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Apr 22, 2007

"We are coming to understand health not as the absence of disease, but rather as the process by which individuals maintain their sense of coherence (i.e. sense that life is comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful) and ability to function in the face of changes in themselves and their relationships with their environment." --Aaron Antonovsky

World's First PhD Program In Happiness

A leading expert on well-being is establishing what he calls the world's first Ph.D program (in Claremont, California) focusing on positive psychology and the analysis of happiness. "Even though the things that make people happy seem ephemeral and immaterial, they are the most important things in life, and they have not been studied very seriously," says Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, highly acclaimed author of "Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience." His program isn't about quick fixes. Rather than teaching people how to be happy or educating happiness coaches, the school will train graduate students first in statistical methodology and then in specific research techniques. Drawing on his research on happiness, Csikszentmihalyi offers three general pieces of advice shared in this Time magazine article.