The Limitations of Professional Psychology
This is just an overview, a summary, of my thoughts from over three decades of study and practice in positive psychology to describe some limitations of contemporary professional psychology. What do you think? What have I missed? I’m eager for any comments, disagreements, or other perspectives.
Listen to Your Sleeping Dreams
The lesson from my story is, listen to your dreams! What parts of you might you have left behind, things that make your heart sing? It could be anything. If you feel a kind of nagging emptiness in living that you can’t quite define, the clues you need may be in your dreams if you can learn to listen.
Research Links Music to Health Outcomes for Young and Old
Music can reduce physical pain, facilitate regeneration and health of neurons in the brain, improve memory, and other benefits. The outcomes are greater when people take music lessons or learn to play an instrument, rather than passively listen to music. Music’s impact is evident across all ages, benefiting children and older adults alike.
How Do People Change?
Perhaps the core lesson I brought with me from my years of training as a psychologist was this: all human growth is derived from positive relationships. People change from experiencing on a fundamental level that new possibilities exist. Seeing that, experiencing that, in the form of another person who shows it to us, more by how they relate to us than by what they say to us. . . that’s the magic sauce.
The Mysteries
A dear friend sent me this book, The Mysteries, as a gift. It’s a fable and illustrated storybook for adults created as a collaboration between Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, and caricaturist John Kascht. It’s so cool and beautifully illustrated in textured black and white art that perfectly both tells the story and leaves lots of room for the adult imagination to fill in the emotions and gaps of the tale.