-enduring-a-slow-civil-war-jeff-sharlet-visits-trump-rallies-a-celebrity-megachurch-and-the-manosphere-to-find-out-203948">this Trumpian age</a> where truth is in the eye of the beholder, The Secret reminds us the principles of the scientific method are still important when it comes to critically consuming information. </p>
<p>There are several ways of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267098119_Conducting_Research_in_Psychology_Measuring_the_Weight_of_Smoke">knowing about the world</a>. We can defer to authority. We can rely on our intuition. We can employ logic. And we can make observations based on our experiences.</p>
<h2>Pseudo ‘experts’</h2>
<p>To some extent, Rhonda Byrne and her devotees leverage these knowledge sources to help give credence to The Secret. For example, it has been endorsed by high-profile influencers (like Winfrey) and prominent US personal development gurus (like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MulLAfffQoQ">Bob Proctor</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_mJiImlcXQ">John Assaraf</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEgaSB7udDg">Jack Canfield</a>). Byrne claims eminent historical figures – including Plato, Shakespeare and Einstein – knew the secret and employed its principles. </p>
<p>All these people are experts, or at least present themselves as experts. So they must know what they’re talking about. As they’re authority figures, we intuit they can be trusted. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, it’s the equivalent of toothpaste advertisers dressing an actor in a white coat to imply they’re a scientist, who recommends a particular brand of toothpaste. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Oprah Winfrey embraced The Secret, helping to make it a bestseller.</span></figcaption>
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<p>To persuade you, The Secret takes you down the peripheral route, the one where you don’t put much effort into your research – “Einstein used it! There must be something to it!” – rather than the central route, where you think critically about claims. “Just because she says Einstein used it doesn’t make it valid. And how does she know he used it?”</p>
<p>The Secret appeals to intuition, by appropriating spiritual and scientific language. To the extent an individual believes in a spiritual dimension to this world, or that they can control their own destiny, The Secret speaks loudly. </p>
<p>On the other hand, anyone who thinks critically about its claims presumably finds themselves arriving at the maxim that if it sounds too good to be true, it is. </p>
<h2>Positive thinking plus effort</h2>
<p>Back in the lecture theatre, my students unpack the claims of The Secret. Quite reasonably, they suggest a whole bunch of important ingredients are needed in addition to “positive thinking”, if someone really is going to manifest their deepest desires. Things like hard work, perseverance, motivation, skill and ability.</p>
<p>The Secret is less able to appeal to logic, though it attempts to by referring to the pseudoscientific “law of attraction”. Again, the secret of The Secret’s success lies in the suggestibility of association. Referring to a “law” implies there is a scientific basis to the principles – and we all know science is logical, right? </p>
<p>A key component of the scientific method is that theories must be testable. Testing theories requires making observations – that is, collecting data. </p>
<p>If personal experience is one form of empirical evidence, then The Secret performs very impressively. There are thousands of testimonials on the internet from people around the world attesting to its ability to deliver results. </p>
<p>But dig a little deeper, and it’s clear this anecdotal evidence (“it happened to me, therefore it’s a thing”) almost always reflects the problem of the illusory correlation. Two events occur in close proximity to the other and rather than putting it down to coincidence, for example, people presume the first event caused the second. </p>
<p>This is even more likely to occur when an individual is <a href="https://www.donchristoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/nickerson1998.pdf">looking to confirm</a> – rather than test – their beliefs. </p>
<p>So, individuals wanting to see evidence The Secret works will find it. They ask the universe for a pay increase and two weeks later they get it. The possibility the pay increase was always on its way, due to their previous hard work and diligence, does not seem to be relevant. </p>
<p>Before my students leave, I wish them all the best for the course and their other university studies. I tell them I hope they all achieve the outcomes they desire. </p>
<p>And I remind them some of the principles embraced by The Secret do have some merit and are supported by empirical psychological research. Particularly, the idea that having a positive attitude tends to produce positive outcomes – though not always, and not because some magical connection with the universe made it so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207426/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Strelan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A psychology professor debunks Rhonda Byrne’s world-bestselling book and film – and her theory of personal success through a magical connection with the universe.Peter Strelan, Professor, School of Psychology, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2110432023-09-12T20:09:51Z2023-09-12T20:09:51ZCan self-help books help with depression? I spoke to readers to find out<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547654/original/file-20230912-27-s73lh2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=70%2C47%2C3794%2C2523&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gin/Pexels</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For millions of readers around the world, <a href="https://www.griffithreview.com/articles/help-yourself/">self-help books</a> offer a discreet, affordable way to access an array of psychological insights and therapeutic techniques.</p>
<p>Take a moment to browse your local bookshop or department store, and you’ll find books addressing everything from shyness and burnout to worry, weight loss and “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/25/archives/depression-the-common-cold-of-mental-ailments.html">the common cold of psychiatric ailments</a>” – depression.</p>
<p>But do they actually help? And what’s the best way to find out?</p>
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<span class="caption">Do self-help books actually help their readers?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shiromani Kant/Unsplash</span></span>
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<p>As part of a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437231198431">larger study</a>, I interviewed 13 readers with a diagnosis of <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-depression-11447">depression</a> about their experiences with reading self-help books. They filled out a survey and then participated in extended one-on-one interviews.</p>
<p>With few exceptions, they recalled an initial phase of wanting “the instant gratification of being fixed”. But they persevered when reading didn’t provide immediate relief, finding that “realistic” expectations eventually yielded more positive and useful negotiations with self-help books over time.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-depression-11447">Explainer: what is depression?</a>
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<h2>Silver bullet or snake oil?</h2>
<p>Numerous studies have considered whether self-help books produce results.</p>
<p>In some studies, clinical researchers have acknowledged the potential of self-help books as a viable treatment for depression. People may <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9194011/">feel better</a> after reading them.</p>
<p>In other studies, media researchers have described them as problematic – or even dangerous. People may <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1440783309103343">feel worse</a> after reading them.</p>
<p>Neither approach considers what happens when everyday readers choose self-help books for themselves – and read them whatever way they like.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-pop-psychology-can-it-make-your-life-better-or-is-it-all-snake-oil-158709">The rise of pop-psychology: can it make your life better, or is it all snake-oil?</a>
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<h2>Self-help means ‘help yourself’</h2>
<p>What did my work with real-word readers reveal?</p>
<p>First, they’d learned to read selectively and strategically. They recognised that useful perspectives and advice might be embedded in larger narratives that are irrelevant, unhelpful or even harmful. </p>
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<p>Even a “woo woo” book like <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/The-Secret/Rhonda-Byrne/The-Secret-Library/9781582701707">The Secret</a> could offer something of value, readers suggested, “because it’s a whole book”. One reader called their approach searching for a “golden thread”. Another insisted some books “are packaged in a lot of junk, but they do have valid, valuable information in them”.</p>
<p>Readers also read widely, picking and choosing from books about other topics to better understand how depression can develop and manifest. “I’m plugging together the gaps between those life experiences and depression,” one reader explained, “because everyone’s experience of depression, the source of it, is different”.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.actmindfully.com.au/product/the-happiness-trap/">The Happiness Trap</a> by Russ Harris topped the list when I asked readers to name a book they’d found helpful. The rest of the results were surprisingly broad, encompassing more than 200 titles with little overlap. They included everything from <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Bhagavad_Gita.html?id=bcnJAAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">The Bhagavad Gita</a> by Eknath Easwaran to <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/rising-strong-9780091955038">Rising Strong</a> by Brené Brown and Sandra Cabot’s <a href="https://www.drcabotcleanse.com/product/the-liver-cleansing-diet/">The Liver Cleansing Diet</a>.</p>
<p>Interestingly, most readers thought it was “only natural” there are so many self-help books on offer these days. You have to be discerning, they said, yet open to a book’s message – and willing to put in some work. “That’s what self-help means,” a reader pointed out. “It means help yourself: the book’s helping you, but you’re still doing the lifting.”</p>
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<span class="caption">One reader observed, ‘the book’s helping you, but you’re doing the lifting’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thought Catalog/Pexels</span></span>
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<p>Rather than accepting or dismissing individual titles outright, readers stressed “no one book is going to be right for anyone”.</p>
<p>Overall, they steered clear of “exploitative charlatans” peddling “wishy-washy” titles that “spouted gobbledygook” or cobbled together faddish terms and concepts. One reader described them as “books that take you everywhere but take you nowhere”. </p>
<p>Even when they sought out books with some kind of scientific or clinical basis, they avoided “purely scientific” discourse. And they criticised authors who alienated the reader with an impersonal tone, or bamboozled them with dense, esoteric or technical language.</p>
<p>A “good” self-help book, our conversations revealed, “took readers seriously” and allowed them to “connect the dots” for themselves. Self-help books were not a silver bullet. But they could help with depression if you knew what to expect of them – and when the worst symptoms had already passed.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-reading-help-heal-us-and-process-our-emotions-or-is-that-just-a-story-we-tell-ourselves-197789">Can reading help heal us and process our emotions – or is that just a story we tell ourselves?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Reading between the lines</h2>
<p>While typical research approaches often locate the helping power of self-help books between the covers themselves, a readerly approach suggests otherwise: self-help books can help when readers know how to get something out of them.</p>
<p>As my interviewees pointed out, however, a “healthy” or useful approach to reading develops over time. It also depends heavily on circumstance.</p>
<p>Readers are not always or already an “expert audience”, especially if someone is struggling with difficult symptoms. Self-help reading requires practice, perseverance and perspective. Sometimes, readers might simply come across the wrong book at the wrong time – or, happily, the opposite.</p>
<p>There is more to be written about the way people with a specific diagnosis choose and use self-help books. </p>
<p>But it’s too simplistic to think of self-help books as either good or bad. Different readers – at different stages – make use of them in different ways.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211043/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amber Gwynne received funding via an Australian Postgraduate Award for the duration of her PhD research (2014–2017).</span></em></p>Readers with depression initially wanted the ‘instant gratification of being fixed’ from self-help books. That didn’t happen, but they did benefit from the right books at the right times.Amber Gwynne, Sessional Lecturer in Writing, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1969812023-01-03T20:50:15Z2023-01-03T20:50:15ZHow 19th-century Victorians’ wellness resolutions were about self-help — and playful ritual fun<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502947/original/file-20230103-26-4tnfru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C464%2C2547%2C1295&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">January is named after the two-faced Roman god Janus, and the Victorians understood this has long been a season of looking backward as much as forward, and not just in search of lessons.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/how-19th-century-victorians--wellness-resolutions-were-about-self-help-—-and-playful-ritual-fun" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>On Jan. 1, 1887, a poem appeared in two British newspapers. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/readers-guide/rg_resolutions1.htm">I am resolved throughout the year</a> / To lay my vices on the shelf,” begins “New Year Resolutions.” </p>
<p>In what now reads like a familiar vow of post-holiday abstinence, a young <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rudyard-kipling">Rudyard Kipling lists</a> the temptations of women, horses and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/whist">card game whist</a>, pledging “A godly, sober course to steer / and love my neighbour as myself.” </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.history.com/news/the-history-of-new-years-resolutions#:%7E:text=The%20ancient%20Babylonians%20are%20said,when%20the%20crops%20were%20planted.">some sources,</a> the practice of making resolutions at the new year <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-did-the-new-years-resolution-come-from-well-weve-been-making-them-for-4-000-years-196661">can be traced back 4,000 years</a>, originating with the ancient Babylonians. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.17744/mehc.43.3.05">Opinions differ</a> on the origins of contemporary wellness culture, often the packaging for self-improvement through self-denial at the new year.</p>
<p>As sociolegal scholar <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/jhppl/article/39/5/957/13664/What-Is-Wellness-Now">Anna Kirkland describes,</a> wellness as a contemporary buzzword can be defined as the belief “<a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/jhppl/article/39/5/957/13664/What-Is-Wellness-Now">that each individual can and should strive to achieve a state of optimal functioning</a>.” </p>
<p>And this — echoing Kipling’s promise to better himself in the new year — also sounds very Victorian. </p>
<h2>Individual and national progress</h2>
<p>In 1859, Samuel Smiles, the Scottish journalist, biographer, social reformer and physician, published the authoritative text on 19th-century “character, conduct and perseverance” aptly <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/self-help-by-samuel-smiles">titled <em>Self-Help; with illustrations of character and conduct</em></a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A painting of an elderly Victorian man with white hair." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502837/original/file-20230102-3468-asc1ft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502837/original/file-20230102-3468-asc1ft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502837/original/file-20230102-3468-asc1ft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502837/original/file-20230102-3468-asc1ft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502837/original/file-20230102-3468-asc1ft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502837/original/file-20230102-3468-asc1ft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502837/original/file-20230102-3468-asc1ft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 1877 portrait of Samuel Smiles by George Reid.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(National Portrait Gallery collection/Wikimedia)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This was at the height of mid-Victorian hubris, and amid a year of epoch-defining ideas (Charles Darwin’s <em>On the Origin of Species</em> and John Stuart Mill’s <em>On Liberty</em> both entered the scene). </p>
<p>By the time Smiles (yes, that is his real name) died in 1904, <em>Self-Help</em> had sold over <a href="https://shepheardwalwyn.com/product/the-spirit-of-self-help">a quarter of a million copies in Britain alone and was an international hit</a>. </p>
<p>Smiles may now be less well known than some of his contemporaries, but his thesis on “<a href="https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Self_help/_eUUAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=socrates&pg=PR13&printsec=frontcover">morals and manners</a>” and belief that “<a href="https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Self_help/_eUUAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=samuel%20smiles%20self%20help&pg=PR3&printsec=frontcover">national progress was the sum of individual industry, energy and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness and vice</a>” shaped the stalwart Victorian work ethic. </p>
<p>This made self-help, as historian <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/samuel-smiles-gospel-self-help">Asa Briggs describes</a>, one of the <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/samuel-smiles-gospel-self-help">defining virtues</a> of the era. These same ideas also helped form the ideological backbone of the wellness industry today. </p>
<h2>Strict habits, hard work</h2>
<p>Over a century and a half after <em>Self-Help</em>, and a week before Christmas 2022, the <em>Toronto Star</em> served readers <a href="https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2022/12/18/oh-honey-here-you-go-nine-wellness-trends-to-help-you-kick-start-the-new-year.html?utm_source=share-bar&utm_medium=user&utm_campaign=user-share">“Nine wellness trends to help you kick-start the New Year</a>.” </p>
<p>Unlike <em>the Star’s</em> wellness list, there is nothing in Smiles on the benefits of “functional fungus.” </p>
<p>Instead, <em>Self-Help</em> consists largely of a series of case studies: bootstrap narratives of successful men through history (Milton, Newton, Napoleon) who apparently rose through the ranks with strict habits and hard work. </p>
<p>But how different, really, are Smiles’s motivations from our own aspirations for annual self-improvement? </p>
<h2>Converting idle pleasure into profit</h2>
<p>Smiles’s biographer <a href="https://shepheardwalwyn.com/product/the-spirit-of-self-help/">John Hunter</a> describes <em>Self-Help</em>’s “bite-size pieces, undemanding of readers’ time,” with its “quotability” a boon to publishers. These are similar to the easily <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2013/aug/12/5-ways-listicle-changing-journalism">digestible “listicles”</a> that fill January lifestyle sections. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2022/12/18/oh-honey-here-you-go-nine-wellness-trends-to-help-you-kick-start-the-new-year.html?utm_source=share-bar&utm_medium=user&utm_campaign=user-share">Personalized wellness plans</a> may, on surface, signal hedonism over Smiles-like austerity and productivity. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-resolve-to-be-thinner-and-fitter-this-year-wont-lead-to-salvation-107956">The resolve to be thinner and fitter this year won’t lead to salvation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/nyregion/napping-in-a-new-york-minute.html?smid=url-share">office nap pods</a>, to the rebranding of friendship as “<a href="https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2022/12/18/oh-honey-here-you-go-nine-wellness-trends-to-help-you-kick-start-the-new-year.html?utm_source=share-bar&utm_medium=user&utm_campaign=user-share">therapeutic socialization</a>,” we too have come to convert idle pleasures into future profit, just as holiday indulgence becomes fodder for a January cleanse.</p>
<h2>Quantifiable self-improvement</h2>
<p>While often entailing deprivation, resolutions imply the sort of quantifiable self-improvement that would meet Smiles’s approval. </p>
<p>Yet we tend to make — or at least are told to make — the same ones every year. <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-16/here-s-how-quickly-people-ditch-weight-loss-resolutions">Data shows</a> that gym memberships do indeed spike, only to fall again by February, until the cycle repeats the following year. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A ferris wheel seen behind people skating." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502831/original/file-20230102-14-vx9s13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502831/original/file-20230102-14-vx9s13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502831/original/file-20230102-14-vx9s13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502831/original/file-20230102-14-vx9s13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502831/original/file-20230102-14-vx9s13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502831/original/file-20230102-14-vx9s13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502831/original/file-20230102-14-vx9s13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A wheel of perpetual seeking? People skate on the Old Port skating rink on New Year’s Day in Montréal, January 1, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This could be evidence of what English professor <a href="https://journals.upress.ufl.edu/rhm/article/view/223">Colleen Derkatch terms the wellness industry’s “moving target</a>.” She notes how wellness discourse promotes seemingly opposed notions of restoration and enhancement. </p>
<p>This means people are perpetually seeking wellness — and often spending money trying to achieve it.</p>
<h2>Time for rest</h2>
<p>But the Victorians offer more than the origins of the wellness industry’s current capitalist trap. </p>
<p>While I certainly do not look to 19th-century Britain expecting a road map for a fulfilled life, or to mimic the many abominable views held by men <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/209518">like Kipling</a>, it’s worth noting that such writers can also provide models for unproductive fun that make the repetitive nature of resolutions a positive way to punctuate time.</p>
<p>In many years spent rereading the Victorians, I sometimes glimpse scraps of unproductive joy outside of the stereotypical narrative of hard work and discipline. </p>
<p>While never abandoning his belief that “<a href="https://www.google.ca/books/edition/The_Autobiography_of_Samuel_Smiles_LL_D/DKVaBKcujpoC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=samuel%20smiles%20autobiography&pg=PP2&printsec=frontcover">work plenty of work is necessary for my happiness and welfare</a>,” in Smiles’s autobiography he also allows time for rest, and even for useless recreation. </p>
<h2>Vows ‘lightly made’</h2>
<p>At one point, the book details how, recovering from a stroke, he replaces his reliance on work with amateur painting. </p>
<p>The artworks he produces “are not of much importance, but the execution of them was a great relief to me …[so] I went on cultivating idleness.” </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C739%2C8086%2C4207&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man seen with his arms outstretched in a giant gold person-sized public sculptural installation of the numbers 2023." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C739%2C8086%2C4207&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502834/original/file-20230102-12-vctfe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is letting it all unravel part of the fun of resolutions?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A commitment to unproductivity, perhaps, offers another way to approach resolutions. The lapsed exercise regimen or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/dec/28/stop-worrying-about-everything-thing-ill-do-differently">abandoned writing project</a>, then, are not just marks of failure, or potential targets for wellness profiteers. They can also be signs of happily wasted time.</p>
<p>In the final lines of his new year’s poem, Kipling flips the resolution narrative, letting his goals unravel, as our annual pledges so often do: “<a href="https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_resolutions.htm">I am resolved—that vows like these/ Though lightly made, are hard to keep.</a>” </p>
<h2>Playfully pointless</h2>
<p>Despite the cynicism, the language stays lighthearted. The form mimics a children’s rhyme — regular in meter, with each quatrain followed by a bouncy couplet. </p>
<p>The poem ends with a bout of numerical diversion: “One vow a year will see me through,” so “I’ll begin with Number Two.” By pulling readers back to reread the second stanza, Kipling loosens the attachment to linear self-improvement. </p>
<p>January takes its name from <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Janus-Roman-god">the two-faced Roman god Janus</a>. This has long been a season of looking backward as much as forward, and not just in search of lessons, or warnings or evidence of progress. </p>
<p>Turning to the past also places resolutions in the repetitive time zone of ritual: playfully pointless, and without expectation of future returns.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196981/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Dufoe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 1859 book ‘Self-Help’ by Scottish journalist and physician Samuel Smiles was written in bite-sized pieces reminiscent of today’s wellness and lifestyle New Year tips.Nicole Dufoe, PhD Candidate in Victorian Literature and English Instructor, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1833062022-06-16T12:25:06Z2022-06-16T12:25:06ZBabies don’t come with instruction manuals, so here are 5 tips for picking a parenting book<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469087/original/file-20220615-18-6vr9hj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=199%2C253%2C4762%2C3152&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Evidence-based and easy to read are two important criteria.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/father-reading-with-sleeping-baby-son-royalty-free-image/601800815">JGI/Tom Grill/Tetra images via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Babies don’t come with instruction manuals. Children are at once joyful, sad, confusing, predictable, generous, selfish, gentle and mean. What’s a parent to do when faced with such perplexing offspring? Given the complex interactions of parent, child and surroundings, parents often feel lost. Many may seek answers in parenting books.</p>
<p><a href="https://askwonder.com/research/avg-amount-millennial-parents-spend-parenting-books-apps-field-great-break-down-xjjsxbcdl">Parenting books are big business</a>, and there are tens of thousands of titles for sale. The big question, though, is: Do parenting books help?</p>
<p>How effective they are is a matter of debate, especially given the lack of scientific evidence regarding their usefulness. Limited research has found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-006-9041-2">problem-focused self-help books may be helpful</a> to readers – think tips about time management or healthy eating. And studies find that using books independently to improve well-being – what psychologists call bibliotherapy – is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103543">somewhat effective for addressing stress</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S152747">anxiety and depression</a>.</p>
<p>So it makes sense that reading a parenting book could be useful. In terms of quality and usefulness, however, they exist on a continuum.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=20slzkIAAAAJ&hl=en">We’re scholars</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=f2RwlNoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">of human development</a>, have taught thousands of students about parenting and write about family, parenting and development through the lifespan. One of us (Bethany) is the mother of six little ones, while the other of us (Denise) has two adult children, one of whom is Bethany. We believe that parents can become <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45398785">critical thinkers and choose the books</a> that will be most appropriate for them. Here are five questions to think about when you’re looking for the best parenting book for you.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469088/original/file-20220615-10847-g5wxlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="woman in bookstore with toddler in baby carrier" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469088/original/file-20220615-10847-g5wxlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469088/original/file-20220615-10847-g5wxlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469088/original/file-20220615-10847-g5wxlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469088/original/file-20220615-10847-g5wxlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469088/original/file-20220615-10847-g5wxlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469088/original/file-20220615-10847-g5wxlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469088/original/file-20220615-10847-g5wxlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">With so many books to choose from, put in some effort to find a good fit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/young-asian-mother-reading-books-to-lovely-little-royalty-free-image/1147930346">d3sign/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>1. Who wrote it and why?</h2>
<p>A good parent doesn’t need a Ph.D.; neither does an author. However, an advanced degree in an area related to parenting helps in understanding and interpreting relevant research.</p>
<p>Another consideration is the experience of the author. Having one or a dozen children does not make someone an expert. Doing more parenting doesn’t necessarily make you better at it. Not having a child doesn’t disqualify someone from being an expert, either, but should be thoughtfully considered. We taught parenting classes before having children, and it’s fair to say that our own parenting experiences have added depth, insight and even grace to what we teach.</p>
<p>The reason someone wrote a parenting book can also be informative. Advice from authors who write out of angst about their own upbringing or who failed at parenting should be taken with a grain of salt. </p>
<p>Finally, don’t let celebrities’ books fool you. Most of these are written by <a href="https://professionalghost.com/blog/how-common-are-ghostwriters/">ghostwriters</a> and are primarily designed to sell books or build a brand.</p>
<h2>2. Is it based on science?</h2>
<p>Psychology researcher and <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Ten-Basic-Principles-of-Good-Parenting/Laurence-Steinberg/9780743251167">parenting expert Laurence Steinberg</a> writes that scientists have studied parenting for over 75 years, and findings related to effective parenting are among the most consistent and longstanding in social science. If you notice inconsistencies between parenting books, it’s because “<a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Ten-Basic-Principles-of-Good-Parenting/Laurence-Steinberg/9780743251167">few popular books are grounded in well-documented science</a>.”</p>
<p>How can you tell if a book is grounded in science? Look for citations, names of researchers, sources and an index. Also, learn the basic principles of effective parenting determined through decades of research and <a href="https://www.newswise.com/articles/ten-basic-principles-of-good-parenting-science-of-raising-children">outlined by Steinberg</a>. They include: set rules, be consistent, be loving, treat children with respect, and avoid harsh discipline.</p>
<p>If the book you’re considering is not consistent with these guidelines, rethink its parenting advice. Likely it’s based not on science but opinion or personal belief. Opinion and belief have a place, but science is better in this space.</p>
<h2>3. Is it interesting to read?</h2>
<p>If the book is not interesting, you are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10862969009547717">unlikely to finish it, much less learn from it</a>. Before taking a book home, read the first page and flip to a page in the middle to see if it grabs your attention. Try to find books that you can read in small bites, skip around in, and return to in the future.</p>
<p>Avoid books that contain “psychobabble,” pseudoscientific jargon that has an air of authenticity but lacks clarity. For example, the publisher’s description of the book “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/603436.Indigo_Children">The Indigo Children: The New Kids have Arrived</a>” reads, “The Indigo Child is a child who displays a new and unusual set of psychological attributes that reveal a pattern of behavior generally undocumented before. This pattern has common yet unique factors that demand that parents and teachers change their treatment and upbringing of them in order to achieve balance. To ignore these new patterns is to potentially create great frustration in the minds of these precious new lives.” Pass.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469089/original/file-20220615-11210-leelbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="two men sit on bed with baby with a tall bookshelf against the wall" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469089/original/file-20220615-11210-leelbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469089/original/file-20220615-11210-leelbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469089/original/file-20220615-11210-leelbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469089/original/file-20220615-11210-leelbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469089/original/file-20220615-11210-leelbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469089/original/file-20220615-11210-leelbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469089/original/file-20220615-11210-leelbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Even a shelf full of books can’t cover your family’s exact – and always changing – circumstances.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/fathers-starting-the-day-with-newborn-royalty-free-image/1160661769">Willie B. Thomas/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Is it realistic?</h2>
<p>Run, don’t walk, from any book that tells you its method always works or any failure is because of you – or worse yet, ignores failure. </p>
<p>It’s impossible to provide advice for every single parent, child and situation! An effective parenting book appreciates context and complexity and informs the reader that not all answers are in the book. No parent is perfect, but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721413504106">recognizing weaknesses and failures leads to growth and improvement</a>, and no child is completely malleable. Even parents who do everything right may have children who become wayward.</p>
<p>Make sure the book provides you with detailed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abj9957">instructions and things to do</a>, as well as ways to track improvements. In other words, make sure it is actionable.</p>
<p>Finally, a parenting book should respect a parent’s instincts. </p>
<h2>5. Does it motivate and inspire hope?</h2>
<p>Some parenting books offer insights related to general behavior, like “<a href="https://www.newharbinger.com/9781684033881/raising-good-humans/">Raising Good Humans</a>.” Others offer insights for specific issues, like “<a href="https://www.platypusmedia.com/product-page/safe-infant-sleep-expert-answers-to-your-cosleeping-questions">Safe Infant Sleep: Expert Answers to Your Cosleeping Questions</a>.” Likely, you will be more motivated to read a book that reflects your specific needs and values and leaves you feeling hopeful.</p>
<p>A word of caution, however. One study found that parenting books that stress strict routines for infant sleep, feeding and general care might actually make parents <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2017.1378650">feel worse by increasing depression, stress and doubt</a>. Parenting research does not support overly strict routines, and it’s easy to understand why most of these parents did not find such books useful.</p>
<h2>Remember to trust yourself</h2>
<p>When you read a parenting book, the goal is to feel empowered, more confident, excited and even relieved. You are not alone, nor are you the only parent with questions.</p>
<p>Psychologist <a href="https://psychology.jrank.org/pages/659/Edward-F-Zigler.html">Edward Zigler</a> described parenting as “the <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/handbook-of-parenting-volume-3-status-and-social-conditions-of-parenting/oclc/967239514&referer=brief_results">most challenging and most complex</a> of all the tasks of adulthood.”</p>
<p>Yes, parenting can be tough. In your parenting adventures, you’ll likely need all the resources and tools you can muster. With thoughtful and critical explorations, you can find books that enhance your personal wisdom and intuition to help in raising these delightfully complicated little humans.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Being a parent can be tricky, and many turn to parenting guides for help in figuring out what to do. Two human development scholars have tips for picking a book that will be useful for you.Denise Bodman, Principal Lecturer in Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State UniversityBethany Bustamante Van Vleet, Principal Lecturer in Family and Human Development, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1808772022-04-28T02:08:57Z2022-04-28T02:08:57ZWhen it comes to dating advice, why is it always women who must improve?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458096/original/file-20220414-16-edig3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5982%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/SJSotla5R3s">Fausto Sandoval/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-rise-of-therapy-speak">Therapy-speak</a>” advice on relationships and dating is widely available outside of the psychotherapist’s office. Much of this advice places responsibility on women for managing their emotional reactions to problematic dating and relationship experiences. </p>
<p>The advice women are given about dating, relationships, and finding love largely falls into three categories. </p>
<h2>1. How to not attract emotionally unavailable men</h2>
<p>Instagram is full of relationship advice that tells women to take responsibility for their “healing”. It advises them on <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-attachment-and-how-does-it-affect-our-relationships-120503">attachment styles</a>, co-dependency, and emotional wounds, as well as how to deal with <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-attachment-and-how-does-it-affect-our-relationships-120503">avoidant</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-social-media-turning-people-into-narcissists-66573">narcissistic</a> partners. Such advice varies in quality from patronising and exploitative, to nuanced and compassionate. Some of this advice is helpful, much of it is not. </p>
<p>One example that falls in the latter category is the cliché that in order to find love, you must first love yourself. Psychiatrist and trauma expert, Dr Bruce Perry, notes that in reality you cannot love yourself unless you have been loved, <a href="https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/the-boy-who-was-raised-as-a-dog-and-3rd-edition-by-bruce-d-perry-and-maia-szalavitz-9780465094455">noting</a>, “the capacity to love cannot be built in isolation.”</p>
<p>“Loving yourself” is valued by modern society if it helps you to get ahead. <a href="https://theconversation.com/wellness-is-not-womens-friend-its-a-distraction-from-what-really-ails-us-177446">Constant self-improvement is what matters</a> in a performance-focused society that positions people as objects of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0038026120938289">enhancement and optimisation</a>. Neoliberalism assumes women’s lives are shaped by <a href="https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/4113/1/">deliberate choices</a> for which they, as individuals, are responsible. Little attention is paid to the contexts that constrain women’s choices.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CI632zXnDE1","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Being responsible for self-love and self-healing only furthers the responsibility that women already shoulder for their health, well-being, careers, and relationships.</p>
<h2>2. How to get a man to commit</h2>
<p>Women are instructed on how to develop “<a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-new-dating-playbook-for-badass-women-scott-mcdougal/book/9781734854602.html">a huge advantage over other women</a>” in the “battle” to “<a href="https://www.bolde.com/subtle-ways-let-know-time-put-ring/">get him to put a ring on it</a>”. For example, dating coach Benjamin Daly tells his 500,000 Instagram followers that his book reveals “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57187501-why-men-don-t-commit-the-secret-to-getting-any-man-begging-for-commitme#:%7E:text=Why%20men%20don't%20commit,Commitment%20by%20Benjamin%20Daly%20%7C%20Goodreads">the secret to getting any man begging for commitment</a>”. </p>
<p>Not only are women encouraged to strategise their dating moves, they must also self-monitor to avoid emasculating men, with authors encouraging women to observe the rules of traditional femininity and let men “<a href="https://www.thekewlshop.com/blogs/news/why-men-must-lead-a-relationship-to-avoid-losing-it">lead</a>”. </p>
<p>The strategies underpinning such advice are, at best, confusing. To quote author, <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-first-move-emily-brooks/book/9781760525491.html?source=pla&gclid=Cj0KCQjwgMqSBhDCARIsAIIVN1UoWwysJVIKtVA-09CxStFtfLRhN3t47ElDYmC-ALOWnByUu0wK7YcaAjDXEALw_wcB">Emily Brooks</a>, “We are told to lean in at work, but wait for him to call”. It’s OK to hustle at work, but don’t overreach in your relationships. </p>
<p>The dating advice outlined in this category pits women against each other, polices women’s femininity, and reinforces a performance-centric framework of thinking about intimate relationships.</p>
<h2>3. How to navigate toxic behaviours online</h2>
<p>Online dating, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1440783316662718?casa_token=CHvIIAW-WIMAAAAA:fvoieUm797wxCberC5HNsK_xAwcBoAUdiQOepbA3iWUgcRvr5dKa7-VjyeGSlyjSI27H4W1H7WmLfIM">while positive in some respects</a>, is a <a href="https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-11/ti612_mobile_dating_applications_and_sexual_and_violent_offending.pdf">minefield for toxic male behaviour</a>.</p>
<p>This behaviour varies from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2019/mar/25/being-a-woman-is-scary-the-unspoken-danger-of-declining-a-mans-advances">rejection violence</a>, where women are confronted with violence when turning down a man’s advances, to unsolicited graphic images, to more subtle forms of damaging behaviour. These include but are not limited to <a href="https://www.insider.com/love-bomb">lovebombing</a>, where men bombard women with attention in order to gain control, and <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a8643616/breadcrumbing-is-the-new-ghosting-and-its-savage-af/">breadcrumbing</a>, where a person leads someone on but remains noncommittal.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/tv/CZug-U-KFa5/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>These behaviours are not exclusive to male dating app users, but advice around how to handle such behaviour is largely directed at women.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-ghosting-to-backburner-relationships-the-reasons-people-behave-so-badly-on-dating-apps-179600">From ghosting to 'backburner' relationships: the reasons people behave so badly on dating apps</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Why are these trends a problem?</h2>
<p>Modern dating advice often implies women can and should fix themselves, and their relationships. This creates feelings of shame, and is particularly harmful advice for the vulnerable women in our communities.</p>
<p>Telling women to love themselves before they can have a relationship is at best, nonsensical, and at worst, cruel, especially for those who have suffered the <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/publications/impacts-sexual-assault-women">mental violence</a> that accompanies sexual assault and domestic violence. </p>
<p>As of <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/sexual-violence-victimisation">2021</a>, 23% of women in Australia, a total of 2.2 million women, had experienced sexual assault, with women eight times more likely than men to experience sexual assault by an intimate partner. In 2020, Australia recorded its <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/2020-australias-worst-year-domestic-violence/">most dangerous year</a> for domestic violence. </p>
<p>One in six Australian women have experienced <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/family-domestic-and-sexual-violence">sexual or physical violence</a> at the hands of a former or current partner, while <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/family-domestic-and-sexual-violence">one in four</a> women have experienced emotional abuse; over a quarter of the women in Australia. </p>
<p><a href="https://aifs.gov.au/publications/impacts-sexual-assault-women">Lowered self-esteem and a diminished sense of self-worth</a> are just some of the psychological effects of sexual, physical, and emotional violence that may make “self-love” difficult. </p>
<h2>Women need safety more than dating advice</h2>
<p>Teaching women how to react effectively to emotionally dysfunctional behaviour may help women to cope, but it doesn’t address the fundamental issue of intimate interpersonal relationships: safety. </p>
<p>Rather than upskilling women to deal with the harm they risk in dating men, the self-help industry should focus on male behaviour – not the reactions of women to this behaviour. Women need safety more than they need advice.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Assorted dating apps are seen on an iPhone - Bumble, Tinder, Plenty of Fish, Hinge, OKCupid (OKC), and Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB)." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457624/original/file-20220412-6515-zk80x1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457624/original/file-20220412-6515-zk80x1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457624/original/file-20220412-6515-zk80x1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457624/original/file-20220412-6515-zk80x1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457624/original/file-20220412-6515-zk80x1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457624/original/file-20220412-6515-zk80x1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457624/original/file-20220412-6515-zk80x1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women are often advised on how to navigate male toxic behaviour in online spaces.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portland-usa-mar-10-2021-assorted-1933542545">Tada Images/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/clementine-ford-reveals-the-fragility-behind-toxic-masculinity-in-boys-will-be-boys-103760">Clementine Ford reveals the fragility behind 'toxic masculinity' in Boys Will Be Boys</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>We need to redirect the focus to male behaviour</h2>
<p>The most important dating advice the self-help industry can offer is for a male audience: do not harm the women around you.</p>
<p>Mateship is revered in Australia, yet male friendships are often devoid of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230222762_Emotional_Intimacy_Among_Men">vulnerability, openness, intimacy, and self-disclosure</a>. This likely has to do with <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner">toxic expectations around masculinity</a> that may manifest in emotional suppression and masking of distress, misogyny and homophobia. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1996.tb02292.x?casa_token=mk2-sid3x8cAAAAA:7aV1taP4a8bXSAmcwaE3O6HOQHK84PPq915DfQDAygLS-VQzhuVK5HDASwBd75c-2ZuU8uYTVGyDJDX0xQ">Research</a> has found male attitudes towards masculinity, feminism, and homophobia are predictive of date-rape-supportive attitudes and self-reported histories of sexual coercion.</p>
<p>Rather than teaching women how to respond to dangerous dating behaviours, the self-help industry should examine what men are taught about dating and relationships. The self-help industry could play an important role in educating online dating app users about how to avoid perpetrating harassment, discrimination, and <a href="https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/internet/four-corners-tinder-ignored-reports-of-rape-as-offenders-exploit-dating-app/news-story/67421b447114a804d6f07c91140f5b17">sexual violence</a>. </p>
<p>“Teaching” women how to deal with the men they’re dating is not the solution to the problems of modern dating and relationships.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180877/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Hogg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Instead of upskilling women to cope with the harm they risk in dating men, the self-help industry should focus on male behaviour. Women need safety more than they need dating advice.Rachel Hogg, Lecturer in Psychology, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1752872022-01-25T22:31:47Z2022-01-25T22:31:47ZScreaming into the void? Us too. Coping tips for stressed-out families in the COVID-19 pandemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442352/original/file-20220124-17-tfk519.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=915%2C735%2C4789%2C3070&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many parents are struggling with burnout, loneliness and mental health problems during the pandemic.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Pexels/Alexander Dummer)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/screaming-into-the-void-us-too--coping-tips-for-stressed-out-families-in-the-covid-19-pandemic" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Talk to any parent during these dark winter days and you’re likely to hear a mix of fear, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/23/us/mom-scream-massachusetts-pandemic.html">anger</a>, exhaustion and <a href="https://www.romper.com/parenting/here-we-go-again-omicron-edition">defeat</a>. These are tough months when many politicians have moved to a living-with-the-virus model despite millions of our youngest citizens being <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8492083/covid-omicron-kids-fear/">ineligible for vaccines</a>. </p>
<p>There seem to be endless immediate stressors of unpredictable child care, school closures and isolation requirements. What can you do when there are truly no good choices? Here, we offer coping tips to help push back on parenting-during-the-pandemic despair. </p>
<p>As psychologists (and parents), we’ve focused on understanding families’ experiences since the onset of the pandemic. We know that so many parents are struggling with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251720">burnout, loneliness</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.07.081">mental health problems</a>. Based on the science of stress, we describe why this should feel hard and strategies for taking back control when you dread the challenging day ahead. </p>
<h2>Why is this so hard?</h2>
<p>There are three core components that make up the concept of “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.130.3.355">stress</a>,” and the pandemic has served parents up a textbook example of each: </p>
<p><strong>Unpredictability</strong>: When you’re faced with something unfamiliar or the future feels uncertain. </p>
<p><strong>Uncontrollability</strong>: When it feels like you can’t change your circumstances or protect your loved ones.</p>
<p><strong>Social-evaluative threat</strong>: When you fear being judged. For example, “Am I a bad parent for giving them so much screen time?” </p>
<p>Stress takes a toll on our bodies through activation of our stress response system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPAA). The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085605">HPAA is designed</a> to help regulate our energy and metabolism. </p>
<p>Shared with our evolutionary ancestors, the HPAA is great for helping us respond to urgent threats to family safety or tricky social settings by mobilizing our attention to respond effectively. However, the adrenaline surge is less helpful when it persists long-term or results in late-night anxiety about decisions like keeping your kid home. </p>
<p>Chronic stress has downstream effects on health, including altered sleep, appetite and mood dysregulation (like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2008.06.006">anxiety, depression and anger</a>). However, you can also push back to bring your stress system in check and reduce the mental health burdens of the pandemic. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442342/original/file-20220124-23298-1ktk7vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Infographic with strategies for coping with stress" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442342/original/file-20220124-23298-1ktk7vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442342/original/file-20220124-23298-1ktk7vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442342/original/file-20220124-23298-1ktk7vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442342/original/file-20220124-23298-1ktk7vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442342/original/file-20220124-23298-1ktk7vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442342/original/file-20220124-23298-1ktk7vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442342/original/file-20220124-23298-1ktk7vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Coping strategies parents can use during the pandemic and beyond.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Leslie E. Roos)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What you can do:</h2>
<p><strong>1. Say “Help!” out loud</strong>. You probably know that being able to see friends helps your mental health. This is aligned with research highlighting the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00918169">stress-buffering</a>” effects of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003044307-10/social-support-stress-buffering-hypothesis-theoretical-analysis-sheldon-cohen-garth-mckay">social support</a>. </p>
<p>The trick in the pandemic is that you need to <em>tell</em> your people that you’re struggling. Before 2020, allowing people to see your tears, rage or nervousness would signal a need for help (a key function of emotions), but now they probably won’t know that you’re struggling unless you tell them because we’re interacting less in-person. </p>
<p>It is helpful to be direct about asking for what you need:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>I’m feeling crappy and sad, do you have a minute to talk? My kids are driving me bonkers, any chance you take them for an outside play? I really need a hot shower to unwind, could you Facetime read a few books with Devin?</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>We know it’s not the warm hug or shared meal you are craving. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2021.110433">It can still be helpful</a>, especially when you’re managing pent-up inner chaos.</p>
<p><strong>2. Do something (anything).</strong> Taking 10 minutes to move your body (stretch or walk, keep it easy) and purposely seeking out good news can help shift gloom and doom thinking. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291721002142">Behavioural activation</a>, an evidenced-based treatment for low mood and stress, emphasizes that in the midst of lifestyle disruption, finding pleasurable daily activities — ones that are really important to you — significantly impacts health and well-being. </p>
<p>Choosing to engage in any sort of activity can provide <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100100">positive reinforcement</a>, which <a href="https://doi-org.uml.idm.oclc.org/10.1002/cpp.2430">decreases stress and improves mood</a>. The activity may not be the gym class you used to love, <em>but</em> substituting an online class (even better if it’s with friends) or a 10-minute walk can be helpful. </p>
<p><strong>3. Be kind</strong>. When things are hard it can be tough, but incredibly important, to offer yourself compassion. What do you say to your friends when they are feeling defeated? Likely, you meet them with warmth and kindness:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>This is so hard. You are doing your best in an impossible situation. I totally lost my cool yesterday too. Being a great parent includes having bad days.</em> </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most of us are less generous to ourselves than we are to others. Take a moment to reflect on supportive words that you can offer yourself next time those tough thoughts creep in. Evidence shows that re-framing self-critical thoughts and working on self-compassion can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2012.06.003">improve mood</a> and facilitate positive coping <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18042017">during these challenging times</a>. </p>
<h2>How you can support your child’s mental health:</h2>
<p><strong>1. Lower expectations.</strong> Children have a tough time with unpredictability and can sense parent stress. Keep things simple and familiar to help them know what to expect. For online learning, this could look like setting a short period for engaging (do 20 minutes, then take a break). Offering praise or small rewards for their efforts not abilities promotes a growth mindset, which helps children take on challenges. If you have the energy, try a <a href="https://teachingmama.org/visual-schedule-for-toddlers/">visual schedule</a> to let children help plan their day. </p>
<p><strong>2. Sit on the floor.</strong> Getting down to your child’s level and giving them your focused attention for five to 10 minutes a day can offer an emotional reset, strengthen your relationship, and prevent challenging behaviours. You can even try lying down and see what your child wants to do. (Read? Pretend your belly is a racecar track?) Your presence and connection, even through short bursts, can help kids <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2015.1070747">manage stress</a> and feel confident to do things independently later in the day. </p>
<p><strong>3. Say what you see.</strong> Big emotions and behaviours are normal ways children react to unpredictability. Pointing out what you notice and naming emotions helps children make sense of their own experience and develop <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2012.00125.x">socio-emotional competence</a>. </p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Your fists are balled up and your voice is loud, are you angry your tower broke?</em> </p>
</blockquote>
<p>If your child is safe, all you need to do is sit with them calmly (even if you’re not feeling your calmest) and let them know you’re here. If they are actively doing something dangerous, feel free to move their body first. The saying, “That’s not what you wanted to happen, is it?” can apply in most situations. </p>
<p>When it comes down to managing stress as a parent right now, there are no easy solutions. Sometimes a good cry in the car is a necessary release but try not to keep these feelings to yourself. Occasional team screams (or pack howls) as a family can offer a surprising mood boost at the collective challenge of it all. It has been a difficult two years, and acknowledging the challenges of parenting during the pandemic is part of coping.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442343/original/file-20220124-23-1ug4vdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Infographic with suggestions for child-friendly acitivities" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442343/original/file-20220124-23-1ug4vdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442343/original/file-20220124-23-1ug4vdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442343/original/file-20220124-23-1ug4vdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442343/original/file-20220124-23-1ug4vdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442343/original/file-20220124-23-1ug4vdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442343/original/file-20220124-23-1ug4vdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442343/original/file-20220124-23-1ug4vdk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A parent’s presence and connection, even through short bursts or simple activities, can help kids manage stress.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Leslie E. Roos)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175287/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leslie E. Roos receives funding from the Children's Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba, the Canadian Institute of Health Research, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and Brain Canada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna MacKinnon receives funding from SSHRC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen receives funding from the Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, the Owerko Centre, the Canadian Child Health Clinician Scientist Program, the Canadian Institute of Health Research, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Brain Canada and the Calgary Health Trust. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elisabeth Bailin Xie, Kaeley Simpson, and Marlee R. Salisbury do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The science of stress explains why parenting during the pandemic feels so hard. Here are strategies from psychologists for taking back control when you dread yet another challenging day ahead.Leslie E. Roos, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of ManitobaAnna MacKinnon, Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Psychology, University of CalgaryElisabeth Bailin Xie, Doctoral Student, Department of Psychology, University of CalgaryKaeley Simpson, MA School Psychology Student, University of ManitobaLianne Tomfohr-Madsen, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of CalgaryMarlee R. Salisbury, Doctoral Student, Department of Psychology, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1587092021-05-03T20:08:10Z2021-05-03T20:08:10ZThe rise of pop-psychology: can it make your life better, or is it all snake-oil?<p>More than 50 years ago, George Miller, president of the American Psychological Association, urged his colleagues “to give psychology away”. No, cynical reader, he was not instructing his followers to abandon the field. Rather he hoped raising the general public’s awareness of psychology would help to solve society’s problems.</p>
<p>In the half century following Miller’s appeal, psychologists have popularised their ideas with missionary zeal. Books written for the public are published at an accelerating rate, bolstered by countless blogs, podcasts, magazines, TED talks and videos. </p>
<p>The popularisation of psychology has been strikingly successful. Writing in 1995, a <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1590074.The_Romance_of_American_Psychology">historian of the field</a> argued “psychological insight is the creed of our time”.</p>
<p>If anything, that creed has even more true believers today. Writers in the business of dispensing psychological insight, such as Brené Brown, are <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/05/brene-brown-netflix-call-to-courage-interview">hugely popular</a> and have armies of followers. </p>
<p>But other writers like Jesse Singal, whose <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Quick_Fix.html?id=JLniDwAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y">The Quick Fix</a> was published last month, pose serious questions to popular psychology. </p>
<p>So will popular psychology change your life? Or does it rest on junk science and make us self-obsessed and miserable?</p>
<h2>What is pop psychology?</h2>
<p>Popular psychology can be defined as any attempt to present psychological ideas to a general audience. Like all fields, academic and professional psychology have their own specialist publications and jargon. Popularisation is an effort to make this knowledge accessible, palatable and usable.</p>
<p>There is no agreed way of classifying pop psychology, but three main genres stand out. First, there are books and media whose primary aim is to inform the public about recent developments in scientific psychology, commonly authored by academics or science journalists. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398291/original/file-20210503-15-m6dbtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Thinking Fast and Slow book cover" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398291/original/file-20210503-15-m6dbtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398291/original/file-20210503-15-m6dbtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398291/original/file-20210503-15-m6dbtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398291/original/file-20210503-15-m6dbtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398291/original/file-20210503-15-m6dbtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398291/original/file-20210503-15-m6dbtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398291/original/file-20210503-15-m6dbtn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p>These works are similar in nature to any other kind of science communication, but with a specific focus on mind, brain and behaviour. Classics of the genre include Daniel Kahneman’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow">Thinking, Fast and Slow</a> (2011), about the two fundamental modes of human cognition; Joseph LeDoux’s <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1996-98824-000">The Emotional Brain</a> (1996), on the neuroscience of emotion; and Dan Ariely’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational">Predictably Irrational</a> (2008), about decision biases. </p>
<p>The second genre is more applied. Instead of expounding on a scientific topic for the curious layperson, it offers guidance for people who want practical help with the challenges of everyday living. It is more often written by psychology practitioners than by academics and is commonly at arm’s length from research on the topic.</p>
<p>This genre of pop psychology includes publications that aim to make us better leaders and lovers, more capable partners and parents. They speak to those of us who want to be happier, thinner, fitter, richer, smarter, sexier or more productive. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398288/original/file-20210503-17-1pjis2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A messy pile of self-help books." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398288/original/file-20210503-17-1pjis2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398288/original/file-20210503-17-1pjis2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398288/original/file-20210503-17-1pjis2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398288/original/file-20210503-17-1pjis2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398288/original/file-20210503-17-1pjis2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398288/original/file-20210503-17-1pjis2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398288/original/file-20210503-17-1pjis2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Popular psychology books can take on many guises.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shiromani Kant/Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Finally, we have a third pop psychology genre that targets people with mental health problems. Like the second genre it offers practical guidance, but rather than enhance functioning in everyday life, it endeavours to reduce suffering and dysfunction.</p>
<p>Whereas the second genre promises coaching without a flesh-and-blood coach, the third genre offers a form of self-administered therapy. Its consumers seek help in overcoming or coping better with their depression, anxiety or other conditions.</p>
<h2>The blurry line between psychology and self-help</h2>
<p>Genres two and three can be seen as part of the vast self-help industry. Serving an insatiable appetite for self-improvement, this trade is estimated to be worth <a href="https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/4992351/the-market-for-self-improvement-products-and">US$11 billion</a> (A$14.2 billion) annually in the USA alone.</p>
<p>Not all popular psychology is self-help (remember genre one), and not all self-help literature is grounded in psychology or produced by psychologists.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/self-help-in-the-age-of-responsibility-denies-unequal-realities-101782">Self-help in the 'age of responsibility' denies unequal realities</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Dale Carnegie, of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27188370-how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people">How to Win Friends and Influence People</a> (1936), was a salesman, actor and public speaking coach with no psychology background. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Soup_for_the_Soul">Chicken Soup for the Soul franchise</a> peddles inspirational stories from everyday people rather than experts and sages (and now also <a href="https://chickensouppets.com/">sells pet food</a>). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398286/original/file-20210503-15-2co63v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man sits at a desk covered in paper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398286/original/file-20210503-15-2co63v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398286/original/file-20210503-15-2co63v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398286/original/file-20210503-15-2co63v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398286/original/file-20210503-15-2co63v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398286/original/file-20210503-15-2co63v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398286/original/file-20210503-15-2co63v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398286/original/file-20210503-15-2co63v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Norman Vincent Peale published The Power of Positive Thinking in 1952. By 1956, more than 2.5 million copies had been sold.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other self-help books sell homespun wisdom, faith-based solutions or 12-step ideas rather than psychology. Leading authors have been Christian ministers (Norman Vincent Peale’s 1952 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1134122.The_Power_of_Positive_Thinking">The Power of Positive Thinking</a>), religious educators (Stephen Covey’s 1989 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36072.The_7_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People">The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People</a>) and psychiatrists (M. Scott Peck’s 1978 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/254865.The_Road_Less_Travelled">The Road Less Travelled</a>).</p>
<p>More recently Brené Brown has built a career as a popular self-help writer who does have a psychology background. In a series of best-selling books, including <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40109367-dare-to-lead">Dare to Lead</a> (2018), <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7015403-the-gifts-of-imperfection">The Gifts of Imperfection</a> (2010) and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23500254-the-power-of-vulnerability">The Power of Vulnerability</a> (2013), Brown explores themes of courage, vulnerability and shame.</p>
<p>Her work emphasises the need to embrace the risk of emotional exposure and discomfort. The everyday courage required to face fears is necessary, she says, to find love, success and personal growth. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gr-WvA7uFDQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>These ideas of courage and vulnerability are not unique to psychology, but they are embedded in Brown’s own <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1606/1044-3894.3483">qualitative research</a> on experiences of shame in women. Her grounding of popular writing in psychological research and theory makes Brown’s work a model of contemporary pop psychology — and has netted her TED talk over 38 million views; and a Netflix special.</p>
<h2>The case against pop psychology</h2>
<p>It is easy to criticise and sniff at popular psychology. Self-help psychology writers in particular can rub us readers the wrong way with their simplistic claims, pat answers to difficult problems, jargon-encrusted pronouncements and relentless positivity. </p>
<p>Some reasons to dismiss pop psychology are good ones. It can stray far from any scientific evidence base while marketing itself as the work of a PhD-credentialed scholar, using the lustre of “science” as a lure. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398287/original/file-20210503-17-1m41se7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The Quick Fix book cover" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398287/original/file-20210503-17-1m41se7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398287/original/file-20210503-17-1m41se7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398287/original/file-20210503-17-1m41se7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398287/original/file-20210503-17-1m41se7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398287/original/file-20210503-17-1m41se7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398287/original/file-20210503-17-1m41se7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398287/original/file-20210503-17-1m41se7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even when it is built on a foundation of research evidence, that foundation may be flimsy. As Jesse Singal shows in The Quick Fix, some of the research findings that underpin pop psychology are dubious, failing to replicate when studies were redone. Others are over-hyped: true to a degree but exaggerated in importance.</p>
<p>Singal’s book singles out <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-esteem">self-esteem</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_posing">power posing</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grit_(personality_trait)">grit</a>, resilience programs and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_stereotype">unconscious bias</a> as ideas with a shaky research base and questionable status as pop psychological truth. In each case, popular enthusiasm has outstripped their scientific support.</p>
<p>Pop psychology can also be faulted for discounting the social, cultural and economic factors that constrain our lives: by focusing on the individual, pop psychology authors deflect attention and will away from the need for structural change in society.</p>
<p>The self-help movement’s focus on the individual may also make that individual more self-focused. British writer Will Storr’s book <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Selfie.html?id=kG-nDQAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y">Selfie</a> (2017) documents how consumption of self-help products can feed an unachievable striving for perfection. </p>
<p>The search for self-improvement may undermine itself.</p>
<h2>The case for pop psychology</h2>
<p>For all its problems, some resistance to pop psychology is unjustified. There can be an element of snobbery in imagining that it is only suited for people weaker, simpler and stupider than we are. There can also be scorn in the stereotype of the self-help addict devouring pop psychology in a desperate but vain search for happiness and success.</p>
<p>In fact, there is some evidence that the search may not be so vain after all. Research on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliotherapy">bibliotherapy</a> — the use of books to treat a mental health problem — provides some grounds for hope.</p>
<p>Bibliotherapy may be done individually or as part of a group. It may be directed by a professional of some kind or self-guided. It may include all manner of books, from novels to self-help manuals. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-comfort-of-reading-in-wwi-the-bibliotherapy-of-trench-and-hospital-magazines-158880">The comfort of reading in WWI: the bibliotherapy of trench and hospital magazines</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2008.00821.x">Large-scale</a> <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8638553/">reviews</a> now indicate bibliotherapy can be effective in reducing symptoms of depression, anxiety and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1743609520311292">sexual dysfunctions</a>. One <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272735817302908">recent review</a> of research on depressed adults found its effectiveness may be long lasting. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398300/original/file-20210503-17-19tjz42.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man walks up to a building: Washington Self-Help Exchange." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398300/original/file-20210503-17-19tjz42.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398300/original/file-20210503-17-19tjz42.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398300/original/file-20210503-17-19tjz42.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398300/original/file-20210503-17-19tjz42.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398300/original/file-20210503-17-19tjz42.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398300/original/file-20210503-17-19tjz42.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398300/original/file-20210503-17-19tjz42.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Self-guided self-help through bibliotherapy could be just as effective as traditional treatment for those with depression.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even unguided, self-administered bibliotherapy may be <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2730724">at least equally effective</a> as standard care for people with depression. Nevertheless, it appears to be somewhat less effective than professionally guided bibliotherapy, which may not be significantly less effective than individual therapy. </p>
<p>Bibliotherapy seems to be a promising and economical piece of the mental health treatment puzzle, especially when self-help is not done solo. If that is true, then the rise of popular psychology has the potential to make a positive difference, as George Miller hoped.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: this article originally named Werner Erhard as the founder of Chicken Soup for the Soul. This has now been amended.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158709/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Haslam receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Popular psychology is all over book shops, podcasts and Netflix specials. The value of these ideas is hotly debated but even unguided, self-administered bibliotherapy may bring mental health benefits.Nick Haslam, Professor of Psychology, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1491392020-12-28T13:34:14Z2020-12-28T13:34:14ZHow to outsmart your COVID-19 fears and boost your mood in 2021<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376626/original/file-20201224-13-1b5vuv8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C2400%2C1588&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's all about emotion.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/J9vlgGgytC0">Charles Postiaux/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After a year of toxic stress ignited by so much fear and uncertainty, now is a good time to reset, pay attention to your mental health and develop some healthy ways to manage the pressures going forward.</p>
<p>Brain science has led to some drug-free techniques that you can put to use right now.</p>
<p>I am <a href="https://www.ebtconnect.net/team">health psychologist</a> who <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a181/476b71de9c9fa3957999af6008a16887974a.pdf?_ga=2.158649086.574190440.1608500635-1725141847.1606132202">developed a method</a> that harnesses our rip-roaring emotions to rapidly switch off stress and activate positive emotions instead. This technique from <a href="https://www.ebtconnect.net/science">emotional brain training</a> is not perfect for everyone, but it can help many people break free of stress when they get stuck on negative thoughts.</p>
<h2>Why the stress response is so hard to turn off</h2>
<p>Three key things make it hard to turn off stress-activated negative emotions:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>First, our genes make us worrywarts. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors survived by assuming every rustle in the grasses was a lurking hungry lion, not harmless birds hunting for seeds. We’re essentially programmed to be hyperaware of threats, and our brains rapidly launch stress chemicals and negative emotions in response. </p></li>
<li><p>Second, the <a href="https://share.upmc.com/2016/09/about-brain-chemicals/">chemical cascade</a> of stress hormones in the brain associated with negative emotions impairs cognitive flexibility, goal-directed behavior and self-control. </p></li>
<li><p>Third, our tendency to <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-21674-005">avoid dealing with negative emotions</a> puts people in a perpetual cycle of ignoring unpleasant feelings, which amplifies stress and the risk of emotional health problems. </p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Brain illustration" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376443/original/file-20201222-21-8nxpl7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376443/original/file-20201222-21-8nxpl7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376443/original/file-20201222-21-8nxpl7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376443/original/file-20201222-21-8nxpl7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376443/original/file-20201222-21-8nxpl7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376443/original/file-20201222-21-8nxpl7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376443/original/file-20201222-21-8nxpl7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thought vs. emotion in the brain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laurel Mellin</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Traditional approaches for coping with stress were based on <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470241/">cognitive-behavioral therapy</a>, which focuses on modifying patterns of thinking and behavior. It was developed before our modern understanding of <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2009.09.011">stress overload</a>.</p>
<p>Researchers at New York University <a href="http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1305706110">discovered a paradox</a>: Although cognitive methods were effective in low-stress situations, they were less effective when dealing with the high stress of modern life. </p>
<p>Emotional brain training works with these high-stress emotions in an effort to tame them, releasing negative emotions as the first of two steps in preventing stress overload.</p>
<h2>Step 1: Release negative emotions</h2>
<p>The only negative emotion in the brain that supports <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-10051-023">taking action</a> rather than avoidance and passivity is anger. </p>
<p>Studies have shown that the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1037/a0020655">suppression of anger</a> is associated with depression and that <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychophysiology/article/abs/emotion-regulation-affective-cognitive-and-social-consequences/552536BD5988D0D2079A7E0CC82E1ED8">suppressing anger doesn’t reduce</a> the emotion. <a href="http://doi.org/10.1097/01.PSY.0000040949.22044.C6">Healthy release</a> of anger instead has been found to reduce other stress-related health risks.</p>
<p>Our technique is to switch off stress overload by using a controlled burst of anger to help the brain exert better emotional control and allow emotions to flow rather than become chronic and toxic. After that first short burst, other feelings can flow, starting with sadness to grieve the loss of safety, then fear and regret, or what we would do differently next time. </p>
<p>You can talk yourself through the stages. To experiment with the process, use these simple phrases to express the negative feelings and release your stress: “I feel angry that …”; “I feel sad that …”; “I feel afraid that …”; and “I feel guilty that …”</p>
<h2>Step 2. Express positive emotions</h2>
<p>After releasing negative emotions, positive emotions can naturally arise. Express these feelings using the same approach: “I feel grateful that …”; “I feel happy that …”; “I feel secure that …”; and “I feel proud that …” </p>
<p>Your mindset can quickly change, a phenomenon that has many potential explanations. One explanation is that in positive states, your brain’s neural circuits that store memories from when you were in the same positive state in the past can be spontaneously activated. Another is that the switch from negative to positive emotions quiets your sympathetic nervous system – which triggers the fight-or-flight response – and activates the parasympathetic system, which acts more like a brake on strong emotions.</p>
<p>Here’s what the whole stress relief process might look like like for me right now:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>I feel angry that we’re all isolated and I can’t see my new grandson Henry.</p></li>
<li><p>I hate it that everything is so messed up! I HATE THAT!!!</p></li>
<li><p>I feel sad that I am alone right now.</p></li>
<li><p>I feel afraid that this will never end.</p></li>
<li><p>I feel guilty that I am complaining! I am lucky to be alive and have shelter and love in my life.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Then the positive:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>I feel grateful that my daughter-in-law sends me photos of Henry.</p></li>
<li><p>I feel happy that my husband and I laughed together this morning.</p></li>
<li><p>I feel secure that this will eventually pass.</p></li>
<li><p>I feel proud that I am doing the best I can to cope.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>After a daunting year, and with more challenges ahead in 2021, upgrading your approach to emotions can be a drug-free mood booster. Our COVID-19 fears need not consume us. We can outsmart the brain’s fear response and find moments that sparkle with promise.</p>
<p>[<em>Get our best science, health and technology stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-best">Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149139/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurel Mellin, Ph.D. is the founder of EBT, Inc. an educational organization that provides certification and training in Emotional Brain Training to health professionals and the public and owns shares in the organization.
</span></em></p>One medication-free technique uses your emotions to release stress.Laurel Mellin, PhD, Associate Professor Emeritus of Family & Community Medicine and Pediatrics, University of California, San FranciscoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1508382020-12-15T18:47:53Z2020-12-15T18:47:53ZBeyond self-care: Try these 5 therapeutic tools to manage stress better during COVID-19 restrictions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374547/original/file-20201211-23-ivkdlo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=312%2C53%2C5450%2C3907&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tools from Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) may help manage unpleasant emotions during lockdown stress.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Pexels/Ketut Subiyanto)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Declining mental health is a serious public health concern during the pandemic, with three- to five-fold increases in psychological distress across <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.07.126">Canada</a>, the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2020.212">United Kingdom</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00790">Italy</a> and <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.jad.2020.08.001">around the world</a>. </p>
<p>In Canada, adverse mental health effects are even more elevated for <a href="https://www.camh.ca/en/camh-news-and-stories/covid-19-pandemic-adversely-affecting-mental-health-of-women-and-people-with-children">parents</a>. Our research shows how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.07.081">mothers’ mental health has been affected</a>, and a preprint manuscript reveals the possible <a href="https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/drs9u">impact on fathers</a>. Clinical teams are dramatically understaffed to meet population-level needs, and the most common therapeutic ‘self-help’ strategies are inadequate given the challenges of social isolation. </p>
<p>As clinicians who research how to handle tough emotions, we have found that skills from <a href="https://behavioraltech.org/resources/resources-for-clients-families/">Dialectical Behaviour Therapy</a> (DBT) are uniquely positioned to manage unpleasant emotions during lockdown stress. It is vital to consider new strategies to work through inevitable pandemic challenges and build mental health resilience. </p>
<p>DBT is an evidence-based therapy across depression, anxiety, substance use, eating disorder and anger-management symptoms. A “dialectical mindset” encourages people to validate the difficult circumstances that they find themselves in (acceptance), while also trying new skills if they want a different outcome (change). </p>
<p>At its core, DBT helps individuals learn about intense emotions and choose how to act in effective ways consistent with their long-term values. Different types of DBT skills can be used in different situations. Some skills are aimed at preventing difficult emotions from becoming overwhelming or at changing emotions in the moment, while others can be used when experiencing an intense emotion, to get through the moment without making the situation worse.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374552/original/file-20201211-23-86pvs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374552/original/file-20201211-23-86pvs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1500&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374552/original/file-20201211-23-86pvs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374552/original/file-20201211-23-86pvs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1500&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374552/original/file-20201211-23-86pvs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1885&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374552/original/file-20201211-23-86pvs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1885&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374552/original/file-20201211-23-86pvs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1885&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dr. Emily E. Cameron, Dr. Natalie Mota & Dr. Leslie E. Roos, heartsandmindslab.com</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Paying attention on purpose (mindfulness) is key to descriptively identifying your thoughts, emotions, behavioural urges and the environment around you in non-judgmental ways, so that you can choose what to do next. For example, it would be helpful to notice rising feelings of frustration when you realize that your partner did not do their dishes, instead of elevating to angry outrage because your pain-in-the-ass partner never cleans up after themselves. </p>
<p>Next, consider your interpersonal values to decide the relative importance of getting an objective met (such as getting your partner to do the dirty dishes), maintaining your relationship (for example, delivering a request in a gentle non-attacking manner) or emphasizing self-respect (such as assertively communicating that they need follow-through on agreements for mutual respect).</p>
<p>Once you have mindfully defined the issue at hand, DBT posits that there are four options to dealing with any problem: </p>
<ol>
<li><p><strong>Solve the problem</strong> — Get your partner to do the dishes.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Feel better about the problem</strong> — Don’t stress, because they’ll probably get done eventually.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Tolerate the problem</strong> — Accept that you feel frustrated, but say nothing and move on.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Stay miserable (or make it worse!)</strong> — Don’t change anything, yell at your partner for never cleaning up and continue feeling very grumpy.</p></li>
</ol>
<h2>5 DBT strategies</h2>
<p>Here are five key DBT strategies that validate difficult emotions invoked by the pandemic and make the case for changing automatic reactions that may be driven by strong emotions, such as self-medicating with substances, starting an argument or eating a pint of ice cream to feel better. These include: </p>
<ol>
<li><p><strong>Catch your mind when it is stuck in negative loops</strong>, so that you can come back to the present moment with grounding techniques. For example, identifying five objects you can see, or squeezing an ice cube and paying attention to the sensations it elicits, can redirect attention to the present moment and reduce focus on negative thoughts or intense emotions that you may be experiencing.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Plan ahead for positive activities</strong> that you can fully participate in during COVID-19 restrictions. By scheduling <a href="http://drgollino.ca/pdf/Pleasant%20Activities%20List%20-%20Pandemic%20Edition.pdf">pleasant events</a> that demand your full attention and that are important to you (such playing with your children or having a virtual dance party with friends), you can build up positive emotions that soften the blow of more difficult feelings when they happen.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>When your emotion does not match the problem</strong>, counter ineffective emotion-driven urges (that is, when the emotion is too intense, not appropriate for the situation or may be harmful) through opposite actions. Try engaging in an activity that elicits an emotion that is opposite to the one you are feeling. For example, if you are really sad and want to hide under the covers instead of getting up to walk your dog or bake cookies for an friend, you could start by blasting <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbZSe6N_BXs">Pharrell Williams’ <em>Happy</em></a>, or watching a favourite comedy show. Although these activities probably won’t make the problem go away, they can help turn down the volume of unpleasant emotions so that you are in a position to problem solve and move on with your day. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Communicate your needs</strong> for space, time and support effectively while keeping important friend and family relationships intact. Try using the WIN strategy, which stands for “When,” “I feel” and “I Need.” In other words, describe the situation factually, express your feelings and opinions (avoid should-ing, and remember people can’t read your mind), and assert by asking for what you need and saying “no” clearly. For example: “When I take the lion’s share of child care during the work week while also trying to work from home / I feel burnt out, tired and irritable / I need you to help with bedtimes during the work week so that I can have a bit of a break and be less irritable during our time together.” And be willing to negotiate for common ground!</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Practise <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pieces-mind/201207/radical-acceptance">radical acceptance</a> of the current circumstances</strong> to choose a path forward with less suffering and more joy. Acceptance does not mean you approve or agree, but instead it allows you to acknowledge your pain and decide to move on, instead of suffering more. Start by noticing when you are fighting reality and figure out exactly what needs to be accepted (without judgemental language). Practise radical acceptance by reminding yourself that reality cannot be changed and allow yourself to experience difficult emotions that arise. Only by accepting current challenges (such as sadness that we can’t give our loved ones tight hugs), can we truly move onto problem solving (such as dropping off a favourite dessert and enjoying it together over a FaceTime catch-up). Be sure to practice acceptance radically, meaning all the way!</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Distress and challenging interpersonal situations are almost inevitable this holiday season. DBT-based strategies can help manage difficult emotions and remain resilient in these particularly challenging times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150838/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leslie E. Roos receives funding from Research Manitoba, The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, The Children's Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, The Canadian Foundation for Innovation and The University of Manitoba. She is a Junior Fellow with the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University and chairs the Academic Advisory Board at the Until the Last Child Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily E. Cameron receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She is affiliated with Kidthink Children's Mental Health Centre Inc. as a Senior Clinical Associate.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Mota receives funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Health Sciences Centre Foundation for work unrelated to this article, and from the University of Manitoba.</span></em></p>As the world faces a second wave of COVID-19 lockdowns, we need new strategies to handle pandemic stress that go beyond basic self-care.Leslie E. Roos, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of ManitobaEmily E. Cameron, Associate Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Psychology, University of ManitobaNatalie Mota, Assistant Professor, Department of Clinical Health Psychology, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1151042019-04-24T11:19:00Z2019-04-24T11:19:00ZStriving for happiness could be making you unhappy – here’s how to find your own path<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268976/original/file-20190412-76827-d4ntzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's no such thing as the perfect life.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/businessman-sitting-on-grass-forest-meditating-1341280958">Motortion Films/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Happiness is big business, with sales of self-help books in the UK <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/09/self-help-books-sstressed-brits-buy-record-number">reaching record levels</a> in the past year. Perhaps that’s because happiness is no longer the birthright of the elite. Just half a century ago, psychologist Warner Wilson seemed to suggest that you are less likely to be happy if you’re uneducated and poor when he stated that <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1967-07352-001">a happy person generally is</a> “young, healthy, well educated, well paid, extroverted, optimistic, worry free, religious, married, with high self-esteem, high job morale, modest aspirations, of either sex and of a wide range of intelligence”. </p>
<p>Today happiness is something we can all aspire to. But, as many of us try out gratitude journals, meditation and positive affirmations, we often discover that they don’t make us substantially happier. The same often goes for reaching the goals that society values – such as marriage, an interesting job or physical fitness. So is happiness just a myth? Research suggests no. The problem, however, is finding a recipe that works for everyone.</p>
<p>Wherever we turn, we are encouraged to strive for happiness. We’re told it will make us better <a href="https://www.parents.com/toddlers-preschoolers/development/fear/raising-happy-children/">at parenting</a>, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/business/work/people-more-likely-to-go-the-extra-mile-when-happy-at-work-1.3797868">work</a> and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ulterior-motives/201208/happy-people-succeed">life in general</a>. So it’s no wonder most of us seek happiness goals to which to aspire, whether they are based on cultural norms, self-help books or scientific research. However this pursuit of happiness can be stressful – and research suggests that it <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160511/">actually makes many people unhappy</a>.</p>
<p>What’s more, much of the research on happiness uses quantitative methodologies that report on what works for most people, for example by working out average results. Therefore, while insightful, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/03/ten-easy-steps-that-will-make-you-a-happier-person">studies about what makes people happy</a> are not representative of us all. After all, people value fundamentally different things in life, from material possessions to intellectual growth.</p>
<p>Originally, the branch of science most devoted to happiness studies – positive psychology – stated that well-being is all about <a href="https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/application_uploads/sheldon-SustainPositiveEmotion.pdf">maximising positive emotions</a> and minimising negative emotions. But this approach has recently been <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.4837.pdf">found to be too simplistic</a>. Recent research instead suggests that individual differences play a great role in our psychological fit for happiness.</p>
<h2>Meaning versus positivity</h2>
<p>The view of many researchers today actually ties in with the ancient philosopher Aristotle’s view of the “good life”. Aristotle argued that happiness <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Veronika_Huta/publication/23545617_Living_well_A_self-determination_theory_perspective_on_eudaimonia/links/546ce1330cf26e95bc3ca838/Living-well-A-self-determination-theory-perspective-on-eudaimonia.pdf">is not just about feeling good</a> but about feeling “right”. He suggested that a happy life involves experiencing the right emotions based on your values and beliefs. </p>
<p>Therefore, happiness is not simply about a hedonistic pursuit of pleasure, but a meaningful engagement with life. At times it may be appropriate to be sad or angry as well as being optimistic and hopeful that things can change. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268974/original/file-20190412-76840-15js1on.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268974/original/file-20190412-76840-15js1on.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268974/original/file-20190412-76840-15js1on.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268974/original/file-20190412-76840-15js1on.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268974/original/file-20190412-76840-15js1on.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268974/original/file-20190412-76840-15js1on.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268974/original/file-20190412-76840-15js1on.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not everyone’s dream.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/asian-family-kid-portrait-front-their-1347013331">Odua Images/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meaning is a close relative of happiness. They often go hand in hand, but are two <a href="https://progressiegerichtwerken.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/SomeKeyDifferencesHappyLifeMeaningfulLife_20121.pdf">entirely separate constructs</a>. It is possible to lead a pleasurable life, but without much meaning. It is also possible to experience a meaningful life dedicated passionately to a cause, but experience very little positive emotion. My own forthcoming study has found that meaning <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/project/Happiness-Personality-Metacognition">is more predictive of happiness</a> in the long run – over and above positive emotions. </p>
<h2>Personality and maturity</h2>
<p>But meaning and pleasure can be subjective. For one person, raising children in a stable and homely family house may be the best way to achieve meaning, while for someone else it may be travelling the world and learning as much as possible about it – with or without children.</p>
<p>Research has indeed found that people with different personalities <a href="https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/does_your_personality_predict_your_happiness">differ in their experience of happiness</a>. For example, people who are extroverted are more likely to feel <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Veronika_Huta/publication/264932700_The_Complementary_Roles_of_Eudaimonia_and_Hedonia_and_How_They_Can_Be_Pursued_in_Practice/links/53f601070cf2888a7492252c/The-Complementary-Roles-of-Eudaimonia-and-Hedonia-and-How-They-Can-Be-Pursued-in-Practice.pdf">fulfilled by a hedonistic approach</a> to happiness. But for other people, this approach is not linked to a happy life. So if you are introverted, you may be more likely to find happiness by developing a meaningful purpose in life – whether that’s charity work, art or family.</p>
<p>Studies have found that people who are “open to experiences” – meaning they like to explore new and unconventional things and ideas – are also more likely to report having a happy life. For these people, experiencing negative emotions from time to time <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886917300788">does not significantly reduce happiness</a> overall. They also report less fear than others of being “too happy”, which naturally allows happiness to flow more easily. Perhaps another factor is that people who are open to new experiences are less likely than many others to conform to society’s norms – including those about happiness. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268977/original/file-20190412-76843-1bh7t82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268977/original/file-20190412-76843-1bh7t82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268977/original/file-20190412-76843-1bh7t82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268977/original/file-20190412-76843-1bh7t82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268977/original/file-20190412-76843-1bh7t82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268977/original/file-20190412-76843-1bh7t82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268977/original/file-20190412-76843-1bh7t82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maturity can provide more opportunities for happiness.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/senior-old-woman-tourist-foreign-city-645172582?src=R9Ftc858jTus3e9yQ3sWNw-1-37">TeodorLazarev/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What’s more, our personalities <a href="https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/can_your_personality_change_over_your_lifetime">change over time</a> – we tend to get more emotionally stable and conscientious as we age. That means our approach to happiness may change. One qualitative study exploring the way individuals talk about happiness and personal growth found that people experience well-being differently based on what stage <a href="https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&amp=&context=conscjournal&amp=&sei-redir=1&referer=https%253A%252F%252Fscholar.google.co.uk%252Fscholar%253Fhl%253Den%2526as_sdt%253D0%25252C5%2526as_ylo%253D2015%2526q%253Dorientation%252Btowards%252Bhappiness%2526btnG%253D#search=%22orientation%20towards%20happiness%22">they are in of their conscious development</a>, as determined by the researchers. </p>
<p>In the stages of early development, our happiness is mostly dependant on social norms – being loved and accepted by others. As we mature, we can differentiate between our own and other people’s emotions in order to pursue meaningful goals. Even higher stages of development are associated with a self-transformation which involves a shift of awareness from pursuing goals to the process of living. For example, when it comes to family time, it may be more important to just be together than doing certain things as a group – such as going to Legoland because everyone else is. The researchers found that mature individuals exercised more control, choice and flexibility over their well-being, and that this opened up more opportunities for happiness.</p>
<p>So it’s unlikely that a few simple rules could make everyone happy. Even the “rule” that money can’t make you happy is now questionable. More recent research shows that this isn’t necessarily true, but depends more on how we spend money and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797616635200">whether this fits with our personality</a> and what we value. </p>
<p>So the next time a well-meaning relative tells you that renovating your house will boost your life satisfaction, don’t panic. We all have different ways of being happy and do not need to conform to a universal formula. As much as it is tempting at times to find happiness through learning from others – and being accepted by them – if it’s someone else’s version of happiness, it might not fit with you.</p>
<p>In fact, it is very possible that the social norms about what constitutes happiness make many of us miserable. Perhaps the key to happiness is truly getting to know yourself and having the guts to do what makes your life worth living at a certain point – regardless of what others say.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115104/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lowri Dowthwaite-Walsh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Are you an extrovert or an introvert? From personality to emotional maturity, individual differences matter when it comes to happiness.Lowri Dowthwaite-Walsh, Lecturer in Psychological Interventions, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1030092018-09-26T11:49:57Z2018-09-26T11:49:57ZI’m talking to you: second-person narratives in literature<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238146/original/file-20180926-48634-o82ptp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While browsing for recipes online, I found <a href="https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/asian-style-fish-chips">this</a>: “Give your Friday night fish and chips an Asian twist with tempura-battered cod and a spicy wasabi tartare sauce.” Sounds delicious? Perhaps – but more exciting to me is the use of the second person possessive. “You” and “your” in the typical recipe are markers of inclusivity and universality – they include us all. The expectation is that everyone eats fish and chips on a Friday so everyone will be enticed by this fusion-tinged variation.</p>
<p>When we consider a common location for the second person voice – the self-help text – matters become complicated. Jordan B Peterson’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/28/12-rules-for-life-an-antidote-to-chaos-by-jordan-b-peterson-digested-read">12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos</a> (2018), to take a recent controversial example, appears to behave like the recipe. In the declared pursuit of “a shared cultural system” in which people “act in keeping with each other’s expectations and desires”, Peterson uses the second person in a universalising way. </p>
<p>If everyone follows his imperatives – a typical example being: “Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today” – the implication is that the result will be order, harmony, contentment. The illusion of inclusion (for it is only an illusion) is bolstered by the liberal use of the first person plural: “we”. In my opinion, Peterson isn’t really giving advice – he is luring the reader into complicity with his neoliberal, individualist, masculinist world view. Observations such as “you must be prepared to do anything and everything, in case it becomes necessary” merely reassert Peterson’s male authority. Any supposedly shared beliefs are those of the marketplace.</p>
<h2>Sympathy for the devil</h2>
<p>Reading Peterson, one is reminded, bizarrely, of Scottish writer Iain Banks’ use of the second person in his 1993 novel <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/iain-m-banks/complicity/">Complicity</a>, in which the reader is tempted towards sympathy with the views of a serial killer. The difference is that Banks’ narrative style encourages the reader to put themselves directly into the situation being described:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Then the door closes and they are there in front of you and in that instant you see him turned slightly away, putting his briefcase down on the table beside the answermachine … You swing the cosh and hit him very hard across the back of the head… </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238090/original/file-20180926-48644-1plrscr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238090/original/file-20180926-48644-1plrscr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238090/original/file-20180926-48644-1plrscr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238090/original/file-20180926-48644-1plrscr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238090/original/file-20180926-48644-1plrscr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238090/original/file-20180926-48644-1plrscr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238090/original/file-20180926-48644-1plrscr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Iain Banks 1993 novel, Complicity, makes extensive use of second person narrative.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This demands that the reader reflects on the ethics of sympathy and complicity and questions the values being espoused. Complicity is a well-known novel – but the second person in literature is rare enough to be a curiosity.</p>
<p>One of the reasons for this might be that, if used very extensively – as in Paul Auster’s memoirs <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/15/winter-journal-paul-auster-review">Winter Journal</a> (2012) and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-review-report-from-the-interior-by-paul-auster-8915557.html">Report from the Interior</a> (2013) – it can feel forced, awkward and, frankly, irritating: “Until that morning, you just were. Now you knew that you were.” Whether or not – as critics such as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42946255">Irene Kacandes</a> have argued – the second person enhances reader involvement, overuse can feel like a form of harassment from someone trying too hard to get into your head.</p>
<p>Auster gestures toward universality, claiming in Report from the Interior that he writes not because “you find yourself a rare or exceptional object of study, but precisely because you don’t, because you think of yourself as anyone, as everyone”. This is disingenuous: the experiences he describes are too personal and specific to be universal – and to assume they are is presumptuous. Even if he is trying to gain distance from himself by using the second person, Auster is still talking only to another version of himself. After all, “you are still who you were, even if you are no longer the same person”. </p>
<h2>Talking with yourself</h2>
<p>Karl Geary’s 2017 coming-of-age story, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/29/montpelier-parade-karl-geary-review">Montpelier Parade</a>, works in a similar way to Auster’s memoirs – the adult writer addresses a youthful self, adding sage, gently ironic reflections with hindsight: “You were the hero in your dream of saving her.” The irony derives from differing levels of experience and knowledge, but again the reader watches from a distance as the narrator talks to himself.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1224&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1224&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238103/original/file-20180926-48644-exhvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1224&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Montpelier Parade: second person as confession.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In both Auster’s and Geary’s texts, narrators compare themselves to who they were yesterday, as Peterson recommends. What is revealed is an idea of literary selfhood closer to the strong, adaptable second person of the self-help book than we might expect. </p>
<p>By contrast, the most effective second person literary narratives are those which deliberately satirise the self-help text. In Lorrie Moore’s 1985 collection, <a href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/09/20/specials/moore-help.html">Self-Help</a>, the stories The Kid’s Guide to Divorce and How are moving precisely because they show that the second person does not instruct or help in practical ways. All it does is catalogue the sadness, the multiple disappointments of a person’s everyday life: “You will meet another actor. Or maybe it’s the same one. Begin to have an affair.” </p>
<p>Likewise, Mohsin Hamid’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/apr/21/filthy-rich-mohsin-hamid-review">How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia</a> (2013) begins by acknowledging the paradox of self-help books. “You read a self-help book so someone who isn’t yourself can help you, that someone being the author” – and then goes on to admit that “the idea of self in the land of self-help is a slippery one. And slippery can be good”.</p>
<p>Slippery can indeed be good. In fact, the power of Moore’s and Hamid’s stories is their paradoxical nature. They show that individual experience is messy and that it is not amenable to generic recipes for success, and they are more inclusive and universal for doing so. It is easier to relate to a narrator who turns out not to have all the answers – one who, like Hamid, realises that every “you” is different. </p>
<p>Used in such ironic, ambiguous ways, the second person becomes a powerful tool because it reminds us that, as Canadian philosopher <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lorraine-Code">Lorraine Code</a> argues, “persons essentially are second persons”. No matter how clear my sense of self, I am always somebody’s other. You may well have found that yourself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Peacock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Have you ever read a novel in the second person? You probably found it strange.James Peacock, Senior Lecturer in English and American Literatures, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1017822018-09-10T22:51:02Z2018-09-10T22:51:02ZSelf-help in the ‘age of responsibility’ denies unequal realities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235291/original/file-20180906-190650-zw8oco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Self-help leaders can convince us that we have the responsibility to improve our lives. But this can ignore the realities of social inequities. Tony Robbins, motivational speaker, personal finance instructor and self-help author on 'Wall Street Week' in 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Richard Drew)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Contemporary self-help teachings are attractive because they assure us that we are the makers of our own destiny. They preach that we have within us the power to change our lives for the better, even to make ourselves anew. Self-help leaders, from Tony Robbins to spiritual gurus like <a href="https://www.robinsharma.com/article/the-responsibility-meter">Robin Sharma</a> and Deepak Chopra, ask us to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_pL7NBYyMA">take responsibility</a> for our lives. </p>
<p>The idea is simple: By taking responsibility for our emotions and what happens to us, we rid ourselves of dependence and thereby potential weakness. By accepting wholeheartedly the value of personal responsibility we become empowered, for no longer do we allow our lives to be dictated by sheer happenstance or the unpredictable whims of others.</p>
<p>Personal responsibility is not merely a core value of much self-help. Harvard political scientist, Yascha Mounk, has recently argued, we are today living in <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674545465"><em>The Age of Responsibility</em></a>. Lauded in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/01/us/text-of-president-clinton-s-announcement-on-welfare-legislation.html">presidential speeches</a> as well as bestselling books (like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/28/12-rules-for-life-an-antidote-to-chaos-by-jordan-b-peterson-digested-read">Jordan Peterson’s <em>12 Rules For Life</em></a>) the value of personal responsibility has become central to contemporary moral and political discourse. </p>
<h2>Obsession with individual responsibility</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235274/original/file-20180906-190642-1pntw7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235274/original/file-20180906-190642-1pntw7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235274/original/file-20180906-190642-1pntw7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235274/original/file-20180906-190642-1pntw7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235274/original/file-20180906-190642-1pntw7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235274/original/file-20180906-190642-1pntw7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235274/original/file-20180906-190642-1pntw7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The focus on personal responsibility distracts us from structural inequities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harvard University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet this has not always been so. Mounk describes the historical shift from a conception of “responsibility-as-duty,” prior to the 1960s, to a conception of “responsibility-as-accountability” that emerged forcefully during the tenures of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. This has since become common sense. </p>
<p>In the wake of the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot">neoliberal turn</a>,” collective responsibility was exchanged for a myopic obsession with encouraging individuals to become self-sufficient.</p>
<p>This shift in the meaning of responsibility has <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674545465">redirected attention from wider structural transformations to the actions of individuals</a> and, in the process, led to the scaling back of the Welfare State. <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195140745.001.0001/acprof-9780195140743">Thus welfare regimes have been under siege since the eighties</a>.</p>
<p>The “responsibility framework” changed the meaning of the Welfare State: once conceived as a public institution based on multiple values, it is now regarded as a mere instrument designed to reward the responsible and punish the irresponsible. </p>
<p>This perspective casts the popularity of self-help teachings in a new (more sinister) light. Deregulation and large cuts to social services have produced dire socio-economic conditions that demand a high degree of personal responsibility just to get by. </p>
<p>Some scholars argue self-help and spiritual teachings offer individuals a message of personal empowerment and are popular only because they are <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/747233.Selling_Spirituality">a useful means of coping with the intense precariousness and social insecurity experienced by many today</a>.</p>
<h2>We do not lack agency</h2>
<p>One response to the responsibility framework on the part of progressives has been to <a href="https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/The%20Impossibility%20of%20Moral%20Responsibility%20-%20Galen%20Strawson.pdf">deny the possibility for personal responsibility</a>. Some egalitarian philosophers and sociologists have countered the rhetoric of responsibility, most commonly invoked by conservatives, with the claim that we are, in fact, wholly byproducts of social circumstance: that we lack any agency at all. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235283/original/file-20180906-190673-ql8082.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235283/original/file-20180906-190673-ql8082.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235283/original/file-20180906-190673-ql8082.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235283/original/file-20180906-190673-ql8082.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235283/original/file-20180906-190673-ql8082.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235283/original/file-20180906-190673-ql8082.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235283/original/file-20180906-190673-ql8082.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Self-help guides teach us that we are the makers of our own destiny.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Austin Distel /Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This tactic, although understandable, is deeply misguided. The fact that most people on both the Right and the Left accept that personal responsibility is an important value suggests that this strategy is nothing short of political suicide. </p>
<p>In other words, telling ordinary individuals they lack agency is unlikely to be met with enthusiasm, no matter their ideological leanings. Additionally, personal responsibility is central to so much of modern life: democratic institutions, intimate relationships, the rule of law. All of these presuppose the possibility for responsibility. </p>
<p>Indeed, it’s hard to imagine what a society that took seriously the idea that we have no agency whatsoever would look like. </p>
<h2>A (partial) defense of self-help</h2>
<p>Progressives are right in suggesting that too little attention is paid to the role of social structures in determining how people’s lives go. One of the core problems with self-help teachings is that they tend to distract us from the myriad ways that our successes and failures depend on factors beyond our control. We are encouraged to see our lives as self-made, rather than as the byproduct of collective efforts and contingencies. </p>
<p>Still, the popularity of self-help cannot be reduced to the insecurity caused by neoliberalism. For one, <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/what-can-aristotle-teach-us-about-the-routes-to-happiness">self-help can be traced back to the Stoics of antiquity</a>. Although certainly modernized, it nevertheless preaches a similar gospel of self-reliance. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235282/original/file-20180906-190665-1mkltt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235282/original/file-20180906-190665-1mkltt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235282/original/file-20180906-190665-1mkltt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235282/original/file-20180906-190665-1mkltt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235282/original/file-20180906-190665-1mkltt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235282/original/file-20180906-190665-1mkltt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235282/original/file-20180906-190665-1mkltt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Self-help can give people a sense that what they do matters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anna Sullivan/Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, self-help empowers people by giving them a sense of agency, the feeling that what they think and do actually matters. To recognize the value of this we need only consider what happens when one is told the opposite: <a href="https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/robb-willer-powerlessness-paradox">when people believe they lack agency, they generally act accordingly</a>. </p>
<p>Finally, modern life, given the scope of freedom it affords, requires self-regulation. Ask anyone currently on a diet, raising kids or working on their anger issues whether or not taking responsibility for their emotions and actions is important. </p>
<p>Self-help is both useful (and sometimes necessary), but it needs to be tempered by a sociological understanding of the reality of social life. Self-help teachings can empower, but they can also convince people they are responsible for their own misfortune when in fact they aren’t. In these instances, self-help can become dangerous and destructive.</p>
<p>Self-help does not make for good public policy. It is one thing to take responsibility for our lives, and quite another to punish someone (or let them be punished by the State) because we think they didn’t do the same. </p>
<p>It is an injustice to the Welfare State to view it as a mere instrument for dolling out rewards to the responsible. It is more than that; it is a public institution meant to embody the values of trust, equality, benevolence, justice, freedom and social solidarity. </p>
<p>If we allow self-help philosophy to inform our approach to public policy, it will shrink our moral imaginations. It will leave us less able to see when it is inappropriate to apply the value of personal responsibility, and also less willing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101782/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Galen Watts receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations.</span></em></p>Self-help books can help us get through difficult times by telling us we have the agency to take control. But this method can also ignore structural inequities and negatively influence public policy.Galen Watts, PhD Candidate in the Cultural Studies Graduate Program, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/930402018-07-19T12:52:20Z2018-07-19T12:52:20ZNew research explores how reading affects eating disorders – for good and ill<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228425/original/file-20180719-142426-1s2vtxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/girl-reading-book-lying-tall-grass-145596166?src=d6lAztOiTshOx7-KdhoB8w-1-17">Angelo lano/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Why do you read? Maybe you read to relax after a long day, to learn about unfamiliar people or places, to make you laugh or to let you dream. Maybe you never really ask yourself why, but turn to books out of some vague instinct that they’re what you want or need.</p>
<p>The question of why humans invest such a lot of time and other resources in reading is an interesting one for researchers of both minds and texts, especially when it comes to fiction and poetry, where the answer doesn’t seem as obviously pragmatic as just learning useful facts. Whatever the answer is, it promises to tell us as much about human nature as it does about literature.</p>
<p>For decades now, researchers in cognitive literary studies have been suggesting reasons for why we read fiction. The dominant thinking is some variant on the idea that reading (especially reading narratives, often fictional) is pleasurable because it serves some <a href="http://www.lisazunshine.net/index%20page%20files/why%20we%20read%20fiction.pdf">evolutionarily adaptive purpose</a>, in particular by giving us the chance to hone cognitive skills of one kind or another, free of real world risks. One strand of the general idea that narrative reading may increase our “fitness” is that it may quite literally help us be healthier.</p>
<p>Self-help books are an obvious place to start. There’s a growing body of research on “self-help bibliotherapy” (reading a self-help book, with or without some kind of formal guidance) <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0a73/64e007c85da0ebc620428b905496dca40351.pdf">which indicates</a> that self-help books can sometimes be effective alternatives or supplements to other kinds of therapy. </p>
<p>But very little is known about whether readers respond in clinically relevant ways to poetry, fiction, or other narrative genres, such as <a href="https://insights.ovid.com/pubmed?pmid=26230647">memoir</a>. The lack of evidence has not prevented <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2161-1939.2010.tb00087.x/abstract">a range of claims and theories</a> from being proposed, and small-scale clinical uses of fiction and poetry by psychiatrists and psychotherapists seem to be fairly widespread. </p>
<p>So is the belief in art’s healing power just wishful thinking, or is there something to it?</p>
<h2>Identification and insight</h2>
<p>The focus of my work is eating disorders. To find out more about the effects of fiction-reading in this context, I set up a partnership with the leading UK eating disorder charity, <a href="https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk">Beat</a>. We designed a detailed online questionnaire to ask respondents about the links they perceive between their reading habits and their mental health (with a focus on eating disorders). The survey attracted 885 responses (773 from people with personal experience of an eating disorder). </p>
<p><a href="https://rdcu.be/LJVT">We found</a> that 69% of those with personal experience reported seeking out both fiction and nonfiction to help with their eating disorder, and that 36% had found the fiction or nonfiction they tried helpful. We asked people to rate the helpfulness and harmfulness of different types of text in relation to their eating disorder, and 15% rated fiction about subjects other than eating disorders as more helpful than any other text type. At the same time, memoirs featuring an eating disorder were rated the most harmful text type, with fiction about eating disorders in second place. This suggests a complex set of effects. </p>
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<p>But how does reading fiction actually affect health, positively or negatively? The dominant theoretical view holds that therapeutic effects arise out of a process involving identification (with the character or situation in the text) followed by insight (into the nature of one’s condition). This is perhaps accompanied by some kind of strong cathartic emotional response, followed by a problem-solving stage in which the insights are converted into intentions for personal change. <a href="https://mh.bmj.com/content/early/2018/04/24/medhum-2017-011375.full">This type of model</a> usually requires that texts should portray situations as similar as possible to the reader’s own, and that they should provide happy but realistic endings.</p>
<p>There are many reasons to question this model. If reading about someone the same as yourself is meant to be therapeutic, what makes it different from, say, rereading your own diary entries? Does the concept of similarity become self-limiting at a certain point, and if so, at what point? And on what dimensions (nature of illness, age, sex, socioeconomic status) is similarity most relevant? </p>
<p>There are also reasons to wonder whether insight is necessarily the main driving force for therapeutic change. In the case of chronic eating disorders, extremely high levels of insight are often coupled with <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hunger-artist/201501/recovering-anorexia-how-and-why-start">a paralysed inability</a> to act on that insight. So at least among long term sufferers, there may be a more important role for reading experiences that increase motivation or self belief for recovery, rather than providing yet more confirmation of the awfulness of the illness. </p>
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<h2>Help and harm</h2>
<p>The survey findings also direct our attention forcefully to the power of reading to do harm as well as good: one 18-year-old female respondent in recovery from multiple eating disorders described harmful reading matter as “reminding me of why I wanted to starve myself and reinforcing my irrational thoughts”. The testimony on the effects of fiction about eating disorders was overwhelmingly negative; 18 respondents also spontaneously mentioned deliberately “self-triggering”, or choosing to read books they knew would exacerbate their disorder.</p>
<p>Many respondents reported that their eating disorder encourages them to read in such a highly selective way that anything and everything can end up supporting the disordered mindset. Self-perpetuating <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7zpuDQAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=cognitive+literary+science+burke+troscianko&pg=PA169&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">feedback loops</a> also seem to play a powerful role. If you’re feeling trapped by some aspect of an eating disorder (like low self-esteem), you might be more likely to read a certain type of text, or to read in a particular way (like zooming in on every association of thinness with something positive). This then makes you feel worse (maybe feeling instantly fatter or more determined to lose weight), which in turn encourages more unhealthy reading patterns. These vicious circles can be hard to break.</p>
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<p>But fiction-reading seems to be one of the things that can break them. Fiction about something entirely unrelated to disordered eating can be stabilising and therapeutic in numerous ways. This can be pragmatic and embodied (allowing regular eating to happen, for example) or broadly existential: exploring alternative worlds, or reminding yourself that your life really could be different. A 27-year-old male in recovery from anorexia described how:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>After reading sci-fi my mood is raised and I tend to feel more at peace with the universe, cognitively and imaginatively stimulated and inspired.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, next time you pick up a book, reflect for a while on your reasons for doing so. And think about whether, when you’re tired or stressed out or indeed more seriously unwell, you find forms of solace, healing, or inspiration in the apparently simple black marks on a white background.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93040/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Troscianko has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Alongside her academic work, she provides recovery coaching for people with eating disorders.</span></em></p>Is the belief in art’s healing power just wishful thinking, or is there something to it?Emily Troscianko, Knowledge Exchange Fellow at The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/829562017-11-03T12:41:36Z2017-11-03T12:41:36ZWant to become self-compassionate? Run a marathon<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193047/original/file-20171102-26432-1xbdb1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/female-runner-tying-running-outdoor-584083288?src=n50QW7SJVc3mQY5RkVwLJQ-1-90">Ala Khviasechka/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Unsurprisingly, running a marathon is tough. It takes months of training before runners even make it to the starting line and this preparation can, at times, feel like punishment. The marathon runner in training can often be found limping around with blisters, sore muscles and blackened or lost toenails. Not, perhaps, an image we might naturally associate with the idea of “self-compassion”.</p>
<p>A relatively new concept, self-compassion has been hailed as a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvtZBUSplr4">more robust alternative to self-esteem</a>. While compassion refers to the demonstration of sympathy and concern for others in times of suffering, self-compassion entails showing this <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15298860309032">same understanding to ourselves</a>. </p>
<p>One of first skills needed for self-compassion is self-kindness – extending compassion to yourself, even when you feel like you have failed, which can be challenging to say the least. Often when faced with failure, we implicitly assume self-criticism is necessary in order to motivate strong future performance. But in reality this <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886909001226">strategy often falls flat</a>. Giving oneself a harsh talking to doesn’t just make us feel bad, it also interferes with our ability to calmly examine a situation and identify what to change in order to improve – an essential component of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15298860902979307">psychological resilience</a>.</p>
<p>Perhaps this explains why studies have found positive associations between self-compassion and <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00330.x/full">psychological wellbeing</a>, <a href="http://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/jscp.2010.29.7.727">physical health</a> and strong <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00677.x/full">relationships with others</a>. </p>
<p>But what does all of this have to do with running a marathon?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193048/original/file-20171102-26448-1ijfzbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193048/original/file-20171102-26448-1ijfzbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193048/original/file-20171102-26448-1ijfzbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193048/original/file-20171102-26448-1ijfzbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193048/original/file-20171102-26448-1ijfzbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193048/original/file-20171102-26448-1ijfzbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193048/original/file-20171102-26448-1ijfzbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 2016 New York Marathon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/new-york-city-november-6-2016-515719792?src=RKk6cvz1Xg5piYj1CIlWOw-1-0">a katz/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Training for a marathon can revolutionise self-perception, making kind self-talk – where you speak directly to yourself either mentally or out loud – easier for even the most reluctant of individuals. This shift isn’t prompted by changes in physique, but of mind. After dedicating oneself to a marathon, the anatomy receives a perceptual upgrade and transforms from a mere body into an essential tool. You begin to see the true value in your own body and the strength that it has.</p>
<p>Research suggests that working towards purposeful goals <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2006.00427.x/full">enhances our sense of self-worth</a>, so under the conditions of marathon training, self-care – looking after ourselves physically – is not only viewed as essential for performance, but as something we deserve. Commit to a goal, invest time, energy and emotion in that goal, and anything that threatens the performance of the body – literally the vehicle needed to carry you to your end target – is unacceptable.</p>
<p>This relates to the second element of self-compassion: a balanced perspective. Described as caring for ourselves in an enduring way, a balanced perspective ensures happiness and health in the long-term. This can also be tricky, given we are typically geared toward instant gratification and struggle to connect the immediate rewards of pleasurable items such as food, alcohol and cigarettes, with their long-term consequences. In fact, neurological research suggests that we literally <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2656877/">see our future selves as different people</a>. </p>
<p>However, training for a marathon can help perceptual balance, because it directs our attention away from our immediate concerns and towards the future. Research suggests that goals cognitively activate stimuli <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065260102800089">which help us achieve them</a>. This means the motivation to complete a marathon makes objects and activities which are relevant to our long-term health implicitly attractive and easier to engage with. </p>
<p>More specifically, setting a goal which requires us to plan and monitor progress over weeks or months can help to bridge the gap between current and future happiness. Sticking to a schedule and <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1469029202000122">receiving feedback</a>, such as identifying weekly mileage goals and achieving new distance targets, can make us more willing to make choices that will benefit us later on. This might be resisting the instant pleasure of one too many drinks on a Friday night, or getting enough sleep so that we feel at our best when training. </p>
<p>The third and final component of self-compassion is common humanity. This refers to the understanding that suffering is a natural and shared part of being human. Based on the idea that feeling isolated in our pain <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-6494.7102004/full">exacerbates perceptions of inadequacy</a> and insecurity, common humanity is an important part of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15298860309027">avoiding negative cycles of self-pity</a>. </p>
<p>Running is sometimes considered an isolated and fiercely competitive sport, but this isn’t necessarily true. Runners step in to help one another in times of difficulty – just <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/video/2017/apr/24/london-marathon-david-wyeth-matthew-rees-video">look at Matthew Rees</a> who helped fellow runner David Wyeth complete the last 300m of the 2017 London Marathon, to the detriment of his own timing. Running provides a sense of human connection, because it shows that struggle is normal. Being one in a field of thousands, communally suffering in the pursuit of a common goal, is paradoxically satisfying. Perhaps because it allows us to appreciate just how small we are in the scheme of things.</p>
<p>So, while marathon training may be painful, sometimes we have to experience a degree of suffering in order to truly value ourselves, to appreciate others, and to learn what it means to be self-compassionate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82956/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rhi Willmot does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How pushing yourself to new extremes can help you to self-careRhi Willmot, PhD Researcher in Behavioural and Positive Psychology, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/729862017-02-17T09:28:18Z2017-02-17T09:28:18ZHow South Africa can turn the rising tide against vigilantism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156977/original/image-20170215-27423-1te5wcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Residents of Rosettenville burn household goods from alleged drug dens and brothels in the area.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daily Sun/Lucky Morajane</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A wave of vigilante violence has recently rocked the working class suburb of <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/02/14/action-plan-launched-to-maintain-safety-in-rosettenville">Rosettenville</a>, south of Johannesburg. It’s the latest instalment of a now all too familiar phenomenon in South Africa.</p>
<p>Images of people being brutally beaten or even killed by a vengeful mob are a regular feature on <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/one-dies-soweto-mob-justice">television</a>, in <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/were-going-to-burn-these-thieves-1902503">newspapers</a> and on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKKbTDGp4Fs">social media</a>. Private citizens often take the law into their own hands to punish perceived wrongdoers in their communities. Their aim is to improve their collective security and social order where formal law enforcement is absent or ineffective.</p>
<p>The fundamental issues of law, order, justice and power that lie at the heart of <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2017-02-13-00-xenophobia-a-convenient-scapegoat-for-rosettenville-mamelodi">vigilante activities</a> have a myriad of significant wider implications. Vigilantism challenges the formal boundary between crime and punishment, between law and justice. </p>
<p>Despite its ubiquity, vigilantism has largely been overlooked as a legal topic worthy of in-depth consideration, or even definition. My recent <a href="http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/100325">doctoral study</a> aimed to fill this gap.</p>
<p>The central questions my research sought to answer were how to conceptualise, understand and address vigilantism from a legal perspective. </p>
<p>My study showed that vigilantes resort to violence to “fill the gap” left by unsatisfactory law enforcement. This is because of the state’s failure to command widespread legitimacy. </p>
<p>This loss of legitimacy is due to the state being <a href="http://www.khayelitshacommission.org.za/images/towards_khaye_docs/3_Part_Three.pdf">inefficient</a>, <a href="http://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publication/people_and_corruption_africa_survey_2015">corrupt</a> and out of touch with <a href="http://journals.co.za/content/crim/27/2/EJC165950">popular concerns</a>. The situation is exacerbated in marginalised and poverty stricken communities, where violence is commonplace. </p>
<h2>Vigilantes as both victims and perpetrators</h2>
<p>There are inherent contradictions in how we respond towards vigilantism in South Africa. Vigilantes are viewed as criminals who <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/were-going-to-burn-these-thieves-1902503">deserve to be punished</a>. But they are also sometimes portrayed as being proactive citizens fighting crime. As Judge Binns-Ward J in <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAWCHC/2013/67.html">one case</a> stated: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>vigilantes are seen by many in the communities … as upstanding and respectable members of the community, and indeed see themselves as serving the interests of their community. On reflection, even if wholly unacceptable, this much is understandable in the context of a perception by a community that the formal and constitutionally established criminal justice system is not functioning.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The courts and the executive seem to share the popular assumption that vigilante violence deserves harsh condemnation. This goes hand-in-hand with an uneasy acknowledgement that vigilantism is essentially an attempt to address a long standing and ongoing problem – namely the state’s woefully inadequate response to societal order and security demands. </p>
<p>This ambivalence is reflected in the words South Africans use to talk about vigilantism. These include oxymoronic terms such as “popular justice”, “kangaroo court”, “vengeance attacks” and “mob justice”. </p>
<p>And the ambivalence is reinforced by the fact that there are very low levels of trust between citizens of the country and the police. This was borne out again with the release of the country’s latest victims of crime survey by <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412015.pdf">Statistics South Africa</a>. It showed that, on the whole, South Africans are reluctant to report crime because they think the police can’t, or won’t, do anything about it.</p>
<h2>Vigilantes as law-enforcers</h2>
<p>During the course of my research I found that vigilantes saw the law as a stumbling block to achieving justice. I also found that vigilantes often appeared to have considerable community support. </p>
<p>This is because they employ a variety of techniques to legitimise their actions – to themselves and others. For example they depict their distinctive brand of violence as a legitimate means of enforcing group norms. And that the enforcement of these norms is being carried out by upstanding, honourable and respectable members of the community. </p>
<p>They also demonise their victims, claiming that their violent actions are necessary to safeguard the community from “undesirable” and <a href="http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/100325">“subhuman” elements</a>. </p>
<p>It’s also noteworthy that vigilante “justice” is often carried out in a way that crudely parallels the formal justice system. This allows vigilantes to represent their exercise of power as not only comparable with, but superior to, conventional law enforcement.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156981/original/image-20170215-27423-jbjbq6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156981/original/image-20170215-27423-jbjbq6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156981/original/image-20170215-27423-jbjbq6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156981/original/image-20170215-27423-jbjbq6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156981/original/image-20170215-27423-jbjbq6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156981/original/image-20170215-27423-jbjbq6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156981/original/image-20170215-27423-jbjbq6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Police patrol Rosettenville following an explosion of vigilante violence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daily Sun/Lucky Morajane</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So, how can the state counter the strategies of vigilantes and re-establish its own legitimacy. What is the most effective way to respond to vigilantism to harness (or neutralise) its power?</p>
<h2>Tackling vigilantism</h2>
<p>To establish its legitimacy the state must demonstrate its capacity to reduce citizen’s feelings of insecurity and fear. This requires dealing sufficiently harshly with crime (including vigilantism) while also delegitimating the option of violent “problem-solving”. But this can only happen if the state acts in ways that shows respect for human rights. </p>
<p>The state can go one of two ways. It can go the exclusionary route, punishing those who take the law into their own hands harshly. Or it can opt for more inclusionary alternatives. These could include using <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africas-tentative-moves-toward-restorative-justice-need-support-51286">restorative justice</a> or co-opting vigilantes’ crime-fighting power. </p>
<p><a href="http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/100325">My research</a> shows that various community driven restorative justice initiatives have been successful in the past. One example was the <a href="https://www.ideaswork.org/aboutcommunitypeace.html">Community Peace Programme</a> through which community members were able to take peaceful ownership of their conflicts. The programme was started in 1997 but was discontinued in 2009 due to lack of <a href="http://ideaswork.org">state funding</a>. </p>
<p>Police-vigilante partnerships have been rather less successful due to vigilantes’ propensity for violence. But there have been examples of former vigilante groups being incorporated via neighbourhood watch and community policing <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/110/441/607/98926/The-politics-of-mobilization-for-security-in-South">initiatives</a>.</p>
<p>These examples show that, with the proper guidelines, addressing vigilantism need not be at the expense of basic values such as non-violence and respect for the human dignity of everyone involved. </p>
<p>I suggest that for the state to succeed at relegitimating itself in the eyes of the public, it needs to focus on solutions that are forward-looking. These should involve reintegration rather than simply condemnation. And they should uphold and advance constitutional values. </p>
<p>The practice of justice by the state in marginalised communities needs to be based on shared societal and communal values. These include the need for practical reparation (for example, police could return stolen goods to crime victims rather than retaining them as exhibits), community participation, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/12/10/you-know-ubuntu-as-an-operating-system-mandela-knew-it-as-his-lifes-mission/?utm_term=.8fdc373b5dd1"><em>ubuntu</em></a> (human kindness) and policing that focuses on fair treatment and accountability. Doing this would greatly increase the likelihood of citizen buy-in.</p>
<p>Vigilantes may indeed be willing to abandon violence as a means of problem-solving and to work with the formal criminal justice system if it’s seen to be addressing issues of crime and disorder in a community responsive, inclusive, respectful and restorative manner.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Nel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Vigilantism challenges the formal boundary between crime and punishment, between law and justice. But its largely been overlooked as a legal topic worthy of in-depth consideration.Mary Nel, Mary Nel is a senior lecturer in Public Law, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/650792016-09-08T22:18:28Z2016-09-08T22:18:28ZApple Watch pivots to fitness – and focuses on a different style of self-help<p>When Apple <a href="https://youtu.be/bdyVH5LqneU">unveiled its original watch in 2014</a>, the California company touted <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20150509040832/http://www.apple.com/watch/">three tent-pole features</a> of the new wearable: style, communication and fitness. <a href="http://www.apple.com/apple-events/september-2016/">Rolling out</a> the second-generation Apple Watch this week, Apple has positioned fitness, and fitness alone, as the device’s main selling point. High-end fashion, and friend-to-friend gestures like the <a href="http://www.imore.com/how-send-someone-your-heartbeat-apple-watch">heartbeat share</a>, were hardly mentioned. Exercise was the unrivaled star of the watch reveal. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p2_O6M1m6xg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Introducing Series 2 – with an emphasis on physicality.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.apple.com/apple-events/september-2016/">Tim Cook’s keynote</a> introduced the new <a href="http://www.apple.com/watch/">“Series 2” device</a> with a <a href="http://www.apple.com/apple-watch-series-2/">promotional video</a> dominated by sports: color bursts of swimming, tennis, basketball, cycling, stairs, skateboarding, jogging and on and on. The watch’s featured hardware changes, in addition to the requisite processor upgrade, were a GPS chip and a new “swimproof” water rating.</p>
<p>The upgraded operating system, <a href="http://www.apple.com/watchos/">watchOS 3</a>, is all about fitness too: new Activity watch faces, workout sharing, additional health metrics, and a new “Breathe” app. Cook called the watch the “ultimate device for a healthy life.” He said he expected the new version to be “especially popular with runners” – and proceeded to invite Nike’s brand chief to introduce a full-fledged, standalone unit: the <a href="http://www.apple.com/apple-watch-nike/">Apple Watch Nike+</a>. The Nike version, with its own specialized bands and watch faces, was hailed as the “perfect running partner.”</p>
<p>The Series 2 announcement did include a brief mention of new Hermés bands, as well as enhanced emojis and a “Scribble” finger-drawn input system. But the original tripartite pitch – style, communication and health – was reduced to a single, focused sell: the Apple Watch is a fitness device. And with that shift Apple has substituted a strand of self-improvement – disciplined and quantitative – for its longstanding appeals to iconoclastic self-expression. </p>
<h2>Forget fashion, follow the market to fitness</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137103/original/image-20160908-25249-1ofegob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137103/original/image-20160908-25249-1ofegob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137103/original/image-20160908-25249-1ofegob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137103/original/image-20160908-25249-1ofegob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137103/original/image-20160908-25249-1ofegob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137103/original/image-20160908-25249-1ofegob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137103/original/image-20160908-25249-1ofegob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137103/original/image-20160908-25249-1ofegob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fitness doesn’t appear to be top of mind for this high-fashion model sporting the original Apple Watch.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2014/10/voguecover.jpg?retina">Vogue China</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Recall that the original watch was promoted with <a href="https://youtu.be/dAFEoUc3JNw">videos narrated by designer Jony Ive</a>, with purring, pornographic attention to design and exotic materials. Crucial to the original roll-out campaign was a relentless effort to link the watch to the fashion world: the <a href="http://www.self.com/flash/celebrity-blog/2015/02/march-cover-girl-candice-swanepoel-apple-watch/">Self</a>, <a href="http://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/02/apple-watch-flare-magazine/">Flare</a> and <a href="http://www.digitaltrends.com/wearables/apple-watch-vogue-china-cover-iphone-6-preorders-start/">Vogue China</a> covers, the <a href="http://www.digitaltrends.com/apple/apple-watch-splashed-across-12-pages-of-vogues-march-issue/">12-page ad spread</a> (and <a href="http://www.vogue.com/1415025/apple-design-genius-jonathan-ive/">glowing Ive profile</a>) in U.S. Vogue, the in-store boutiques at <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/10/8380993/apple-watch-tokyo-paris-london-shopping">Galleries Lafayettes and Selfridges</a>, the high-profile hires from Burberry to L.V.M.H.</p>
<p>Equally prominent, in that <a href="https://youtu.be/bdyVH5LqneU">first unveiling</a>, were the watch’s communication features. The Dick Tracy phone calls, the intimate “Digital Touch” messaging, the dedicated “Friends” side button: The stress, back in 2014, was on new, “subtle ways to communicate.” With the Series 2 version, most of that fell away. Even the side button has been repurposed as an app-loading dock. And now it’s your Activity rings – the addictive circles that track standing, movement and exercise – you’re <a href="http://www.apple.com/apple-watch-series-2/">encouraged to share</a>.</p>
<p>The business angle of Apple’s pivot to fitness isn’t that interesting. The company is following its customers and the broader wearables market – where lower-cost wristbands like Fitbit are reportedly <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/07/heres-why-apple-needs-a-new-watch-sales-are-plunging.html">picking up market share</a>. The Nike+ deal isn’t an aspirational bid to tap an underserved market. Instead, right now at least, exercise tracking is the reason consumers are buying smart watches and “basic” wearables like the Fitbit.</p>
<p>The intriguing thing about Apple’s shift in marketing is its elevation of self-improvement over self-expression. The original watch was promoted as a custom display of personal style – as an identity statement on par with clothing. Cook <a href="https://youtu.be/bdyVH5LqneU">described the original watch</a> as the “most personal device Apple has ever created,” and the device’s <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20150509040832/http://www.apple.com/watch/">web copy</a> reinforced the point: Apple Watch is “more than a tool. It’s a true expression of your personal taste.” Or, in a <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160406034110/http://www.apple.com/watch/">later rendition</a>: “From the way it works to the way it looks, Apple Watch isn’t just something you wear. It’s an essential part of who you are.”</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.apple.com/apple-watch-series-2/">new web copy</a>, however, drops all the expressive language: The Series 2 Watch is “designed for all the ways you move,” full of features that “help you stay active, motivated and connected.”</p>
<h2>Apple switches its flavor of self-help</h2>
<p>The shift represents a victory of one mode of self-help over another. As sociologist Micki McGee observed in <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/self-help-inc-9780195337266?cc=us&lang=en&">Self-Help, Inc.</a>, a pair of ethics have long competed in the American self-improvement market, one emphasizing self-mastery and the other self-discovery. Think <a href="https://www.tonyrobbins.com/">Tony Robbins</a> versus Oprah Winfrey: Robbins asks us to treat ourselves as objects to (relentlessly) work on, while Winfrey preaches meditative fulfillment.</p>
<p>Each ideal, in turn, <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674824263">draws on a different strand of Western individualism</a>: the notion that the self is something we own, versus the competing idea that the self is to be discovered and expressed. The first ethic, the <a href="http://www.oupcanada.com/catalog/9780195444018.html">possessive individualism</a> of philosopher John Locke, helped provoke the second notion of self discovery, as expressed in the <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/508124">literary and artistic Romanticisms</a> of the 19th century. Since then – for <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/fables-of-abundance-a-cultural-history-of-advertising-in-america/oclc/30547687">over a century in the American case</a> – these two ideals have been hitched to selling consumer goods. </p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Apple’s traditionally been more about self-expression than self-mastery.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Apple has traditionally wrapped its products in the second ideal of self-expression and discovery: the iconic <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R706isyDrqI">1984 sledgehammer ad</a>, the “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_different">Think Different</a>” and “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_a_Mac">I’m a Mac/I’m a PC</a>” campaigns, <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G3">candy-colored iMacs</a> and all those <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mpM5nzSEyXE">silhouetted iPod dancers</a>. Apple is selling the Series 2 Watch, by contrast, on the self-mastery ethic. It’s less “<a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tjgtLSHhTPg">Here’s to the crazy ones</a>” and more <a href="http://www.apple.com/apple-watch-series-2/">lap-counts and “achievement” badges</a>.</p>
<p>What’s novel about Apple’s move is that self-discipline is getting delegated to a device. In a sense, watch wearers are outsourcing their superegos to a publicly traded company, the world’s most valuable. With every tap-to-stand and Activity report – “<a href="http://www.apple.com/apple-watch-series-2/">a nudge when you need it</a>” – the watch becomes more like a personal trainer, one coded by Apple engineers. By baking in fitness-sharing (“<a href="http://www.apple.com/apple-watch-series-2/">Healthy loves company</a>”), the new watch appeals to social comparison and competition too – “whether it’s to send encouragement or a little smack talk.” And Apple’s exercise-centric messaging is built around <a href="http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9781509500598">quantitative self-monitoring</a>, via bar graphs and calorie counts and beats-per-minute tallies. The Series 2 “tracks all the ways you move throughout the day,” reads new <a href="http://www.apple.com/apple-watch-series-2/">web copy</a>. “Select up to five metrics to view at once.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137112/original/image-20160908-25231-vl7t41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137112/original/image-20160908-25231-vl7t41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137112/original/image-20160908-25231-vl7t41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137112/original/image-20160908-25231-vl7t41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137112/original/image-20160908-25231-vl7t41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137112/original/image-20160908-25231-vl7t41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137112/original/image-20160908-25231-vl7t41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137112/original/image-20160908-25231-vl7t41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Will this pivot affect the physical health of Apple zealots?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/shinyasuzuki/16924905779">Shinya Suzuki</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Exercise is a good thing. But we shouldn’t pretend the design and promotion of devices like the Apple Watch are value-neutral. By the time they’re slotted under flawless in-store glass, they already have a <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/social-shaping-of-technology/oclc/39713267">set of ideals preinstalled</a>. In the Apple Watch case, those values reflect their California origins: Our selves are objects to work on, to sculpt and measure, in competition with others. Indeed, the watch echoes the subculture of <a href="http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9781509500598">dedicated self-quantifiers</a>, who – to a deliberate extent – define themselves in metrical terms. </p>
<p>The watch’s new <a href="http://www.apple.com/apple-watch-series-2/">“Breathe” app</a> is a fascinating case in counterpoint. The app, which encourages periodic deep breathing, is meant to “help you practice mindfulness every day.” Here is a reminder of Silicon Valley’s <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3773600.html">long flirtation with New Age mysticism</a> – as well as the <a href="http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/as/article/view/3941">gauzy repurposing of Buddhist meditation</a> for the self-help industry. If anything, the Breathe app is a throwback to Apple’s expressivist marketing campaigns. And in that respect the new watch echoes a century-old American injunction: <a href="http://www.jeffpooley.com/pubs/PooleyConsumingSelf2010.pdf">If you want to get ahead, go find yourself</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65079/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jefferson Pooley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Forget high-end design and cutting-edge communication. The new Watch is a fitness device and heralds a shift for the company – from enabling self-expression to nudging users toward self-mastery.Jefferson Pooley, Associate Professor of Media & Communication, Muhlenberg CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/620032016-07-18T13:15:09Z2016-07-18T13:15:09ZA step-by-step guide to get some entrepreneurial spirit into your life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130873/original/image-20160718-2147-o30vve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C3%2C2038%2C1241&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Taking the plunge. What can entrepreneurs teach you?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/peterras/9618716670/in/photolist-fDYrmA-djRU9a-ohoRVQ-a4kRJo-dxcGCB-diVk95-77X4nU-hZAR8V-brtEPQ-99pW7w-j5FLUQ-ohFytD-5E3mES-opt71U-t2Pknu-ppq5Fo-5vW9b3-oHzRd4-dEo3TP-2YRhTY-f7ddYe-otznRz-8CqEWo-8PESb-CfUVwL-ohem3p-6Gvibs-zwGr5-8DXLcw-oKk4e4-92NFky-r8Yaw1-8PWdcw-93wAuX-nZkkge-94tg6d-o9jXwS-9ZyvfD-o6zWbG-o6c2je-9BuLeE-d2XZi-ae1aC3-4QJQgp-o3HNsQ-wuTZy-8xC5pW-8gsiFE-dUztps-gxrLQ">Peter Kirkeskov Rasmussen/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When confronted by life, we are each bound within the scope and the limits of the perspectives we have adopted and nurtured over our lives. In times of uncertainty – and Britain’s current political and constitutional environment is a useful example – we might be tempted to play it safe, pull up the drawbridge and look enviously out as others grab the opportunities we have missed. Entrepreneurs can appear to be a different kind of beast altogether – starting businesses, launching products, failing and starting again. In truth, though, we can all adopt their characteristics to change our own perspectives on life.</p>
<h2>Step one</h2>
<p>Start by viewing life and opportunities through the eyes of a colleague, customer, friend or even a child and you will experience something new. Entrepreneurs try and see this from their customers perspective – how would they use this product or service, how could it be useful for them and what would they think about it? This helps us to break down the <a href="http://www.simplypsychology.org/tolman.html">cognitive or mental maps</a> that limit idea creation. </p>
<p>For example <a href="http://www.thehighline.org/">the High Line</a>, now a vibrant tourist attraction in a multicultural area of New York, used to be a derelict train track. Two <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x4e1dALkhc">ordinary New Yorkers</a> imagined what people would enjoy and initiated a collaboration with designers, artists and business owners to transform an eyesore into a delight. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130868/original/image-20160718-2127-1k9olky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130868/original/image-20160718-2127-1k9olky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130868/original/image-20160718-2127-1k9olky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130868/original/image-20160718-2127-1k9olky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130868/original/image-20160718-2127-1k9olky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130868/original/image-20160718-2127-1k9olky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130868/original/image-20160718-2127-1k9olky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130868/original/image-20160718-2127-1k9olky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Learning from the High Line in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ugardener/27445055522/in/photolist-HPe5Qs-eDLCwi-oc9zwg-dLKrgJ-oK6brU-oEfqaW-oKAkit-8kwEoT-9SQD61-9SQXfy-HKapsQ-5rNndS-dC7pSn-dCcSCL-dup2nt-dLE2Yc-8ZK9SW-dHjC18-ouBEmJ-e69dJY-9SN6v6-oqni57-b6WYwP-aysq8t-aGJFxr-HScBH5-duqRvf-dC7reH-8PDW4a-JyZRJu-c5ZmjE-duZmtC-bxh6uE-6RsQo7-qHK19Y-H8nwVZ-mpg8k6-e63EAX-g6MQZP-nJxMoW-dQyd6i-pTbnoJ-bw76GT-oN4rxY-sE559d-96WKce-8KgwsA-egJSpR-96ZBtG-mpCufH">JR P/Flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not everyone will be able to turn wasted city train tracks into a green, sustainable park, but exploring what is possible is for everyone. Safe and familiar mental maps have been forming from childhood and need conscious rerouting. New tracks need to be laid down for new ideas to germinate.</p>
<h2>Step two</h2>
<p>Take the plunge. And ignore the impulse to “do things properly”. Easy to say, hard to do. But it does mark out the entrepreneurs. Much of the time fear prevents action, and the desire to have all the answers delays using intuition.</p>
<p>Peter Taylor, CEO and chairman of TTP Group Plc, an award winning technology and product development company based in Cambridge, said <a href="http://tomorrowscompany.com/video/tomorrows-company-interviewing-peter-taylor-ceo-ttp-group">in a recent interview</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Management is something we don’t want a lot of, it needs to be intuitive. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For an entrepreneur this means less time following processes and procedures and more time for action. Have a go and let it evolve, because the first action you take might be wrong, but you would have learned something from it. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130879/original/image-20160718-2122-1w08sea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130879/original/image-20160718-2122-1w08sea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130879/original/image-20160718-2122-1w08sea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130879/original/image-20160718-2122-1w08sea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130879/original/image-20160718-2122-1w08sea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130879/original/image-20160718-2122-1w08sea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130879/original/image-20160718-2122-1w08sea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130879/original/image-20160718-2122-1w08sea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Facepalm. The statue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/proimos/4199675334/in/photolist-7p7raq-fVKsw-9nMEfr-3f5zJS-vNDjp-aWxhjP-f1W7DD-zMjnzx-7ZTxby-e7Jati-4PuAxf-dEHBno-e7o8fo-86uGe2-cAeTmC-cnytvm-w3wFEq-7Mqqyb-6w9kk7-fbqJv3-ichnik-3MzLum-dUgrUc-4dysDF-a2XzBW-basZy-dEHzsb-6CbHko-7Mquhs-buG39s-iW3FWz-61Hb8A-xStNp-7MkPqt-eCaCns-7MpP7N-dLJSK2-5ReQr8-6qFQHM-5QWq6M-6QAwrQ-bJGYyD-8taYXU-ehk6kN-dk4LsQ-bGgrrT-9oUtpU-qFR6He-34Ydj3-4diX2R">Alex Proimos/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a world driven by metrics, entrepreneurs use their intuition when information is lacking. However, as any entrepreneur will tell you, analyse and use the detail, but don’t ignore your <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/445287-don-t-let-the-noise-of-others-opinions-drown-out-your">inner voice</a>.</p>
<p>Confidence is developed by knowing what you are able to do; know yourself and know your personal strengths. And if you don’t know, adopt the entrepreneurial eagerness to learn, or “steal with your eyes and ears”. Use the intoxicating blend of knowledge and intuition to introduce some entrepreneurial flair where you need it the most. </p>
<h2>Step three</h2>
<p>Collaborate with others in a meaningful way. Although some may believe the entrepreneurial spirit is single-minded, many entrepreneurs appreciate the power of collective cognition or thinking together. That idea of being “in this together” is a significant entrepreneurial driver that builds trust. The spirit of co-creating with colleagues and customers, testing your theories and products and services breaks down our mental maps of how the world works.</p>
<p>These extrinsic behaviours and interactions start to unpick the intrinsic, sometimes unobtainable thoughts, that bind us to our own ideas about life and relationships. </p>
<h2>Step four</h2>
<p>Grow through the uncertainty we face. We have a choice to make in thinking about whether something is a threat or an opportunity. Faced with uncertainty, we all expend energy trying to reduce <a href="http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html">cognitive dissonance</a> or in other words, sidestep the contradictory arguments. This conflict reduces the ability to learn. </p>
<p>The uncertainty that Britain faces after the EU referendum means that the speed of change around us has increased. It is understandable that deciding to be comfortable with uncertainty feels like a contradiction. But having courage and patience means that the entrepreneurial spirit is comfortable with standing on shaky ground.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130882/original/image-20160718-2120-1owq3wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130882/original/image-20160718-2120-1owq3wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130882/original/image-20160718-2120-1owq3wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130882/original/image-20160718-2120-1owq3wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130882/original/image-20160718-2120-1owq3wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130882/original/image-20160718-2120-1owq3wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130882/original/image-20160718-2120-1owq3wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130882/original/image-20160718-2120-1owq3wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Error strewn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/debord/4932655275/in/photolist-8vT9yB-7Fguhp-4VwGmg-6BepTu-2sxRNC-bTQwf4-8GpWks-2Zgmd-9he2xz-nh9E1M-6fuH4d-bjVXBg-dco18n-5yViti-8kWmiN-pAMqiU-8sRFcQ-dizzAv-5WkCfa-9m1H8w-8WnoZh-8gCFML-5GLFEo-8giHbr-6PyW5a-kqcqCx-mHakiF-9344Qi-aA9usm-zh7vG-qPrj1L-ddyx4t-d3UADU-7Er6af-rrv51P-4Bom3q-fkmu8g-7k5o9D-2kkgtJ-3pHNnz-7JnRdX-7vB7fR-oRNywn-5huQJc-69Xv2J-9oGwvq-h5uim-5giDsZ-sG3xvz-LKzD4">Véronique Debord-Lazaro Follow/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Step five</h2>
<p>Share your glory. People attribute their success to various things, but there is always more than one person that is part of the story. Within families and family businesses the entrepreneurial spirit is kept alive by sharing stories. The narrative of successes is handed down through generational story telling. <a href="http://www.simplypsychology.org/attribution-theory.html">Attribution theory</a> means that we try and explain events and find reasons for how and why our life is the way it is. By sharing and attributing our successes to others, we generate a culture of belonging.</p>
<h2>Step six</h2>
<p>Take an hour or two to day dream. Entrepreneurial spirits have enjoyed the <a href="http://www.americanscientist.org/science/pub/the-benefits-of-daydreaming">benefits of this</a> as part of their lives in work and play. It is essential that we are allowed to dream in order to create, allowing the neural networks in the brain to make connections or <a href="http://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch07_cognition/thinking_outside_the_box__with_the_9-dot_problem.html">connect the dots</a>.</p>
<p>This might feel like a waste of time, mostly because the education system discourages gazing out of classroom windows. However, because of the ability of the <a href="http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-and-human-body/human-body/mind-brain/#page=1">brain to continually change itself throughout your life</a>, letting your mind wander provides it with fertile ground. Answers to questions are found and new ideas created. Immerse yourself in a walk by the seaside and the grey matter in your brain has more food for thought without you having to do any work.</p>
<p>Put it all together and what do you get? Well maybe others will soon be wondering why it’s you who seems to be grasping all the opportunities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lianne Taylor receives funding from TTP Group Plc and Anglia Ruskin University</span></em></p>How to embrace the characteristics that give start-up businesses their edge.Lianne Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and International Business, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/428202015-07-06T01:23:47Z2015-07-06T01:23:47ZIs a cult of happiness leading us to lose sight of life?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86499/original/image-20150626-18257-1632nat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">However hard we pursue happiness, when the party's over we must still confront the grimmer aspects of life.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-155193032/stock-photo-portrait-of-cute-young-woman-in-mask.html?src=8u3d3sCU_50AzfW9n9XLaQ-1-24">Shutterstock/YanLev</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of a series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/on-happiness">On Happiness</a>, examining what it means and how it might be achieved in the 21st century.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>We live in a society that seems obsessed with the “cult of happiness”. Characters in movies and on television are frequently asked, “Are you happy?” Parents incessantly wish happiness upon their children:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I just want them to be happy. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In her song Just Be Happy, pop singer Rihanna chants “just as long as it makes you happy”, over and over again. Pharrell Williams’ 2014 song Happy was a <a href="https://theconversation.com/happy-in-iran-the-trials-of-the-young-and-disenfranchised-27164">worldwide hit</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KSDmL0dgCZY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">If you sing it enough, maybe you can ‘be happy’ in Rihanna’s world.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Countless websites, shelves and shelves of self-help books and endless magazine articles attempt to identify exactly just what makes us happy! These are accompanied by step-by-step guides such as lifestyle website body+soul’s <a href="http://www.bodyandsoul.com.au/sex+relationships/wellbeing/eight+steps+to+happiness,6693">Eight Steps to Happiness</a>.</p>
<p>One example of this self-help genre is <a href="http://sonjalyubomirsky.com/">Sonja Lyubomirsky’s</a> step-by-step program, <a href="http://thehowofhappiness.com/">The How of Happiness</a>: A Practical Guide to Getting the Life You Want. According to Lyubomirsky, each of us has a kind of happiness “set point”, which can be calibrated to different highs and lows. The book advises readers on how to raise this “set point”. </p>
<p>The ubiquitous motivational speaker Anthony Robbins also offers a great deal of advice on happiness. His books, websites, conferences and training programs, not to mention special appearances on Oprah Winfrey’s Life Class series, tell us about the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/28/tony-robbins-success-secrets-make-it_n_2553113.html">three steps</a> we need to follow to find true happiness.</p>
<p>Robbins has built a prosperous career linking happiness with success. His <a href="https://www.tonyrobbins.com/events/unleash-the-power-within/">Unleash the Power Within</a> training programme is accompanied by testimonials from none other than Bill Clinton and Hugh Jackman.</p>
<h2>So much advice, so little of it good</h2>
<p>Through my involvement in writing on “happiness”, I have done my best to review the overwhelming volume of self-help literature and I have found very little to salvage. You are left, at best, cynical and, at worst, feeling inadequate. </p>
<p>This assessment is based on three broad observations.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Happiness is often identified as an “end point”: a place to which we travel. </p></li>
<li><p>The focus is on the individual and ignores any community bonds. In the <a href="http://www.academia.edu/202760/Governing_Citizens_through_Self-Help_Literature">words of Heidi Marie Rimke</a>, this celebrates a culture of “hyper-individuality for which an inherent, responsible relationality with others is actively discouraged and pathologised”. </p></li>
<li><p>Happiness is presented as something that can be administered through a list of exercises, or checklists. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The key question that each of these books, magazine articles and speakers fails to ask is whether happiness is actually possible.</p>
<p>If we accept that happiness is a state of being satisfied with one’s life, at what point is it possible to say we are truly satisfied? Perhaps happiness relies on the way we view the world. Is happiness a function of the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-Good-People-Bad-Things/dp/1559723246">world around us</a> or our own perception of it?</p>
<h2>Must we forget the world to be happy?</h2>
<p>Can we be happy, for example, when successive Australian governments pursue brutal detention policies against refugees seeking asylum in this country? On our behalf, in our name, they are banished to what have been described as <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-28/keane-when-concentration-camps-and-democracy-clash/5397152">“concentration camps”</a>. </p>
<p>In this context, the pursuit of happiness can seem trivial or juvenile. </p>
<p>Or is our happiness only possible through exclusion? That is, is the pursuit of safety and freedom from persecution by asylum seekers pitted against the happiness of the domestic population: two populations whose interests are said to be at odds. </p>
<p>Can we be happy when on any single night across Australia <a href="http://www.homelessnessaustralia.org.au/images/publications/Fact_Sheets/Homelessness_in_Australia_v2.pdf">one person per 200</a> experiences homelessness? In a wealthy nation of only 23 million people, this figure ought to be astonishing.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://homelessnessaustralia.org.au/images/publications/Fact_Sheets/Homelessness_and_Women.pdf">principal cause of homelessness</a> among women and children is male violence: <a href="http://homelessnessaustralia.org.au/images/publications/Fact_Sheets/Homelessness_and_Children.pdf">two-thirds of homeless children</a> are accompanying a woman escaping domestic violence. Other reasons range from entrenched structural inequality and inadequate affordable housing supply to intergenerational poverty and long-term unemployment. </p>
<h2>Happiness as a shared expression of love</h2>
<p>Sara Ahmed takes a similar journey in questioning the pursuit of happiness in her well-recognised work <a href="http://sfonline.barnard.edu/polyphonic/print_ahmed.htm">Feminist Killjoys</a>, which was followed by <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/The-Promise-of-Happiness">The Promise of Happiness</a>. In these texts, Ahmed undertakes a robust cultural analysis of the idea of happiness as it functions in present-day Britain – but with much broader relevance. </p>
<p>It is worth recounting Ahmed’s arguments, as she simultaneously captures the individualised nature of happiness that allows us to ignore the plight of others, and the idea that happiness is something that someone else can bestow upon you. Happiness, Ahmed argues, is that which we “promise to give to others as an expression of love”. We say, “I just want you to be happy.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dqa4qm_iOBM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Beatles were perhaps wiser than they knew when they closed the first global live satellite TV broadcast with All You Need Is Love.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As someone who is inherently optimistic, I do think happiness is possible. But rather than an end point, it can be found in the fleeting moments of the everyday: noticing the sunset, the taste of fresh tomatoes, or a meal with friends and family. </p>
<p>It is within these moments that we need to appreciate happiness – to understand it within the context of an often brutal world and contextualise it within our own frailties and mortality.</p>
<p>These moments do not end the plight of refugees or house the homeless. What they do, however, is challenge the individualised nature of happiness as described by self-help literature. We are prompted to actively seek out moments of happiness in daily interactions with others and experiences, and take a moment to reflect and appreciate such instances. It echoes Eleanor Roosevelt’s <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=-6qA0bGjja8C&redir_esc=y">valuable advice</a> that happiness is a by-product of experiences, not an end in itself. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is based on an essay in the collection <a href="http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/on-happiness-new-ideas-for-the-twenty-first-century">On Happiness</a>: New Ideas for the Twenty-First Century (UWA Publishing, June 2015).</em></p>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/on-happiness">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42820/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Arvanitakis receives funding from Australian Research Council and the Office of Learning and Teaching. He is affiliated with various social justice organisations.</span></em></p>We can pursue our own happiness to the exclusion of the real world, but how meaningful can that be? Far better to engage with life and both the happiness and sadness it brings along the way.James Arvanitakis, Professor in Cultural and Social Analysis, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/428982015-06-24T20:14:40Z2015-06-24T20:14:40ZCan we love happiness? Or do we then risk more sadness?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86032/original/image-20150623-19371-19tqo71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The most powerful strategy for achieving happiness is to give up trying to be happy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-266829029/stock-photo-living-painting-smiling-woman-completely-covered-with-thick-paint.html?src=tvfNNSpK4dUkqVvbsXcHDQ-3-49">Mila Supinskaya/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of a series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/on-happiness">On Happiness</a>, examining what it means and how it might be achieved in the 21st century.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>To pose the question of whether we can love happiness in today’s world feels a bit like asking whether the Pope is Catholic. Most of us believe we not only <em>can</em> love happiness, but that we <em>should!</em> Unfortunately, it is this very love of happiness that is leading many of us to experience more sadness. </p>
<p>Why, I hear you ask? Well let me start with an example. Imagine you have a goal and it is to become smarter. You decide to enrol in an science degree and major in astrophysics (being an astrophysicist is clearly going to make you smarter), you spend every spare minute playing Sudoku and purchase the latest “get smart quick” brainpower gimmick. </p>
<p>Over time you notice that indeed you are becoming smarter. You are winning more often at Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit and can amaze your friends with complex theories of black holes and dark energy.</p>
<p>Yet, you would still like to be smarter. You feel slightly disappointed that you are not as smart as you thought you might be. This feeling of disappointment motivates you to learn more and try harder until eventually you reach your goal. </p>
<p>Now imagine that your goal is to be happy. You buy the latest books on how to be happy, repeat positive sentiments to yourself in the mirror each morning and spend at least ten minutes a day holding a pencil between your teeth (it’s true, it <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/54/5/768/">actually does work</a>!). </p>
<p>Upon reflection, however, you are not as happy as you would like to be. Now, the feeling of disappointment, rather than motivating you to try hard, tends to make you feel less happy. As a result, you are now further removed from your desired state of happiness. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86036/original/image-20150623-19411-1ltg5rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86036/original/image-20150623-19411-1ltg5rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86036/original/image-20150623-19411-1ltg5rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86036/original/image-20150623-19411-1ltg5rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86036/original/image-20150623-19411-1ltg5rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86036/original/image-20150623-19411-1ltg5rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86036/original/image-20150623-19411-1ltg5rk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Endless pleasure, and endless happiness, quickly becomes very dull and even painful.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/duni_dun/6166474655/">Duunn/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The nature of goal pursuit itself predicts this ironic outcome. Aiming for a goal often involves feelings of disappointment along the way, which means that trying to be happy may be <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/emo/11/4/807/">counter-productive</a>. </p>
<p>The aim of this illustration is to show that the very act of trying to be happy ironically pushes happiness further away. The most powerful strategy for achieving happiness is to give up trying to be happy. </p>
<h2>Living in a world of laughing clowns</h2>
<p>Consistent with the above insights, current approaches within psychotherapy have begun to challenge how people relate to their own emotions. People walk out of these sessions more accepting of their negative emotions and holding less tightly to the need to be happy. </p>
<p>As they walk out of the therapist’s door, however, they are confronted with a world that is beset by happiness. From advertising on billboards and television screens to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9535365/State-happiness-campaigns-leave-people-feeling-gloomier-research-suggests.html">national campaigns</a> designed to raise national levels of happiness, the value of happiness is <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=YLb1148-VWcC&oi=fnd&pg=PT2&dq=Smile+or+die:+How+positive+thinking+fooled+America+and+the+world.+&ots=SPhvbxvrqx&sig=9YdvqJsLJ1e0qcXKIw3NP58YgVs#v=onepage&q=Smile%20or%20die%3A%20How%20positive%20thinking%20fooled%20America%20and%20the%20world.&f=false">promoted everywhere</a>.</p>
<p>On the flip side, our Western world values sadness very differently. In some cases even everyday malaise is quickly pathologised and medicalised, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Normal-Out-Control-Medicalization/dp/0062229265">treated with drugs</a> designed to return people to “normality”.</p>
<p>Indeed, there is an eerie similarity between our current approaches to our emotional worlds and the kind of dystopian society that Aldous Huxley envisaged in his book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World">Brave New World</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86034/original/image-20150623-19368-18k73yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86034/original/image-20150623-19368-18k73yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86034/original/image-20150623-19368-18k73yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86034/original/image-20150623-19368-18k73yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86034/original/image-20150623-19368-18k73yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86034/original/image-20150623-19368-18k73yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86034/original/image-20150623-19368-18k73yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We believe we need to have complete control of our emotional lives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/beth19/4907410699/">Βethan/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our own research has begun to highlight the possibility that “happiness cultures” may be responsible for <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/emo/12/1/69/">reducing life satisfaction and increasing depression</a>. This is especially true when people experience high levels of negative emotion and <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/emo/14/4/639/">feel that these emotional states</a> are socially devalued. </p>
<p>Experiencing this mismatch between our own emotional states and those that are considered valuable by the cultures that we live in <a href="http://spp.sagepub.com/content/6/5/496">may even leave us</a> feeling lonely and socially disconnected.</p>
<h2>So should we hate happiness?</h2>
<p>I am certainly not suggesting we should all dress in black and revel in our shared despair. Being happy is a good thing and it is exactly this state that we are all so keen to achieve. </p>
<p>The point is that we often go about this in the wrong way. We fail to value negative experiences along the way and think that striving for more and more pleasure and enjoyment is the best way to achieve our happiness goals. </p>
<p>The fact is that endless pleasure, and endless happiness, quickly becomes very dull and even painful. For true well-being we need contrasts. Our negative experiences and negative feelings give meaning and context to happiness: they make us happier overall. As <a href="http://psr.sagepub.com/content/18/3/256">our own research suggests</a>, pain has many positive consequences and experiencing pain is often a critical pathway to flourishing in life. </p>
<p>So can we love happiness? I think we can. It is not so much our love of happiness, but our dislike of sadness, the tendency to run away from pain and suffering and to see these experiences as a sign of failure, that leads to the problems I describe above. </p>
<p>Perhaps our problem with happiness comes about because we live in a world where we believe we can control everything in our lives. From our temperature-controlled homes to our capacity to insure against every possible risk, we believe we should have the same level of control over our emotional lives.</p>
<p>There is an oft-quoted saying (commonly found on a wall calendar at your grandmother’s house), “If you love something set it free”. Perhaps that is how we should be thinking about happiness? </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is based on an essay in the collection <a href="http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/on-happiness-new-ideas-for-the-twenty-first-century">On Happiness: New Ideas for the Twenty-First Century</a> (UWA Publishing, June 2015).</em></p>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/on-happiness">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42898/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brock Bastian receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>To pose the question of whether we can love happiness feels a bit like asking whether the Pope is a Catholic. Most of us believe we not only can love happiness, but that we should!Brock Bastian, ARC Future Fellow, School of Psychology, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195272013-11-01T06:18:50Z2013-11-01T06:18:50ZRumination and remedy: five ways to improve your outlook<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34119/original/zs6srfdf-1383146992.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C22%2C1007%2C737&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Not that kind of rumination.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jill Clardy</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is the events that happen in our lives that determine the state of our mental health, rather than some inherent personal inadequacy or genetic flaw. And psychological processes, such as rumination and self-blame, aren’t just symptoms of some “mental disorder” but a crucial part in the chain of causes that can lead us to depression and anxiety.</p>
<p>This is what we found in a <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0076564">recent paper</a>. Since it was published, some people commented that this kind of psychological model can sometimes be misinterpreted to imply that people are in some way responsible for their problems because they suggest some kind of errors in thinking (although I don’t believe this). And there was naturally some response to the idea that rumination was even a problem.</p>
<p>The phenomenon of blaming people for the way they think about themselves, other people, the world and the future does exist. The insulting label of “personality disorder”, for example, paradoxically manages both to label people as “ill” while simultaneously blaming them for their ways of thinking. </p>
<p>All the things that have happened to me – my biological inheritance, parenting, education, social circumstances and cultural values and, crucially, the life events and traumas I’ve lived through, have shaped my views on life and the way I tend to think (including a tendency to ruminate). As a cognitive psychologist, I recognise that how we make sense of the world is important. But also that we learn, and can continue to learn, to make sense of it.</p>
<p>One of the important implications of our research is that if we were able to “turn off” rumination and self-blame, we could “turn down” at least some of the depression and anxiety. That’s really the basis of clinical psychology; there are very good reasons behind why we learn particular ways, but sometimes it might be a good idea to try and develop new ones to engage with the world.</p>
<p>Nearly every simple piece of advice is going to be glib, obvious, or wrong and if I were able to offer wise, self-help advice that actually worked for everybody, I’d be a millionaire. But for what it’s worth, I hope what follows will be helpful for some people.</p>
<h2>Get the basics right</h2>
<p>Eat good, nutritious food. Get saturated fat content down and keep salt content low. Eat enough fresh fruit or vegetables each day and drink plenty of water. Aim to get your BMI in the healthy zone. I don’t want to sound prudish, but don’t smoke, drink moderately and be generally quite cautious with recreational drugs. And get at least seven hours sleep a night. Sleep is really important and studies suggest the brain needs sleep to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24567412">also remain physically healthy</a>.</p>
<p>There’s lots of advice and specific help <a href="http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/Pages/Livewellhub.aspx">out there</a>. But the message is the same: get the basic physical fundamentals right.</p>
<h2>Well-being: five tips for the price of one</h2>
<p>The “five ways to well-being” approach is recommended by the mental health charity <a href="http://www.mind.org.uk/employment/mind_week_2011/employees/five_ways_to_wellbeing">MIND</a> and <a href="http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/Pages/improve-mental-wellbeing.aspx">the NHS</a>, and there are plenty of doable steps.</p>
<p>Keep active – do something physical each day. It could be as simple as taking the dog out for a walk (if you’ve got one).</p>
<p>Maintain your relationships – for all kinds of reasons, friends are vital. Good friends, supportive friends, friends who won’t judge you or try to take advantage of you. We can all take steps to maintain these friendships; phone, write, text. You might even consider a kind of semi-professional approach; self-help groups to meet people in a similar position.</p>
<p>Learn – I would say this, I’m an academic. Keep your brain active. Engage it. Your brain is the most fantastic machine ever created.</p>
<p>Give – this isn’t political brainwashing. <a href="http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/entry/five-ways-to-well-being-the-evidence">There’s good evidence</a> that getting involved in charitable activity (and it’s probably better to give your time and effort, rather than money) makes people happier.</p>
<p>Stay open-minded – perhaps the trickiest thing to do but it relates directly to rumination. </p>
<h2>Mindfulness</h2>
<p>Rumination – compulsively focusing your attention on the causes and consequences of a problem – tends to be eased by learning to be mindful: if we’re able to be aware of, and understand how our own thoughts work. This does not mean taking up any kind of religious practice, but some practical techniques for clearing the mind of “clutter” can be helpful. </p>
<p>In part, it means becoming able to decide where to focus your attention. Because if you’re good at this, it’s less likely that your thoughts will always drag back towards rumination.</p>
<h2>The CBT approach</h2>
<p>If you’re aware of what’s happening in your own mind, you can start to change things. My colleague, Sara Tai, put together <a href="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/health/factsheets/catch.pdf">a neat summary</a> of cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT. But it works like this:</p>
<p>Identify what you are thinking. It’s often really useful to do this when you notice a change in your emotions or if you start doing something that may be a sign of something else, like drinking too much. So if you think someone you know ignores you in the street and you feel sad this can be a cue to examine the thought.</p>
<p>Are you (after engaging your fantastic brain in a mindful manner) thinking sensibly, wisely and proportionately about the situation? Weigh up the evidence – what makes you think they ignored you? Could it be they didn’t see you? Did you “assume” they ignored you and is your mood also now affecting the way you’re thinking?</p>
<p>Change it. Generate an alternative point of view; question the evidence for your negative thoughts and find possible alternatives. It’s not about lying to yourself – maybe they did ignore you. But when in a negative frame of mind, we can assume the worst.</p>
<h2>Therapy</h2>
<p>If you’ve tried all that then you could try therapy. I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone – many people are probably better off avoiding therapists and using everyday resources and support. But it can be a chance to think things through with a professional in a calm, supportive and nonjudgmental atmosphere, which can be helpful. I personally prefer the straightforward approach of CBT, but there are many others. It’s a question of finding one that suits you.</p>
<p>If all of this was easy, I wouldn’t have a job and you’d have found the secret years ago. But while you aren’t guaranteed lifelong contentment, sort out some of these basics and it might help.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19527/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Kinderman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It is the events that happen in our lives that determine the state of our mental health, rather than some inherent personal inadequacy or genetic flaw.Peter Kinderman, Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.