APRIL 2015 AGU Positive Neuropsychology

The American graduate university
Positive Neuropsychology Track
A Blended Program: The Science of Positive Psychology and
Neuropsychology (The origin of human
nature and behavior)
The Global Leader
Creating a World of Well-Being
Phone 202-379-2840
www.collegeofpositivepsych.org
admissions@collegeofpositivepsych.org
Enroll by April 30, 2015 to Receive the Scholarship!
Positive Psychology Studies
Positive psychology is a relatively new scientific field of study that has grown rapidly since its
inception in 1998. We now know scientifically exactly what a person needs to do to create a life
of happiness, meaning, fulfillment, and purpose. People can create flourishing lives and our
board certification program in positive psychology enables students to capture this new
knowledge.
We know scientifically that the organizational practice of positive psychology transforms groups
of people toward better efficiency, improved working relationships, the accomplishment of
tasks and goals close to the optimal, and the fulfillment of the organization’s goals and
purposes.
Neuropsychology Studies
Human behavior is the most fascinating subject one can study. How we and others think and
behave is what makes the world go round. We all want to know why other people, and we
ourselves, behave in particular ways, how people think, and why they think the way they do. Is
it environment? Is it nurture? Is it gender? Is it brain chemistry? What factors determine how
one thinks and how one behaves?
Positive Neuropsychology
A blended program in Positive Psychology, Human Behavior, and Neuroscience.
Neuropsychology is the study of how human behavior is explained by our genes and evolution.
Transformational

Because we know what is ahead as you start your study of human behavior and positive
psychology, we are excited to know that you too will be personally transformed. Please review
this program guide and follow the instructions. Should you have any questions at any time, feel
free to call or write.
With best wishes for all good things in your life and for those you love and care for,
The Faculty of Positive Neuropsychology
Enrollment Options
 Degree AND Board Certification Programs (10 courses)
These programs may be completed in 12 months or less:
Master and BOARD CERTIFIED POSITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY PRACTITIONER
Educational Prerequisite is Bachelor’s degree in any field or equivalent
Investment $8,389 - $3,000 Scholarship = $5,389
Your credentials MUST be displayed in the following manner:
J. Hancock, MPNP, BCPNP
Board Certified Positive Neuropsychology Practitioner
For student’s 35 or over, a master’s degree is not required to enroll in the PhD program.
PhD and BOARD CERTIFIED DIPLOMATE OF POSITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY©
Educational Prerequisite is Bachelor’s degree in any field or equivalent
Investment: $9,389 - $3,000 Scholarship = $6,389
Your credential MUST be displayed in the following manner:
J. Hancock, PhD, BCDPN©
Board Certified Diplomate of Positive Neuropsychology©

 BOARD CERTIFICATION-ONLY PROGRAMS (5 courses)
Each of these programs may be completed in 6 months or less:
1. BOARD CERTIFIED MASTER OF Positive Neuropsychology©
Educational Prerequisite is Bachelor's degree in any field or equivalent
Investment: $2,498
2. BOARD CERTIFIED DOCTOR OF Positive Neuropsychoogy©
Educational Prerequisite is Bachelor's degree in any field or equivalent
Investment: $2,998
Your credentials should be displayed in the following manner:
J. Hancock, BCMPN©
Board Certified Master of Positive Neuropsychology©
J. Hancock, BCDNP©
Board Certified Doctor of Positive Neuropsychology©

The Promise of Positive Neuropsychology
The promise of positive psychology is that individuals and organizations will be transformed in
unexpected ways. When positive psychology becomes the standard by which men and women
think and act, people and groups change in healthy and life-giving ways.
We know scientifically that the practice of positive psychology makes individuals happier, more
productive, less stressed, and better focused on creating lives full of meaning, promise and
purpose.
We also know scientifically that the organizational practice of positive psychology transforms
groups of people toward better efficiency, improved working relationships, the accomplishment
of tasks and goals close to the optimum, and the fulfillment of the organization’s goals and
purposes.
Because we know what is ahead as you start your study of positive psychology, we are excited
to know that you too will be personally transformed.
Please review this program guide and follow the instructions. Should you have any questions at
any time, feel free to call or write.
With best wishes for all good things in your life and for those you love and care for,
The Faculty of Positive Neuropsychology

Positive Neuropsychology Track
Proprietary Product and Services Program Guide:
Program Overview
How to Proceed
“Writing makes a person more exact and is a skill required of all educated people.”
Curriculum and Instructions
Part A. The What, How, When, Where and Why of Human Behavior: The Study of Genetics,
Environment, and Evolution in the Creation of Human Behavior.
A1. Understanding the Mysteries of Human Behavior: "A comprehensive overview: inside the
recesses of the human mind are found life's greatest mysteries. Every day of your life is spent
surrounded by mysteries that involve what, on the surface, appear to be rather ordinary human
behaviors." Understanding the Mysteries of Human Behavior by Professor Mark Leary. (Do Not
Order the Books the Author Lists at the End of Each Lecture. You may answer the questions at
the end of each lecture as a way to begin composing your essays pursuant to the writing in-
structions listed on the next page below).
A2. Cognitive Neuroscience: Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman
A3. Science of Gender Differences: The science of gender differences is a system of thought
used to teach people about the evolutionary differences between male and female thought
patterns and behaviors. Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps by Barbara and
Allan Pease.
A4. The Owner’s Manual for the Brain: Everyday applications from Mind-Brain Research.
Drawing from psychology, neurobiology, information science, philosophy, anthropology, and
linguistics, learn how the brain functions with regard to: sex and love, the developing brain, the
adolescent brain, the aging brain, wellness, happiness, illness, mood disorders, personality and
intelligence, learning and teaching, creativity and problem solving, workplace and performance,
violence and aggression. The Owner's Manual for the Brain by Pierce Howard
A5. Evolutionary Psychology I (Do not order the books listed by the author at the end of each
lecture. Answer the questions at the end of each lecture as a way of beginning to compose your
essays pursuant to the writing instructions provided on the next page))

A6. Evolutionary Psychology II (Do not order the books listed by the author at the end of each
lecture. Answer the questions at the end of each lecture as a way of beginning to compose your
essays pursuant to the writing instructions provided on the next page).
A7. Science of Birth Order: The science of birth order is a system of thought used to explain
human behavior based on family dynamics and sibling rivalry which have powerful psychologi-
cal, sociological, and historical implications. Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and
Creative Lives by Frank Sulloway, PhD.
Part B. Creating a Flourishing Life through CHOICE, Filled with Positive Emotion, Engagement
in Life, Good Relationships, Meaningful Existence, Subjective Achievement (We are not mere
victims of our genetics and environment. We can overcome).
B1. Books a through e will be sent to you by email attachment:
a. Invitation to Positive Psychology Workbook
b. Positively Happy Workbook
c. Positive Identities Workbook
d. Positive Motivation Workbook
e. Positively Mindful Workbook
B2. Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness and Flourishing by Compton and Hoffman
B3. The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubonirsky
B4. The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt
B5. Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson
2. Review the following websites in detail:
www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu (Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania)
www.ippanetwork.org (International Association of Positive Psychology)
www.viastrengths.org (VIA Institute of Character)
www.cappeu.org (Centre for Applied Positive Psychology)
Students must immerse themselves in as much of the literature in the field as possible. The
above four websites are invaluable resources to use on a continuing basis as a positive
psychology practitioner.
3. Watch all available videos at www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu.

4. Review and take all questionnaires found at www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu or
www.authentichappiness.org
5. Please be guided by the following questions in writing your essays:
1. What is the author’s purpose in writing?
2. What are the main points made in furtherance of his or her purpose?
3. Demonstrate your understanding of the chapter by discussing and describing the essence
of the chapter.
4. Of what use will you put this new knowledge?
6. In answer to the 4 questions above, your assignment is to write a 25 page minimum essay for
each book as an insightful summary of your understanding of the material.
The paper for each course should be double-spaced, Calibri font, and 12 point type. Your
purpose is to demonstrate an understanding and application of the material.
7. Your title page should include name, email address, and textbook title.
8. Hold all of your writing for each course until you are finished with the course. At that time
send in all of your writings at one time. (Do not send each chapter at a time). For the entire
program you will be writing a minimum of 250 pages to be bound and maintained for reference
and as evidence of your work. You should be very proud of your accomplishment in writing,
perhaps, your first book.
Electives
1. The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor
2. Activities for Teaching Positive Psychology
3. The Myths of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky
4. Design Your Own Positive Psychology Training or Counseling Program (Not a book. This is a
project)
5. Positive Psychology: The Scientific and Practical Explorations of Human Strengths by C.
(Charles) R. (Richard) Snyder, Shane J. Lopez and Jennifer T. (Teramoto) Pedrotti (Sep 14, 2010)
6. Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness and Flourishing by William C. Compton and
Edward Hoffman (Feb 7, 2012)
7. Positive Psychology: Theory, Research, and Applications by Kate Hefferon and Ilona
Boniwell (Jun 1, 2011)

8. Pursuing the Good Life: 100 Reflections on Positive Psychology by Christopher Peterson (Dec
31, 2012)
9. Optimal Functioning: A Positive Psychology Handbook by Jessica Colman, Margaret Ulrich,
Brighid Desmond and Daniel S. Bowling (Oct 16, 2012)
10. Positive Psychology for Overcoming Depression: Self-Help Strategies for Happiness, Inner
Strength and Well-Being... by Miriam Akhtar and Dr. Phil Hammond (Feb 7, 2012)
11. Harvard Medical School Positive Psychology: Harnessing the power of happiness,
mindfulness, and personal strength... by Ronald D. Siegel, Psy.D., Kathleen Cahill Allison and
Scott Leighton (Jul 1, 2011)
12. Designing Positive Psychology: Taking Stock and Moving Forward (Series in Positive
Psychology) by Kennon M. Sheldon, Todd B. Kashdan and Michael F. Steger (Jan 31, 2011)
13. Applied Positive Psychology: Improving Everyday Life, Health, Schools, Work, and Society
(Applied Psychology Series... by Stewart I. Donaldson, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jeanne
Nakamura (Feb 28, 2011)
14. Positive Psychology at Work: How Positive Leadership and Appreciative Inquiry Create
Inspiring Organizations by Sarah Lewis (Apr 25, 2011)
15. Positive Psychology at The Movies: Using Films to Build Virtues and Character
Strengths by Ryan M. Niemiec and Danny Wedding (Jul 30, 2008)
16. The Psychology of Positive Thinking by Edward Nystrom (Jul 14, 2008)
17. Positive Psychologists on Positive Psychology by Aaron Jarden (Mar 3, 2012)
What is Positive Psychology?
Positive Psychology seeks to create positive emotions, happiness, and well-being through the
development of character strengths and virtues.
It is a merger of philosophy, psychology, positive thinking, and the importance of attitude. It
asks and answers the age-old questions about the good life, success, happiness and meaning.
Positive Psychology is anchored in the study of how to be happy, how to achieve success, and
how to create meaning and purpose for our lives.
"Positive psychology is an exciting new orientation in the field, going beyond psychology's
traditional focus on illness and pathology to look at areas like well-being and fulfillment. While
the larger question of optimal human functioning is hardly new...positive psychology offers a

common language on this subject to professionals working in a variety of sub-disciplines and
practices. Applicable in many settings and relevant for individuals, groups, organizations,
communities, and societies, positive psychology is a genuinely integrative approach to
professional practice."
Quoted from Positive Psychology in Practice
Frequently Asked Questions
“Following are answers to frequently asked questions about positive psychology. These are
based largely on Christopher Peterson’s book Primer in Positive Psychology (2006), Martin
Seligman’s book Authentic Happiness (2002), and an article by Seligman and Pawelski (2003).
1. Is positive psychology an abandoning or rejection of the rest of psychology?
In a word: no. Since World War II, psychology has focused its efforts on psychological problems
and how to remedy them. These efforts have reaped large dividends. Great strides have been
made in understanding and treating psychological disorders. Effective treatments now exist for
more than a dozen disorders that were once seen as intractable (Barrett & Ollendick, 2004;
Evans et al., 2005; Hibbs & Jensen, 1996; Kazdin & Weisz, 2003; Nathan & Gorman, 1998, 2002;
Seligman, 1994).
One consequence of this focus on psychological problems, however, is that psychology has little
to say about what makes life most worth living. Positive psychology proposes to correct this
imbalance by focusing on strengths as well as weaknesses, on building the best things in life as
well as repairing the worst. It asserts that human goodness and excellence is just as authentic as
distress and disorder, that life entails more than the undoing of problems.
Psychology’s concern with remedying human problems is understandable and should certainly
not be abandoned. Human suffering demands scientifically informed solutions. Suffering and
well-being, however, are both part of the human condition, and psychologists should be
concerned with both.
2. Is positive psychology just about making people happy?
“Happiness” is commonly defined as a state of well-being or pleasurable experience, but this
notion of happiness is only a small part of positive psychology. Positive psychology is the
scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.
According to Seligman (2002), positive psychology has three central concerns: positive
emotions, positive individual traits, and positive institutions.

Understanding positive emotion entails the study of contentment with the past, happiness in
the present, and hope for the future. Understanding positive individual traits consists of the
study of the strengths and virtues, such as the capacity for love and work, courage, compassion,
resilience, creativity, curiosity, integrity, self-knowledge, moderation, self-control, and wisdom.
Understanding positive institutions entails the study of meaning and purpose as well as the
strengths that foster better communities, such as justice, responsibility, civility, parenting,
nurturance, work ethic, leadership, teamwork, purpose, and tolerance.
Each of these three domains is related to a different meaning of the scientifically unwieldy term
“happiness,” and each has its own road to happiness (Seligman, 2002). Positive emotions lead
to the pleasant life, which is similar to the hedonic theories of happiness. Using one’s strengths
in a challenging task leads to the experience of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) and the engaged
life. Deploying one’s strengths in the service of something larger than oneself can lead to the
meaningful life (e.g., belonging to and serving institutions such as education, free press,
religion, democracy, and family, to name a few).
3. Is positive psychology the same as positive thinking?
Positive psychology is different from positive thinking in two significant ways. First, positive
psychology is grounded in empirical and replicable scientific study. Positive psychology
recognizes that in spite of the advantages of positive thinking, there are times when negative or
realistic thinking is appropriate. Studies find that optimism is associated with better health,
performance, longevity, and social success (Seligman, 1991; Lyubomirsky, King & Diener, 2005),
but there is evidence that in some situations negative thinking leads to more accuracy and
being accurate can have important consequences (Alloy, Abramson, & Chiara, 2000).
Optimistic thinking can be associated with an underestimation of risks (Peterson & Vaidya,
2003). For example, we do not necessarily want a pilot or air traffic controller to be an optimist
when deciding whether to take off during a storm.
The second distinction between positive thinking and positive psychology is that many scholars
of positive psychology have spent decades working on the “negative” side of things –
depression, anxiety, trauma, etc.
We do not view positive psychology as a replacement for traditional psychology, but merely as a
supplement to the hard-won gains of traditional psychology.
4. Is positive psychology discovering anything surprising? Is this just stuff my mother knows?
Some of the findings of positive psychology seem like common sense. Does this add anything to
what we already know about the good life? It is easy to claim something is obvious after the
evidence is in. It is the job of science to empirically prove or disprove what we consider as the

common wisdom. Sometimes this common “wisdom” is true, sometimes it is not. One person’s
wisdom can be another person’s folly. Positive psychology research is discovering some things
that might not be considered wisdom to all.
To name just a few:
1. Wealth is only weakly related to happiness both within and across nations, particularly
when income is above the poverty level (Diener & Diener, 1996).
2. Activities that make people happy in small doses – such as shopping, good food and
making money – do not lead to fulfillment in the long term, indicating that these have quickly
diminishing returns (Myers, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2000).
3. Engaging in an experience that produces ‘flow’ is so gratifying that people are willing to
do it for its own sake, rather than for what they will get out of it. The activity is its own reward.
Flow is experienced when one’s skills are sufficient for a challenging activity, in the pursuit of a
clear goal, with immediate feedback on progress toward the goal. In such an activity,
concentration is fully engaged in the moment, self-awareness disappears, and sense of time is
distorted (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
4. People who express gratitude on a regular basis have better physical health, optimism,
progress toward goals, well-being, and help others more (Emmons & Crumpler, 2000).
5. Trying to maximize happiness can lead to unhappiness (Schwartz et al., 2002).
6. People who witness others perform good deeds experience an emotion called
‘elevation’ and this motivates them to perform their own good deeds (Haidt, 2000).
7. Optimism can protect people from mental and physical illness (Taylor et al., 2000).
8. People who are optimistic or happy have better performance in work, school and sports,
are less depressed, have fewer physical health problems, and have better relationships with
other people. Further, optimism can be measured and it can be learned (Seligman, 1991;
Lyubomirsky, King & Diener, 2005).
9. People who report more positive emotions in young adulthood live longer and healthier
lives (Danner, Snowdon, & Friesen, 2001).
10. Physicians experiencing positive emotion tend to make more accurate diagnoses (Isen,
1993).
11. Healthy human development can take place under conditions of even great adversity
due to a process of resilience that is common and completely ordinary (Masten, 2001).

12. There are benefits associated with disclosive writing. Individuals who write about
traumatic events are physically healthier than control groups that do not. Individuals who write
about the perceived benefits of traumatic events achieve the same physical health benefits as
those who write only about the trauma (King & Miner, 2000). Individuals who write about their
life goals and their best imagined future achieve similar physical health benefits to those who
write only about traumatic events. Further, writing about life goals is significantly less
distressing than writing about trauma, and is associated with enhanced well-being (King, 2001).
13. People are unable to predict how long they will be happy or sad following an important
event (Gilbert, Pinel, Wilson, Blumberg & Wheatley, 1998; Wilson, Meyers, & Gilbert, 2001).
These researchers found that people typically overestimate how long they will be sad following
a bad event, such as a romantic breakup, yet fail to learn from repeated experiences that their
predictions are wrong.
5. Is the science of positive psychology descriptive or prescriptive? In other words, are we
trying to tell people how they should live?
Positive psychology is descriptive, not prescriptive, at least in Seligman’s view, although others
disagree. We are not telling people which choices they should make; we are merely informing
them about what is known about the consequences of their choices. The good life for one
person is not necessarily the good life for another. Objective, empirical research on the
conditions that lead to different outcomes, however, can help people make more informed
choices, but we take no theoretical stand on the desirability of the different choices.
6. As long as there is suffering in the world, how can we justify devoting time and resources to
positive psychology? Isn’t human suffering more important than well-being?
Research has shown that one way to help suffering people is to focus on the building of
strengths. Major strides in prevention have come largely by building strengths. Prevention
researchers have discovered that there are strengths that act as buffers against mental illness:
courage, future mindedness, optimism, faith, work ethic, hope, honesty, perseverance, and the
capacity for flow and insight, to name several. Prevention can be far more effective than cure -
witness how immunizations have largely eliminated polio and other diseases. Further, people
care about more than just the relief of their suffering. These people also care about living a
fulfilling and meaningful life.
Positive psychology interventions can both increase happiness and alleviate symptoms of
depression (Seligman, Steen, Park & Peterson, 2005). Fredrickson (2001) found that positive
emotion can “undo” negative emotion and be the building blocks of resilience that combat
physical illness. Lyubomirsky’s (2001) research on the conditions that enhance happiness has
relevance for the practice of clinical psychology and the relief of mental disorders. Strengths
function as a buffer against adversity and against psychological disorders, and they may be the
key to resilience (Masten, 2001). The responsibility of a psychologist is not merely to heal

damage and treat disorder, but also to guide people toward a life that can be fulfilling and
meaningful.
7. Are happy people stupid?
There seems to be a bias in our culture to perceive happy people as less intelligent. We call
someone a Pollyanna if we want to dismiss their optimism as foolish. We call someone a
grinning idiot if we want to say that happiness is naïve. Perhaps this stereotyping results from
the view that life is tragic. Although there is evidence that in some situations, negative thinking
leads to more accuracy (Alloy, Abramson, & Chiara, 2000) and that optimistic thinking can be
associated with an underestimation of risks (Peterson & Vaidya, 2003), most of the research
does support this view of happy people: People who are optimistic or happy are more
successful in work, school and sports, are less depressed, have fewer physical health problems,
and have better relationships with other people (Seligman, 1991; Lyubomirsky, King & Diener,
2005).
8. Is positive psychology a new field?
No, it is not. Positive psychology has many distinguished ancestors. Since at least the time of
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the “good life” has been the subject of philosophical and religious
inquiry. Psychologists have been working in positive psychology for decades. It just hasn’t been
called positive psychology. To name just a few: Rogers (1951) and Maslow (1970) who are
founders of the field of humanistic psychology, prevention programs based on wellness by Albee
(1982) and Cowen (1994), work by Bandura (1989) and others on self-efficacy, research on
gifted individuals (e.g., Winner, 2000), broader conceptions of intelligence (e.g., Gardner, 1983;
Sternberg, 1985), among many others. Marie Jahoda (1958) made the case for understanding
well-being in its own right, not simply as the absence of disorder or distress.
Positive psychology acknowledges a debt to humanistic psychology, which was popular in the
1960s and 1970s and has many followers to this day. Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers (among
others) proposed that people strive to make the most of their potential in a process called self-
actualization, which can be thwarted or enabled by a variety of conditions. Humanistic
psychology emphasizes the goals for which people strive, their awareness of this striving, and
the importance of rational choice in this process.
Today’s positive psychologists have not invented the study of happiness, well-being, or
strengths. The contribution of contemporary positive psychology has been to make the explicit
argument that what makes life most worth living deserves its own empirically based field of
study, to provide an umbrella term that brings together isolated lines of theory and research, to
promote the cross-fertilization of ideas in related fields through conferences, summer institutes
and research grants, to develop a comprehensive conceptual view of broad notions of

happiness, to bring this field to the attention of various foundations and funding agencies, to
help raise money for research, and to firmly ground assertions on the scientific method.”
Foundation I - Happiness
"The first foundation of Positive Psychology Coaching is happiness. Lasting personal fulfillment
is a concern that touches us all. Happiness is the pot of gold at the end of the emotional
rainbow, and it permeates Western culture from its inclusion in the American Declaration of
Independence to the happy endings of Hollywood films." Page 13, Positive Psychology Coaching
by Robert Biswas-Diener and Ben Dean
Happiness Bottom Line
"...happy people make more money, take fewer sick days from work, get along better with their
colleagues, spend more time volunteering, are more likely to help strangers, receive better
supervisor evaluations on the job, are rated more highly by customers, and exhibit less work
turnover than less happy individuals. These are bottom-line facts that tend to be welcomed by
managers and executives." Page 12, Positive Psychology Coaching by Robert Biswas-Diener and
Ben Dean.
Foundation II – Character Strengths and Virtues
The second foundation of Positive Psychology Coaching is character strength. The great tales of
human history, from the Greek myths to the story of Martin Luther King, Jr., are essentially
narratives of virtue; people working from a position of terrific strength." Page 17, Positive
Psychology Coaching by Robert Biswas-Diener and Ben Dean

Overview of Fourteen Sessions of Positive Psychology Counseling
(From Rashid and Seligman)
Prior to the first session, clients are to complete an Intake Form and are to complete
the appropriate questionnaires from the Authentic Happiness website:
http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx
Session 1. The absence or lack of positive resources (positive emotions, character strengths,
and meaning) can cause and maintain depression and can create an empty life.
Homework: The client writes a one-page (roughly three hundred words) "positive
introduction," in which she tells a concrete story showing her at her best and illustrating how
she used her highest character strengths.
Session 2. The client identifies his character strengths from the positive introduction and
discusses situations in which these character strengths have helped him previously.
Homework: The client completes the VIA questionnaire online to identify his character
strengths.
Session 3. We focus on specific situations in which character strengths may facilitate cultivation
of pleasure, engagement, and meaning.
Homework: (starting now and continuing...): The client starts a "blessings journal," in which
she writes, every night, three good things (big and small) that happened that day.
Session 4. We discuss the roles of good and bad memories in maintaining depression. Holding
to anger and bitterness maintains depression and undermines well-being.
Homework: The client writes about feelings of anger and bitterness and how they feed his
depression.
Session 5. We introduce forgiveness as a powerful tool that can transform feelings of anger and
bitterness into neutrality, or even for some, into positive emotions.
Homework: The client writes a forgiveness letter describing a transgression and related
emotions and pledges to forgive the transgressor (only if appropriate) but does NOT deliver the
letter.
Session 6. Gratitude is discussed as enduring thankfulness.

Homework: The client writes a gratitude letter to someone she never properly thanked and is
urged to deliver it in person.
Session 7. We review the importance of cultivating positive emotions through writing in the
blessings journal and the use of character strengths.
Session 8. We discuss the fact that "satisficers" ("This is good enough") have better well-being
than "maximizers" (I must find the perfect wife, dishwasher, or vacation spot"). Satisficing is
enouraged over maximizing.
Homework: The client reviews ways to increase satisficing and devises a personal satisfaction
plan.
Session 9. We discuss optimism and hope, using explanatory style: the optimistic style is to see
bad events as temporary, changeable, and local.
Homework: The client thinks of three doors that closed on her. What doors opened?
Session 10. The client is invited to recognize character strengths of significant other(s).
Homework: ...the client should respond actively and constructively to positive events reported
by others, and the client arranges a date that celebrates his character strengths and those of his
significant other(s).
Session 11. We discuss how to recognize the character strengths of family members and where
the client's own character strengths originated.
Homework: The client asks family members to take the VIA questionnaire online and then
draws a tree that includes the character strengths of all members of the family.
Session 12. Savoring is introduced as a technique to increase the intensity and duration of
positive emotion.
Homework: The client plans pleasurable activities and carries them out as planned. The client
is provided with a list of specific savoring techniques.
Session 13. The client has the power to give one of the greatest gifts of all---the gift of time.
Homework: The client is to give the gift of time by doing something that requires a fair amount
of time and calls on her character strengths.

Session 14. We discuss the full life integrating pleasure, engagement, and meaning.
Bibliography
A Partial Positive Psychology Bibliography
A Primer in Positive Psychology by Christopher Peterson
Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Evidence Based Coaching Handbook: Putting Best Practices to Work for Your Clients by Dianne
R. Stober and Anthony M. Grant
The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD
Authentic Happiness by Martin E. P. Seligman
A Psychology of Human Strengths by Lisa Aspinwall and Ursula Staudinger
Handbook of Positive Psychology by C. R. Snyder and Shane Lopez
Character Strengths and Virtues by Christopher Peterson and Martin E. P. Seligman
Positive Psychology Coaching by Robert Biswas-Diener and Ed Dean
Positive Psychology in Practice by Alex Linley and Stephen Joseph
Choice Theory, A New Psychology of Personal Freedom by William Glasser, M.D.
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
Power vs. Force, The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior, by David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.

See These Links
Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu
International Positive Psychology Association www.ippanetwork.org
Authentic Happiness Website http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx
Center for Applied Positive Psychology www.cappeu.org
Association of Positive Psychology (www.positivepsych.us)
The American Graduate University of Positive Psychology (www.psydp.org)

Private Practice
Education is necessary, but not sufficient!
Question
What will you do with this new knowledge?
Answer
Establish your own private training and consulting practice, or as a
human behavior and positive neuropsychology counselor!
Or
Transform your existing practice as a life coach, executive coach, licensed psychologist,
social worker, counselor, or therapist with the science of positive psychology!
New Direction
Take your life, your practice, and your clients in a new direction. It's not trying harder that
matters; it is trying differently that matters; moving in a new direction will be life transforming!
What is coaching?
1. “Coaching is a collaborative leadership style used to help clients create successful outcomes
for themselves.
2. The coach uses his or her expertise, specialized knowledge, motivational tools, and the
science of positive psychology to help clients reach their goals.
3. Coaching may be practiced through seminar presentations, individual
mentoring/coaching/consulting, organizational training and organizational leadership.
4. Coaching is a method, not the content. The content, in this context, consists of human
behavior and positive psychology principles and practices."

Pedagogy
"Writing makes a person more exact and is a skill required of all educated
people."
1. At your initiation, your mentor is available for consultation on a regular basis.
2. The student is in charge of his or her own learning. Institutions don't learn, people learn.
3. The required work for all programs consists of writing a minimum of 25 pages per
course/book. These writings are to be critical summaries of the student's understanding of the
material. By the end of your program, you will have created a body of written work suitable for
publication and sale from your own website.
4. Upon completion of your program, a final interview will take place by phone. This final
interview precedes the award of board certification and degree by the board of trustees. It is an
enjoyable process that takes about an hour to complete. Please look forward to this
conversation with us.
Academic Fallacies
"Since a college's or universities academic prestige (unfortunately) depends primarily on its
professor's research and publications, students will not ... get a better education at the more
prestigious institutions with the higher paid faculty..." One of the biggest fallacies about
academic institutions is that attendance at big-name colleges and universities is virtually
essential for reaching the top later in life." The four institutions with the highest percentage of
their undergraduates going on to receive PhDs are all small colleges, with less than 2,000
undergraduates ... Some have fewer than 1,000 students... Of the chief executive officers of the
50 largest American corporations surveyed in 2006, only four had Ivy League degrees and just
over half graduated from state colleges, city colleges, or a community college. Some, including
Michael Dell and Bill Gates did not graduate at all!"*
* Economic Facts and Fallacies by Dr. Thomas Sowell

How to Learn
I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.
Confucius
Components of Learning
Seeing
Hearing
Reading
Writing
Discussing
Presenting
Rehearsing
Repeating

What Does a Practitioner Do?
A. A positive psychology practitioner is one who has mastered the theory, science, and
application of positive psychology and uses this knowledge to help others build the 5
components of a flourishing life:
1. Positive Emotion
2. Engagement
3. Meaning
4. Accomplishment
5. Good Relationships
B. A positive psychology practitioner measures, classifies, and builds positive emotion,
engagement, meaning, accomplishment, and good relationships
C. A positive psychology practitioner uses evidence-based interventions
D. A positive psychology practitioner uses validated measures of well-being
E. A positive psychology practitioner counsels people and organizations in the adoption of
interventions that work
F. A positive psychology practitioner may have a private practice that looks very much like the
private practice of a traditional psychologist or therapist, but instead of practicing negative
psychology, the positive psychology practitioner uses the principles and practices of positive
psychology where the focus is on wellness not illness.
"...positive psychology is the study of positive emotion, of engagement, of meaning, of positive
accomplishment, and of good relationships. It attempts to measure, classify, and build these
five aspects of life. Practicing these endeavors will bring order out of chaos by defining your
scope of practice and distinguishing it from allied professions such as clinical psychology,
psychiatry, social work, and marriage and family counseling.
...the science of positive psychology is rooted in scientific evidence that it works. It uses tried-
and-true methods of measurement, of experiments, of longitudinal research, and of random-
assignment, placebo-controlled outcome studies to evaluate which interventions actually work
and which ones are bogus. It discards those that do not pass this gold standard as ineffective,

and it hones those that pass (working) with these evidence-based interventions and validated
measures of well-being will set the boundaries of a responsible positive psychology practice.
You assuredly do not need to be a licensed psychologist to practice positive psychology...
Freud's followers made the momentous error of restricting psychoanalysis to physicians, and
positive psychology is not intended as an umbrella for yet another self-protective guild. If you
are adequately trained...in the theories of positive psychology, in valid measurement of the
positive states and traits, in the interventions that work, and you know when to refer a client to
someone who is more appropriately trained, you will be, by my lights, bona fide disseminators
of positive psychology."
From Pages 70 and 71, Flourish by Martin E. P. Seligman, PhD, founder of the positive
psychology movement

What is Positive Mental Health?
"The lesson from positive psychology is that positive mental health is not just the absence of
mental illness. It is all too commonplace not to be mentally ill but to be stuck and languishing in
life. Positive mental health is a presence of…
Positive emotion…engagement…meaning…good relationships…accomplishment
Being in a state of mental health is not merely being disorder free; rather it is the presence of
flourishing.
Let there be no doubt about this: traditional psychotherapy is not designed to produce well-
being, it is designed just to curtail misery..."
From Flourish by Martin E. P. Seligman
What Does It Mean to Flourish?
P E R M A
1. Positive Emotion: Experiencing the Pleasant Life
2. Engagement: Experiencing Flow
3. Relationships: Experiencing Good Relationships with Others. Other people are the best
antidote for the downs of life and the single most reliable up
4. Meaning: Serving Others or Something Bigger Than Self
5. Accomplishment: Subjective achievement
From Flourish by Martin E. P. Seligman, PhD

What is a Positivity Ratio?
Positivity Ratio refers to the number of positive words to negative words a person says to
another person.
Life revolves around relationships with other people: at work, in marriage, in dating, in
parenting, in friendships.
If the Positivity Ratio in these relationships is at least 5 to 1, we can predict success or
flourishing in that relationship in whichever domain we find ourselves.
We can also predict failure. If the Positivity Ratio falls to 2.9 to 1 or less, failure is likely.
In marriage, if your Positivity Ratio is 2.9 to 1 or less, you are headed for divorce court.
In dating, in business, in parenting, in friendships, you are ruining these relationships if your
Losada ratio (Marcel Losada) is 2.9 to 1 or less.
Lawyers are the worst. No surprise there. Thanks to our American adversarial legal system,
lawyer's fight all day. Their Positivity Ratio is closer to 1:3. And, that precisely explains why
lawyers have the highest suicide, divorce, depression, and alcoholism rates among all
occupational groups.
"You need a 5:1 ratio to predict a strong and loving marriage---five positive statements for
every critical statement you make of your spouse. A habit of 1:3 in a couple is an unmitigated
catastrophe."
Barbara Fredrickson
See PositivityRatio.Com

Is Traditional Psychology Negative?
"In 1998, Martin Seligman founded positive psychology when he asserted that psychology had
lost its way. Psychology had become obsessed with pathology and the dark side of human
nature, blind to all that was good and noble in people...psychologists had created an enormous
manual, known as the 'DSM'...to diagnose every possible mental illness and behavioral
annoyance, but psychology didn't even have a language with which to talk about the upper
reaches of human health, talent, and possibility." Quoted from The Happiness Hypothesis by
Jonathan Haidt
We received an inquiry from a lady who wanted to know what positive psychology was all
about. Here is her response to our answer:
"Well, now, I'm impressed! Thanks for the explanation. I needed to hear that. My ex has a
Masters in Psychology and is a practicing counselor and life coach...He has always been negative
and it affected our family life. So, from having lived in that kind of life, I just thought the
negative is what psychologists were all about.
Over the years he internalized all of the negativity of his clients and it affected our family life.
So, I have a tendency to shy away or run from psychology majors.
Thanks so much for telling me there is actually a 'positive' side. I was happy all the time and he
was mad all the time because I was happy. I've never been happier now that I'm away from all
of it. Most of all, I love to laugh. Thanks for replying and thanks for listening."

Maslow and Scoffers
"When we free ourselves from the constraints of ordinary goals and uninformed
scoffers we will find ourselves roaring off the face of the earth."
Abraham Maslow
"Good and great are the enemies of what's possible."
"It takes rehearsal to build news skills."
From Get Out of Your Own Way
"Direction, not motion...Focus, not time...Capacity, not conformity...Energy, not effort...Impact,
not intentions"
"Trying harder is a prescription for disappointment and dissatisfaction; it's trying differently that
changes everything!"
"I" is an ongoing, ever changing process."
"It is neither wealth nor splendor, but, tranquility and occupation which give you happiness."
Thomas Jefferson
Beliefs and Habits Determine Thoughts, Emotions, and Actions
Which Produce Good or Bad Consequences!

Four Findings of Positive Psychology
1. Positive psychology builds human strengths and virtues.
2. Salary, age, gender, and physical attractiveness DO NOT predict general happiness.
3. Extraversion, social support, marriage, and religiosity DO predict general happiness.
4. Positive psychology can have a substantial effect on physical and mental health outcomes.
Six Benefits of Positivity
1. Positivity feels good
2. Positivity broadens minds (changes how your mind works)
3. Positivity builds resources (transforms your future)
4. Positivity fuels resilience (puts the brakes on negativity)
5. Positivity ratios above 3 to 1 forecasts flourishing (obeys a tipping point)
6. Positivity ratios can be raised (you can increase your positivity)
Quoted from Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson

Ten Forms of Positivity
1. Joy
2. Gratitude
3. Serenity
4. Interest
5. Hope
6. Pride
7. Amusement
8. Inspiration
9. Awe
10. Love
From Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson

How to be Happy
1. Express Gratitude
2. Cultivate Optimism
3. Avoid Over Thinking and Social Comparison
4. Perform Random Acts of Kindness (RAK)
5. Nurture Social Relationships
6. Develop Strategies for Coping
7. Learn Forgiveness
8. Increase Flow Experiences
9. Savor Life's Joys
10. Make a Commitment
11. Practice Religion and Spirituality
12. Practice Meditation
13. Engage in Physical Activity
14. Act like a Happy Person
From The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubormirsky

Happiness Toolkit
Tool 1: Be Open
Tool 2: Create High Quality Connections
Tool 3: Cultivate Kindness
Tool 4: Develop Distractions
Tool 5: Dispute Negative Thinking
Tool 6: Find Nature Nearby
Tool 7: Learn and Apply Your Strengths
Tool 8: Meditate Mindfully
Tool 9: Meditate on Loving-Kindness
Tool 10: Ritualize Gratitude
Tool 11: Savor Positivity
Tool 12: Visualize Your Future
From Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson

Happiness Bottom Line
..happy people make more money, take fewer sick days from work, get along better with their
colleagues, spend more time volunteering, are more likely to help strangers, receive better
supervisor evaluations on the job, are rated more highly by customers, and exhibit less work
turnover than less happy individuals. These are bottom-line facts that tend to be welcomed by
managers and executives."
Page 12, Positive Psychology Coaching by Robert Biswas-Diener and Ben Dean.
Guide to Rational Living
1. The phrases and sentences we keep telling ourselves usually are or become our thoughts and
emotions.
2. Talk therapy aims to reveal error in logic.
3. Our internal sentences shape our life.
4. If we label an event a catastrophe, it will surely become one.
5. Misery and depression are always states of mind. They are self-perpetuated.
6. It is not events that determine your state of mind, but how you to decide to feel about the
events. (David Burns)
7. Feelings are not facts; you can change your feelings by changing your thinking. (David Burns)
8. There is an arrogance in established patterns of thought. (Edward DeBono)

Character Strengths and Virtue
Knowledge: Those that entail the acquisition and use of knowledge
1. Creativity: thinking of novel ways to do things
2. Curiosity: taking an interest in ongoing experience
3. Love of Learning: mastering new skills, topics, and knowledge
4. Perspective (wisdom): providing wise counsel to others
5. Open-mindedness: thinking things through and examining counter-arguments
Courage: those that involve the exercise of will to accomplish goals in the face of opposition
6. Bravery: not shrinking from threat, challenge, difficulty or pain
7. Persistence: finishing what one begins
8. Integrity: presenting oneself in a genuine way
9. Vitality: approaching life with excitement and energy
Humanity: those that involve tending and befriending others
10. The capacity to love and receive love: valuing close relationships
11. Kindness: doing favors and good deeds for others
12. Social intelligence: being aware of the motives and feelings of others and of oneself
Justice: those that underlie healthy community life
13. Citizenship: working well as a member of a team or group
14. Fairness: treating all people equally
15. Leadership: encouraging a group to get things done
Temperance: those that protect against excess
16. Forgiveness/mercy: forgiving those who have done wrong
17. Modesty/humility: letting one’s accomplishments speak for themselves without seeking
the spotlight
18. Prudence: being careful about one’s choices
19. Self-Regulation: regulating what one feels and does
Transcendence: those that forge connections to the larger universe and provide meaning
20. Appreciation of excellence and beauty: noticing and appreciating beauty and excellence
21. Gratitude: being aware of and thankful for good things happening
22. Hope: expecting the best and working to achieve it
23. Humor: liking to laugh and bringing smiles to other people
24. Spirituality: having coherent beliefs about one’s purpose and meaning
From Character Strengths and Virtues, A Handbook and Classification by Christopher Peterson
and Martin E. P. Seligman

The Brain
"Your brain is the hardware of your soul. It is the hardware of your very essence as a human
being. You cannot be who you really want to be unless your brain works right. How your brain
works determines how happy you are, how effective you feel, and how well you interact with
others. Your brain patterns help you (or hurt you) with your marriage, parenting skills, work,
and religious beliefs, along with your experiences of pleasure and pain."
"If you are anxious, depressed, obsessive-compulsive, prone to anger, or easily distracted, you
probably believe these problems are 'all in your head.' In other words, you believe your
problem is purely psychological. However, research that I and others have done shows that the
problem is related to the physiology of the brain---and the good news is that we have proof that
you can change that physiology. You can fix what's wrong with many problems."
"...I'll offer targeted behavioral, cognitive, and nutritional prescriptions to optimize its function.
These prescriptions are practical, simple, and effective. They are based on my experience with
more than 60,000 patient visits to my clinic over the past 10 years, as well as the experiences
and research of my colleagues."
"...problems...such as moodiness, anxiety, irritability, inflexibility, and worrying are faced by
large numbers of people. Most do not require professional help, but rather effective, brain-
based prescriptions to optimize the brain's effectiveness."
"Since the brain controls our behavior, optimizing its function can help nearly anyone's ability to
be more effective in life."
From Change Your Brain, Change Your Life by Daniel G. Amen, MD

Happiness Strategies
Be Happy - Looking Into Love and Depression
AUTOMATIC NEGATIVE THINKING (ANT) - The Killer of Happiness
1. "Always/Never" Thinking
2. Focusing on the NEGATIVE
3. Fortune-Telling
4. Mind Reading
5. Thinking with Your Feelings
6. GUILT BEATING
7. LABELING
8. PERSONALIZING
9. BLAMING
PRESCRIPTIONS - The Way to Happiness
*****You Must Make Conscious Choices Every Day to Contest and Combat Automatic Negative
Thinking Until You have Developed the New Habit of Positive Thinking*****
1. Kill the Automatic Negative Thinking (ANT)
2. Surround Yourself with People Who Provide POSITIVE BONDING
3. Build People SKILLS to Enhance LIMBIC BONDS
4. Recognize the Importance of Physical Contact
5. Surround Yourself with GREAT SMELLS
6. Build a Library of Wonderful MEMORIES and ACCOMPLISHMENTS
7. Try Physical EXERCISE

8. Watch Your Limbic Nutrition
Quoted from Change Your Brain, Change Your Life by Daniel G. Amen, MD
Relaxation Strategies
Relax
Looking Into Anxiety and Fear
Are You Anxious?
The Prescription
1. Kill the Fortune-Telling Automatic Negative Thinking Tendencies
2. Use Guided Imagery
3. Try Diaphragmatic BREATHING
4. Try Meditation/Self-Hypnosis
5. Think about the 18/40/60 Rule
When you are 20, you worry about what everybody is thinking of you
When you are 40, you don't give a damn about what anybody thinks of you;
When you are 60, you realize nobody's been thinking about you anyway.
6. Learn How to Deal With Conflict
Don't give in to the anger of others just because it makes you uncomfortable
Don't allow the opinions of others to control how you feel about yourself
Say what you mean and stick up for what you believe is right
Maintain self-control
Be kind, if possible, but above all be firm in your stance
7. Watch Your Basil Ganglia Nutrition

Focus and Attention Strategies
Improve Focus
Looking Into Inattention and Impulsivity
Prescriptions
1. Develop and Maintain Clear Focus (The One-Page Miracle)
What do I want for my life?
Relationships
Work (To be the best that I can be)
Money
Myself (To be the healthiest person I can be)
2. FOCUS on WHAT YOU LIKE a Lot More than What You DON'T LIKE
3. Have MEANING and EXCITEMENT in Your Life
4. Get ORGANIZED; get HELP when you need it
5. Don't Be Another Person's STIMULANT
Don't yell.
The more his/her voice goes up, the more your voice should go down.
If you feel the situation starting to get out of control, take a break.
Use Humor to defuse the situation (not sarcasm or angry humor).
Be a good listener.
Say you want to understand and work on the situation, but you can do this only when things
calm down.
6. Try MOZART for FOCUS

7. Watch Your Prefrontal Cortex Nutrition
Get Over It Strategies
Get Over It
Looking Into Worry and Obsessiveness
Do You Get Fixated?
Prescriptions
1. Notice when you are STUCK, DISTRACT YOURSELF, and come back to the problem later
Sing a favorite song.
Listen to music that makes you feel positive.
Take a walk.
Do a chore.
Play with a pet.
Do structured meditation
Focus on a word and do not allow any other thoughts to enter your mind (imagine a broom that
sweeps out all other thoughts).
2. THINK THROUGH Answers before Automatically Saying NO
3. WRITE OUT OPTIONS and Solutions When You Feel Stuck
4. Seek the COUNSEL OF OTHERS When You Feel Stuck
5. MEMORIZE AND RECITE the Serenity Prayer When Bothered by REPETITIVE Thoughts
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the
things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time, enjoying one
moment at a time; accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, taking as Jesus did this sinful

world as it is, not as I would have it, trusting that you will make all things right if I surrender to
your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with you in the
next.
Reinhold Niebuhr
6. DON'T TRY TO CONVINCE Someone Else Who Is Stuck; Take a Break and Come Back Later
7. Try Making PARADOXICAL REQUESTS (Reverse Psychology)
If you want someone to meet you for dinner, it is often best to ask what time is good for him or
her as opposed to telling him or her to meet you at a certain time.
If you want a hug, it is often best to say something like "You probably wouldn't want to give me
a hug?"
If you want him or her to go to the store with you, say something like "You probably wouldn't
want to go with me?"
If you want someone to finish a report by next Thursday, say, "You probably can't finish the
report by next Thursday?"
If you want a child to comply with a request without giving you a problem, say, "You probably
wouldn't be able to do this without getting upset, would you?"
8. EXERCISE
9. Watch Your Cingulate System Nutrition

Therapist in a Box
1. "The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form
of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they are okay, then it's you."
2. "Men will always be mad, and those that think they can cure them are the maddest of them
all."
3. "A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother."
4. "Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you."
5. "A neurotic is a man who builds a castle in the sky. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A
psychiatrist is the man who charges them both rent."
6. "They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me."
7. "The aim of psychoanalysis is to relieve people of their neurotic unhappiness so that they can
be normally unhappy."
8. "There was never a genius without a tincture of madness."
9. "A psychiatrist asks a lot of expensive questions that your wife will ask for free."
10. "If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia."

Supplemental Material
How to be Reasonably Happy Most of the Time
Albert Ellis, Ph.D., Maxie Maultsby, M.D.,
Jane Higbee, M.D., and Thomas R. Scott, Ph.D.
The following introduction and overview of the lessons of Rational Psychology is based on the
works of the above listed authors.
The ABC’s
In the first century, a philosopher named Epictetus said, “Men are disturbed not by events
which happen, but rather by the opinion they have of these events.” Another translation of this
says, “Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form
concerning things.” What this means is that it isn’t what happens to you that upsets you; it’s
the way you look at it. For example, if you are standing in a line to buy theater tickets and
someone runs into you from behind you are apt to feel angry or annoyed as you turn around to
see who hit you. Let’s say that when you turn around you discover that the person who pushed
you is blind and is carrying a white cane. What happens to your anger? Your anger goes away!
The difference is that you are now thinking differently about the situation than before you
turned around. When you were angry you were probably thinking something like, “What in the
world is wrong with him! He ought to look where he’s going!” Now you are thinking, “Oh, poor
fellow! He’s blind and couldn’t help it!” Another way of putting this is to say that our feelings
are based on our own thought processes and attitudes rather than merely on the events around
us. This explains why some people can handle difficult situations pretty well. They have a
philosophy, a set of beliefs, or a way of thinking about the events of their lives which keeps
them courageous and determined instead of nervous, angry, ashamed, or depressed.
So, it isn’t really going to court, being ridiculed in front of others, speaking to a large group of
strangers, or being threatened by someone much stronger than yourself that makes you
nervous or fearful like the little guy to the left. It’s that you are quite convinced that IF you get a
bad decision, or IF the others think you’re a wimp, or IF you forget your speech, or IF someone
tries to start a fight that YOU COULDN’T STAND IT! Or that it would be PERFECTLY
UNBEARABLE! Or that it would be TRULY TERRIBLE AND AWFUL! In fact, it would be just exactly
as bad as a rational analysis would reveal, but you aren’t doing a rational analysis when you are
nervous, anxious, or afraid. You are thinking irrationally and, in this case, “awfulizing.” There is
no doubt that life confronts us with a lot of situations which have bad consequences, but there’s
no use making things worse by awfulizing about them!
It isn’t the behavior of your spouse, the attitude of a store clerk, the decision of a jury, or being
treated unfairly that makes you angry as depicted here. It’s that you are quite convinced that

things SHOULDN’T or MUSTN’T be that way! Or that people HAVE GOT TO be reasonable.
Sometimes we can see that there is another idea in there, namely, “If I get mad enough they’ll
HAVE to straighten out.” Those ideas in all capitals are actually irrational. Consider for a
moment. While it would be highly desirable if people were more reasonable, unfortunately
they don’t HAVE to be. The idea of importance here is what is meant by “should.” If it means
“It would be better” then it’s rational, but if it means “It’s GOT TO BE THAT WAY” then it’s
plainly irrational. It is this second, irrational style of thinking that leads to undesirable anger.
It isn’t your past mistakes, rumors about your family background, comments about your sexual
behavior, or negative remarks about your intelligence that make you feel ashamed or guilty
(poor little guy!) It’s that you believe strongly that if you did something wrong, or if your family
had a bad reputation, or your sexual behavior wasn’t perfectly acceptable, or if you aren’t
smarter than a certain smartness, it means that YOU ARE NO GOOD! There probably isn’t really
any such thing as a totally bad person. We recognize this fact when we say of someone we
don’t like, “Well, I suppose his mother loves him!” This is an important idea, but it is difficult to
be clear about it. A person experiencing intense shame is practicing self-condemnation, or as
we frequently call it, self-downing. He is condemning his whole self, and that’s why he feels so
rotten. A smarter strategy is to condemn your bad behavior without kicking yourself in the
teeth. It isn’t the whole you who is worthless, just some of the items in your repertoire of
behaviors.
It isn’t that you can no longer do what you like best because of circumstances, or that your
friends, relatives, and/or lovers have seemingly forgotten you, or that you aren’t getting any
younger that makes you feel depressed as shown in the illustration. It’s that you ardently
believe that you MUST have these things you have lost in order to be happy. Just look around
you and you can see that THAT’s not true! You can easily find people who are pretty happy who
nave none of the things you have somehow convinced yourself that you absolutely must have
for happiness. Actually very little is required for ordinary happiness. Depression usually
includes all of the irrational thinking modes described above plus a sort of “poor me” attitude.
But don’t forget that it also has biological determinants. (There is further discussion of this in a
later paragraph, so read on!)
So what we’re saying is that if you are in reasonably good biological health and have a well
thought out rational philosophy you will almost never be very upset about anything for very
long and you will look more like the little guy shown here, who is pretty cool and collected in
spite of the many frustrations and disappointments of life. (I just noticed that he’s cross-eyed,
but I don’t think rational thinking produces that condition. And anyway, he obviously isn’t
worrying excessively about it). The goal of this essay is to help you to develop that kind of
philosophy for yourself. If you can avoid being emotionally upset, you can constructively pursue
and attain your goals with much greater success. At first, you may think the aim is to make you
passive, to let people walk over you, to be cold and unfeeling no matter what happens. It may
seem that way to you because you have grown up around people who believe that you SHOULD
get upset when things go wrong, and you will probably find it hard to believe that circumstances
really are NOT the cause of emotions all by themselves. We aren’t trying to do away with

emotions here. Constructive emotional arousal actually energizes people to accomplish their
goals. But negative emotions such as excessive fear, anger, guilt, or depression, take away your
energy and make you less intelligent than you would otherwise be. Those negative emotions
actually prevent you from reaching your goals and frequently cause you to make bad decisions.
Learning to control them when needed can only help you to achieve whatever it is you want to
achieve in life.
ABC Theory of Emotions
A stands for Activating event. B stands for your Beliefs, or thoughts, philosophy, or attitude.
C stands for the emotional Consequences.
Many people believe that A causes C. You can tell that they believe it because of the things they
say: “You made me mad!” “You hurt my feelings!” “Crowds make me nervous!” “That was a
depressing movie!” “My father could always make me feel guilty by just looking at me in a
certain way!” “He was laying this guilt trip on me!” “How does it make you feel when
________?” This belief is represented by the red line from A to C, above. But, as we have seen,
this isn’t the way things really work. (Notice that the red line disappears and is replaced by a
red X to show that A does NOT directly cause C.) What really happens is that you find out that
your mother-in-law is going to spend a week with you at A, you think something like, “She will
probably criticize me the whole time she’s here! The old bat! She shouldn’t be so unfair! It’s
absolutely awful when she carries on like that and I just can’t stand it!” at B, and you get very
angry at C and can’t think straight, deal with your mother-in-law tactfully and effectively, or
think of a clever way to improve the likelihood that her visit will not be as unpleasant as usual.
All this is represented above by the green line that moves from A to B (which then flashes
yellow) and from B to C (which flashes red.) We say that A triggers B and B causes C. Events
trigger your beliefs, and your beliefs are responsible for the emotional tone of your life.
FEAR
This is the second lesson in rational thinking. In the first lesson we learned that it isn’t what
happens to you that makes you nervous; it’s the way you think. And since there’s no advantage
to being nervous, it is obvious that ANYTHING that you think that makes you nervous is CRAZY,
NUTTY, or (to use a more polite word) IRRATIONAL. In this lesson, we are going to explore the
nutty beliefs which cause fear and the rational, sensible beliefs which can be used to counteract
fear. We are going to show you that you can indeed get control of fear when you begin to
understand its cause and begin to practice substituting rational beliefs for irrational ones.
Bertrand Russell once said, “It is impossible to be afraid of anything if you have thought about it
deeply enough.”
We have fear in all degrees, from what is usually called WORRY all the way to ABJECT TERROR.
Fear can make you appear stupid and lazy. Fear keeps people from bravely going out into the
world and making a happy, fulfilling life for themselves. The following brief outline lists the most
common causes of fear and the simplest, most straightforward cures for this disabling emotion.
Fear even keeps you from studying your math assignment!

HOW TO REALLY OVERCOME YOUR FEARS:
There are, basically, three steps in overcoming any kind of unwanted emotional reaction. Like
making any change in your behavior, some effort on your part is required. Here are the three
steps:
I. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR FEELINGS
One of the biggest roadblocks to getting better control of your life is a failure to realize WHEN
negative emotions are interfering with your happiness or preventing you from reaching your
goals. A lot of psychotherapy consists of merely training people to become more aware of
themselves.
II. IDENTIFY YOUR IRRATIONAL THINKING
Negative feelings are always caused by irrational beliefs of some sort. The following discussion
will help you to zero in on the particular nutty ideas which are causing you problems.
III. VIGOROUSLY QUESTION, CHALLENGE, DEBATE, UPROOT, AND ELIMINATE THE IRRATIONAL
IDEAS AND SUBSTITUTE RATIONAL ONES.
The list below will give you some helpful hints on ways to challenge the nutty beliefs which
cause fear, anxiety, self- consciousness, worry, some forms of laziness, and other unnecessary
and disabling negative emotions.
FOUR COMMON CAUSES OF FEAR AND THEIR CURES
A. Causes (awfulizing)
1. It would be PERFECTLY TERRIBLE or PERFECTLY AWFUL if I fail (or if “it” happens!).
2. I COULDN’T STAND IT if people criticized me (or if “it” happens!)
3. “It” MUST be prevented at all costs!
4. A person OUGHT TO worry about some things, and if he didn’t he’d be CRAZY!
B. Cures (disliking)
1. What would ACTUALLY be so TERRIBLE or AWFUL about failure? I wouldn’t like it, but it
wouldn’t be the end of the world.
2. If people criticize me, where is the evidence that I can’t stand it? I certainly could stand it,

although I wouldn’t like it. I can stand anything if it doesn’t kill me, and if it kills me I’ll be out of
it!
3. Why MUST it be prevented? I can’t stop “it” from happening by worrying about it. And
there are plenty of things that can’t be prevented at all, such as earthquakes, volcanoes, death,
etc.
4. Where is the evidence that ANYTHING is accomplished by worrying? There is no such
evidence. It’s childish to think that MY nervous system can control what happens in the outside
world! What a relief! I can relax and the world probably won’t stop or come apart.
The crucial difference between irrational and rational thoughts is often a matter of absolutism.
A nervous person doesn’t merely see that it would be undesirable to be criticized, for example.
He believes that it would be ABSOLUTELY UNBEARABLE to be criticized.
C. Be careful!
Beware of becoming rude and/or reckless. The above does not mean that you want to learn not
to CARE what others think of you — merely that you don’t upset yourself when other people
don’t like you or don’t approve of your behavior. And this will inevitably happen some of the
time. Nor does it mean that you foolishly take unwise risks–merely that you don’t worry
yourself sick over unavoidable ones.
ANGER
The topic of this third lesson in rational thinking is anger. Anger is an emotional reaction, like
fear, which comes in different degrees: small, medium, and large, as well as many in-between
states. Like fear, there are many different degrees of anger. Anger ranges from mild annoyance
to blind rage, as seen below.
Is anger desirable? Some people we know get angry very easily and others seldom get very
angry. Most people agree that some degree of anger can be a good thing. A moderate
expression of anger between husband and wife, for example, often acts as an important
communication which serves to keep the relationship on an even keel. But it is also easy to see
that a lot of anger is highly undesirable. One thing that is very undesirable about strong anger is
that it tends to interfere with clear thinking. It makes us dumb. We all know of times when we
have said things when we were angry that we really didn’t mean or else we have said things
that we have regretted later. Anger is undesirable when it leads us to do self-defeating things,
and it often does.
One mistake people often make is in thinking that anger is necessary to accomplish goals.
Strong determination is certainly necessary to accomplish difficult goals, but determination and
anger are NOT the same thing at all. Even in a football game, the coach may urge his team to
“hit ‘em hard!” and this may sound like he is telling them to get mad. But if a player really gets

mad, he loses his judgment and earns a penalty from the referee for “unnecessary roughness.”
Another mistake is to think that if a person doesn’t act angry or show his anger that he isn’t
really angry. But anger is a feeling inside of us. Probably all of us have learned to hide our
anger from others at least some of the time, but the anger is really there anyway. There is some
scientific evidence for the idea that “bottled up” anger can make us ill in quite a number of
different ways such as high blood pressure, stomach ulcers, and headaches. Learning to
recognize our own angry feelings is not always easy because we have, most of us, learned to
fool even ourselves about anger! Have you ever angrily declaimed, “I am NOT ANGRY!”
Another mistake is the belief that anger is like steam in a boiler and that it will help to “blow off
steam”. Research has shown that blowing off steam is only a temporary help at best as long as
there is still fire under the boiler. The aim of the following discussion is to show how we can
actually learn to turn off the fire, because anger (like other negative emotions) is caused by our
own thoughts and beliefs, not circumstances. In the following outline, the thoughts which cause
anger are listed under letter A, the rational thoughts which cure anger are listed under B, and a
caution is included in letter C. You will see that this outline is similar to the one on fear in the
previous lesson.
SIX COMMON CAUSES OF ANGER AND THEIR CURES
A. Causes (awfulizing and demanding)
1. He shouldn’t do that!
2. She should be more considerate!
3. They’ve got to respect my rights!
4. He must obey the rules!
5. She has to listen to reason!
6. They ought to be fair!
B. Cure (disliking and preferring)
1. Why shouldn’t he? I’d rather he didn’t do that, or I’d prefer him not to, but there’s no
Cosmic Law that says he shouldn’t. He probably has poor judgment. Maybe he was raised
wrong. Maybe he’s dumb.
2. Why should she? If I knew everything about her I’d probably find that whatever way she is
it’s the way she should be. There’s no Cosmic Law that says she should or must be the way I
want her to be.

3. Why have they got to? It would be much nicer if they did, and I would greatly prefer that
they respect my rights. But they don’t have to! Unfortunately, they have a right to be wrong.
4. Why must he? I’d like for him to obey the rules, but I can’t make him do it by being angry.
5. Why does she have to? She doesn’t have to do anything (except maybe die someday.)
6. Why ought they be fair? It might be nice, but the world isn’t always fair and it probably
never will be! I’d better bravely find a way to reach my goals in an unfair world. It’s the only one
I’ve got!
C. Be careful!
Beware of becoming a doormat or a jellyfish. The above does not mean, “Flop down and accept
whatever happens.” It does mean, “when there is nothing you can do, don’t upset yourself
about it! If there is something you can do, do it!”
SHAME
Lesson 4 is about the feeling of shame, or as it is sometimes called, guilt. Like fear and anger,
shame can be mild, moderate, or severe with countless variations in between, as depicted
below.
Like fear and anger, shame can interfere with your life. A person who has strong feelings of
shame usually lacks energy and initiative and instead of running his own life he is very likely to
let other people do it for him. Then he usually ends up very angry and unhappy! Feelings of
shame are not caused by the events of your past life or by the knowledge that someone may
have found out about those events. Those highly unpleasant feelings are caused by the way you
think about yourself and your past. People who are ashamed always “awfulize” about what
they have done or have failed to do and then tell themselves that because they are not perfect
that they are bad through and through! There is also the idea that through suffering they can,
in some mysterious way, pay for their misdeeds or inadequacies. These are the nutty ideas that
cause and maintain feelings of shame, and we are going to zero in on these thoughts or
philosophies in a way that will reveal just how nutty they really are!
On August 30th, 2001, Stuff wrote:
Ernest Hemingway told this story about Paco. A father came to Madrid, which is full of boys
named Paco, and inserted an advertisement in the personal columns of a local newspaper
offering: PACO MEET ME AT HOTEL MONTANA NOON TUESDAY ALL IS FORGIVEN PAPA.
According to the story, a squadron of the civil guard had to be called out to disperse the eight
hundred young men who answered the ad. Isn’t it true that all of us need to be forgiven?
One very common opinion about shame is that you ought to be ashamed of some things.

Although this opinion is very common, it is nonetheless quite irrational. Shame is an emotion
that interferes with your intelligence, destroys your motivation, and results in a pattern of body
language that invites others to attempt to dominate you. How can that be constructive?
Granted that you have misbehaved in a highly undesirable way, isn’t that enough of a problem?
Why make two problems out of one? There is a common belief that you won’t correct your
mistakes if you don’t feel ashamed of them. It would be more accurate to say that you won’t be
motivated to correct your mistakes if you don’t see clearly what they are and why they are
undesirable. But shame won’t help you to do that! And finally, there is the idea that somehow
you are paying for your mistakes by suffering. Who is getting paid? This is really nonsense!
FIVE COMMON CAUSES OF SHAME AND THEIR CURES
A. Causes (awfulizing, demanding, and self-downing)
1. What I did was perfectly awful!
2. It shouldn’t have happened!
3. I’ve got to suffer to pay for what I did!
4. I’ve got to find a way to make everything all right!
5. I’m a terrible person because I’m not perfect!
B. Cures (disliking, preferring, and rational self-acceptance)
1. Granted that what I did was highly undesirable, but how was it perfectly awful? Where is
the evidence that it was so EXTREMELY bad that I have to suffer forever?
2. Why shouldn’t it have happened? At the time I was using bad judgment, perhaps because I
was already ashamed of something. I’d better keep my eyes open from here on to avoid a
repeat performance!
3. Where’s the evidence that I have to suffer? There’s no law of the universe that hands out
suffering to people who have behaved badly. It’s bad enough that I did it. Why make two
problems out of one by suffering on top of everything else?
4. How can I possibly do that? Time machines haven’t been invented yet. What a relief! No
need to have a nervous fit trying to do the impossible!
5. I am not a worm for behaving wormily. Just because I have done something undesirable
doesn’t make me a totally undesirable person! After all, I can enjoy just being alive.

C. Be careful!
Beware of becoming irresponsible. The above does not mean for you to adopt the attitude that
you don’t care about your behavior – merely that you don’t unnecessarily upset yourself over
the inevitable mistakes all fallible human beings make from time to time. Being relatively free
of shame will actually help you to make constructive changes in your life so that you will be less
likely to continue making the same mistakes!
DEPRESSION
Depression might be called “public enemy number one” in the negative emotions department.
Like fear, anger, and shame, it can exist in all degrees. The pictures below illustrate this.
Depression is probably responsible for a very substantial reduction in productivity. It has been
estimated that if we could eliminate depression in all its many forms we could boost our gross
national product and balance the national budget in just a few years! Think about it: Haven’t
there been plenty of days in your life that you just didn’t “feel like” working or being
productive? Very likely those were days when you were having a mild depression. And
depression, like fear, anger and shame, is largely caused and maintained by irrational thinking.
It is impossible to be really depressed without THINKING SOMETHING! That may be the main
reason why electro-convulsive therapy (shock treatments) are effective in relieving depression:
the treatments interrupt the depressive thoughts which maintain the depression! When the
guy wakes, up he can’t remember what he was depressed about!
In the previous lessons we have seen that fear is largely caused by awfulizing, anger by
demanding, and shame by self- downing. However, it would be more accurate to say that fear
(which is the simplest negative feeling) is caused by awfulizing, anger (which is a little more
complicated) is caused by awfulizing AND demanding, and shame (more complicated still) is
caused by awfulizing AND demanding AND self-downing. Depression is caused by “all of the
above” PLUS an attitude or belief system which we call attachment or “poor me-ing”. Here’s
how it works. Bozo is in love with Suzabella. In the following paragraphs we illustrate fear,
anger, shame, and depression by exposing Bozo’s thoughts.
FEAR that he will lose Suzabella. “Oh-oh! She got a letter from her old boyfriend. What if she
starts going with him again? That would be PERFECTLY TERRIBLE AND AWFUL AND I COULDN’T
STAND IT!!”
ANGER that Suzabella talks to her old boyfriend on the phone: “IT’s PERFECTLY AWFUL that
she’s talking to him and she SHOULDN’T DO IT! She PROMISED, and she MUST keep her
promises!!”
SHAME over being unfaithful to Suzabella: “What I did was PERFECTLY AWFUL and I SHOULDN’T
have done it and it means that I AM A TERRIBLE PERSON!!” Or in the case where Bozo had not
been unfaithful, he can still feel shame because he thinks, “If she prefers him it just goes to
show that I’m no good.”

DEPRESSION over losing Suzabella: “It’s PERFECTLY AWFUL that I have lost Suzabella! She
SHOULDN’T have left me! I must be a TERRIBLE PERSON because she doesn’t love me anymore!
And I CAN’T POSSIBLY EVER BE HAPPY AGAIN without her!! POOR ME!!”
Notice the last statement in Bozo’s depressive thinking above. It illustrates ATTACHMENT.
Attachment is the belief that you can’t do without something or that you can’t possibly be
happy without it. The truth is that happiness doesn’t crucially depend on having ANYTHING.
Remind yourself that everything you now have and enjoy you will lose some day if you live long
enough. And haven’t you known old people who had lost many things who were brave and
cheerful? It’s NICE to have love, possessions, good times, money. But it’s not ABSOLUTELY
NECESSARY for happiness! Many people have gone to Tibet and meditated on a mountain top
for years in order to learn this very important lesson. But you can learn it much more quickly
and effectively without all that trouble. Of course, a lot of practice is required. The following
outline gives the most important causes and cures of depression.
FOUR COMMON CAUSES OF DEPRESSION AND THEIR CURES
A. Causes (awfulizing, demanding, self-downing, and attachment)
1. I can’t be happy unless so-and-so loves me!
2. I am a failure. Everything about me is no good!
3. A person who has ________ as I have is better off dead!
4. I am no good unless ________!
B. Cures (disliking, preferring, self-acceptance, and realistic independence)
1. Who says I can’t be happy without so-and-so? I was happy before I ever met him or her!
2. How can I BE a failure? I can fail, but that certainly doesn’t mean that I AM a failure! After
all, I can still breathe and blink my eyes. I’m not failing at everything!
3. How is ANYONE better off dead? Nonsense! As long as I’m alive I have choices. When I’m
dead I won’t have any choices.
4. Who says I HAVE to _____? Why do I HAVE TO BE smarter, better looking, more successful?
It might be nice, but it isn’t NECESSARY for happiness. I can enjoy being alive just because I
exist! I’m good enough for myself as long as I’m breathing!
C. Be careful!
Beware of becoming arrogant, egotistical, or a “Pollyanna.” The above does not mean to try to

convince yourself that you’re better than you are at anything or that you don’t care about the
opinion of others or that you don’t strive to achieve meaningful goals. What it does mean is
that you can train yourself to be pretty brave and cheerful no matter what! That way you will
get more love, like yourself better, and accomplish more in life.
Twenty Seven Ways Our Brain Distorts
Reality
From What We believe What We Believe by Andrew Newberg, MD and Mark Robert Waldman, Pages 253-257
The knowledge we glean from scientific studies depends largely on how we interpret the
evidence. But interpretations are subject to the same rules that govern our perceptions of
reality; they are filled with assumptions, generalizations, oversights, and mistakes. In the social
sciences, these errors are referred to as cognitive biases; but as I have emphasized throughout
this book, such biases are built into the perceptual and emotional as well as the cognitive
mechanisms of the brain. By the time perceptual information reaches consciousness, each
individual has transformed it into something new and unique. This reconstruction of reality is
the foundation from which we construct all our beliefs about the world.
Logic, reason, and social consensus also play critical roles in shaping our beliefs; but as we have
seen throughout this book, these factors also bias the way we understand the world. By
recognizing these biases, we can become better thinkers, better researchers, and ultimately
better believers. Over the last fifty years, researchers, scientists, psychologists, and sociologists
have identified hundreds of cognitive, social, behavioral, and decision-making processes, and I
have gathered here 27 biases I consider essential for evaluating our perceptions and beliefs
about the world.
1. Family Bias
2. Authoritarian Bias
3. Attractiveness Bias
4. Confirmation Bias
5. Self-Serving Bias
6. In-Group Bias
7. Out-Group Bias
8. Group Consensus Bias
9. Bandwagon Bias
10. Projection Bias
11. Expectancy Bias
12. Magic Number Bias
13. Probability Bias

14. Cause-and-Effect Bias
15. Pleasure Bias
16. Personification Bias
17. Perceptual Bias
18. Perseverance Bias
19. False-Memory Bias
20. Positive-Memory Bias
21. Logic Bias
22. Persuasion Bias
23. Primary Bias
24. Uncertainty Bias
25. Emotional Bias
26. Publication Bias
27. Blind-Spot Bias
The CIA’s War against Biases
From Why We Believe What We Believe by Andrew Newberg, MD and Mark Robert Waldman, Pages 258-260
If you want to become a better believer, the first step is to realize that every perception and
thought includes a degree of bias, and thus every belief represents a compromise between the
way the world really is and the way we would like it to be. This is such a difficult notion to
accept that a special branch of the Central Intelligence Agency recently published a book, a sort
of in-house training manual, to emphasize the fact that we are strongly biased toward
perceiving an inaccurate view of reality. To quote:
People construct their own version of “reality” on the basis of information provided by the
senses, but this sensory input is mediated by complex mental processes that determine which
information is attended to, how it is organized, and the meaning attributed to it. What people
perceive, how readily they perceive it, and how they process this information after receiving it
are all strongly influenced by past experience, education, cultural values, role requirements, an
organizational norms…We think that if we are at all objective, we record what is actually there.
Yet perception is demonstrably an active rather than a passive process; it constructs rather than
records “reality.”
The book describes how we constantly misinterpret information---that is why different people
reach different conclusions about reality. Fortunately, there are many ways to get around these
biases and thus perceive the world through a wider and less distorted lens. Here are 8
strategies that the CIA uses to teach its intelligence-gathering analysis to think more wisely and
open-mindedly:
1. Become proficient in developing alternative points of view.

2. Do not assume that the other person will think or act like you.
3. Think backward. Instead of thinking about what might happen, put yourself into the future
and try to explain how a potential situation could have occurred.
4. Imagine that the belief you are currently holding is wrong, and then develop a scenario to
explain how that could be true. This helps you to see the limitations of your own beliefs.
5. Try out the other person’s beliefs by actually acting out the role. This breaks you out of
seeing the world through the habitual patterns of your own beliefs.
6. Play “devil’s advocate” by taking the minority point of view. This helps you see how
alterative assumptions make the world look different.
7. Brainstorm. A quantity of ideas leads to quality because the first ones that come to mind are
those that reflect old beliefs. New ideas help you to break free of emotional blocks and social
norms.
8. Interact with people of different backgrounds and beliefs.

The Colleges of Positive Psychology and Human
Behavior Newsletter Edition 1
We are all weird:
W-Western
E-Educated
I-Industrialized
R-Rich
D-Democratic
Compared to the rest of the world!
We are a minority even in this modern world.
We are in the top 1% of all people who have ever lived!
We should feel grateful, blessed and fortunate that we are alive at this time in history and are
fortunate enough to live in the United States, in spite of all the usual challenges with which we
have to deal.
Gratitude should be a daily practice for those of us who are interested
in positive psychology and who are interested in empowering other people to create lives full of
meaning and to strive for well-being and the well-being of others.
Try this positive psychology intervention this week:
Practice RAK: Random Acts of Kindness. Make your goal one a day this week. Helping
strangers is one of the best things I do to feel happy and fulfilled.
I love to help people who are down on their luck when they approach me for a little money or a
meal. I open my heart and pocket book to them in appropriate ways.
Something to think about......Write down your RAKs in your new journal that you are keeping
during your study of positive psychology.
All the best for a world of well-being,

Invitation to Positive Psychology
We are now engaged in the study of our first workbook, Invitation to Positive Psychology.
Your reading for Week 1 focuses on:
1. Positive Psychology is a new field that is concerned with MSPPO: Mental Health,
Strengths, Positive Emotions, Positive Institutions, and Optimal Functioning.
2. Positive Psychology is a science and is built upon solid evidence and empirically-based
research.
3. One of the most important findings from the science of Positive Psychology is that there is
much more to be gained for individuals, companies, and organizations from the focus on
capitalizing on STRENGTHS and POSITIVITY rather than trying to overcome weaknesses.
4. Positive Psychology is a relatively new science established in 1998 and is now a permanent
and well-accepted scientific discipline.
The specific skills and knowledge you will gain from this course include:
* Using research evidence to make a case for positive psychology
* How and when to best use positive psychology interventions.
* The benefits of positive emotion
* How to use strengths assessment to guide your work
* How to increase hope and why you should
* How to stay current with new developments in positive psychology
All the best,

"Positive Psychology declares that adult development is a continuous process of
anticipating the future, appraising, and reappraising goals, adjusting to
current realities and regulating expectations so as to maintain
a sense of well-being in the face of changing
circumstances."

This study program leading to the qualification:
Board Certified Positive Neuropsychology Counselor (BCPNC) ©
Is all about the scientific understanding of
 human nature
 human behavior
 positive psychology
Human nature and Human behavior involve the scientific study of
 Genetics and Neuroscience
 Evolutionary Adaptations
 Mind and Brain
 Male-Female Brain Differences
 Nature and Nurture
Positive Psychology involves the scientific study of
MSPPO (Biswas-Diener)
 Mental health
 Strengths
 Positive emotion
 Positive institutions
 Optimal functioning
PERMA (Seligman)
 Positive emotion
 Engagement
 Relationships
 Meaning
 Accomplishment
The graduates of this program and the possessors of this credential will be qualified to counsel,
teach, train, and consult in the new field of Positive Neuropsychology and may refer to
themselves as Positive Neuropsychologists.

It is very important to understand and internalize the above outline as it serves as the
foundation and parameters of the study in which you are engaged.
When someone asks you about what you are studying, the above outline should be your
answer. You should commit the above to memory because only upon internalization of this new
knowledge can you say that you have mastered it, which is our goal. This program should
change your life and the lives of everyone with whom you come in contact and will determine
the trajectory of your life from now on.
Please print this email off and file in your three ring binder and review it periodically to firmly
set in your mind about the project in which we are engaged.
Best wishes for a world of well-being,

Greetings to All!
You are special to me and I am pleased to have met you all and to have begun this journey with
you. It will be life transforming!
Pursuant to the Fair Use Exception to the copyright laws of the United States for nonprofit and
educational purposes, please find attached a downloaded copy of the above title.
Please print off this course guidebook and file in a three-ring binder for reading and
reference. We will be using this material during the second half of our course.
The first five months of our BCPNC© program is the study of positive psychology.
The next 7 months of this program will involve the study of
Human nature,
Human behavior,
The mysteries of human behavior,
Behavioral epigenetics,
Evolutionary adaptations,
Evolutionary theory,
The brain (hardware),
The mind (software),
Male-female brain differences,
The female-differentiated brain,
The male-differentiated brain,
Brain writing, brain behavior,
Body language as brain behavior, and other related subjects.
The attached course guidebook will apply to the second 7 months of our study.
WORDS
Words mean things. We often take for granted that our understanding or definition of a word is
understood by others. This sometimes is true, but most of the time this is patently false.

The more esoteric the word, the less others will understand what we mean by its use. Words
develop because they represent concepts. Often we have a different concept in mind when
using the same word that another person does.
Many words are ubiquitous, but their ubiquity does not mean that everyone understands or
agrees with the meaning you intend by the words you use.
This whole field regarding words, what they mean, how they are used, and how this relates to
human behavior is the field of psycholinguistics.
We need to be precise about the words we use and the meaning of those words. We should
not take for granted that others automatically know what we mean by the words we use.
Communication is a necessary process of understanding words, using words carefully and
precisely and having a dialogue with others in order to understand one another.
We need to learn to be excruciatingly clear, painfully clear regarding the words we use. I
encourage all of you to take this idea about words, communication and clarity to heart.
If you do so, it will enhance your personal life, social life, business life and help you succeed in
all domains of life.
We think that we read the minds of others well. The truth is we are very poor at reading the
minds of others because we ASSUME they think like us.
In some cases this is true. In most cases, this is NOT true.
When we engage in dialogue with others, we need to go to extraordinary lengths to understand
what others mean by the words they use and the words you use.
One technique for doing this is to repeat back to the other person what we understand them to
mean by what they just said.
This practice will greatly improve your communication and LISTENING skills.
Best wishes for a world of well-being,

1. Depression can be prevented in a young person at genetic risk by nurturing her skills of
optimism and hope.
2. Personality traits of good cheer and bubbly character are highly heritable.
3. Love includes: Kindness, Generosity, Nurturance, Capacity to Receive and Give Love.
4. Emotional maturity: altruism, postpone gratification, future-mindedness, humor.
5. Optimists live 19% longer than others.
6. Kindness is gratifying. Pleasure is fleeting. Using Strengths and Virtues Creates Authentic
Happiness rather than fleeting and temporary pleasure.
7. Positive emotion alienated from the exercise of character leads to emptiness, to
inauthenticity, to depression, and, as we age, to the gnawing realization that we are fidgeting
until we die.
8. More happiness among employees actually causes more productivity and higher income.
9. Adults and children who are put into a good mood select higher goals, perform better, and
persist longer.
10. When Bad Things Happen to Happy People: Endure pain better, take more safety and
health precautions when threatened, positive emotions undo negative emotions.
11. Positive emotion CAUSES much better commerce with the world.
12. POSITIVE FEELING is a neon "HERE-BE-GROWTH" marquee that tells you that a potential
win-win encounter is at hand! By activating an expansive, tolerant, and creative
mindset, positive feelings maximize the social, intellectual, and physical benefits that will
accrue.
13. Happiness = Set point + Circumstances of Life + Choices We Make
14. Happy people are very social

15. Good things and high accomplishment have little power to raise happiness more than
temporarily.
16. Rich people are only slightly happier than poor people.
17. PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS does NOT have much effect on happiness.
18. HEDONIC TREADMILL
19. Big Five Personality Traits
A. Openness to Experience
B. Conscientiousness
C. Extraversion
D. Agreeableness
E. Neuroticism
1. Anxiety
2. Angry Hostility
3. Depression
4. Self-Consciousness
5. Impulsiveness
6. Vulnerability
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APRIL 2015 AGU Positive Neuropsychology

APRIL 2015 AGU Positive Neuropsychology

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