What would Sisyphus do?A Final Presentation for the Psychology of Happiness ClassBy Kay Gilley, M.S., PCC

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Csikszentmihalyi

“Tragedies Transformed”

Flow

“The patients who learned to master the new challenges of their impaired situation felt a clarity of purpose they had lacked before.” (p. 193)

“A major catastrophe that frustrates a central goal of life will either destroy the self, forcing a person to use all his psychic energy to erect a barrier around remaining goals, defending them against further onslaughts of fate; or it will provide a new, more clear, and more urgent goal: to overcome the challenges created by the defeat.” (p. 198)

Richard Tedeschion Post-Traumatic Growth

Personal StrengthAppreciation of LifeRelate to others with greater intimacy and compassion

New possibilities, goals, and prioritiesSpiritual change

What allows us to start that boulder up the mountain again…and again… instead of curling up in fetal position for the rest of our lives?

Chaos as Creative Force

The Alchemy of Fear

ChaosOrder

“The integrity of the self depends on the ability to take neutral or destructive events and turn them into positive ones.”

Csikszentmihalyi

Each negative event “produces disorder in the mind. Each threatens the self and impairs its functioning.”

Dissipative structures of the mind allow forward movement

o Resilience

o Courage

o Perseverance

o Transformational coping

Chaos as Creative Force

The Alchemy of Fear

ChaosOrder

Coping style—what provides the order in our chaotic world

Three different resources:o External Support

o One’s psychological resources (intelligence, education, personality factors)

o Personal coping strategies*

Regressive Coping

Transformational Coping—suppressing our feelings temporarily, analyzing the problem logically, and reassessing priorities

DissipativeStructures

10 Ways to Build Resilience

The APA’s Road to Resilience

Make connections.   Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable problems. 

 Accept that change is a part of living.   Move toward your goals.   Take decisive actions.   Look for opportunities for self-discovery.   Nurture a positive view of yourself.   Keep things in perspective.   Maintain a hopeful outlook.   Take care of yourself. 

So you’re having a personal pity party? Meet Nick Vujicic…

I am so-o-o grateful!

“Continuing the Journey”

from APA Road to Resilience

“…think of resilience as similar to taking a raft trip down a river. On a river, you may encounter rapids, turns, slow water and shallows. As in life, the changes you experience affect you differently along the way.

“In traveling the river, it helps to have knowledge about it and past experience in dealing with it. Your journey should be guided by a plan, a strategy that you consider likely to work well for you….”

“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.”

Horace

• Steve Jobs ousted from Apple• Anita Roddick sued over her

company name• JK Rowling– a single mom on

welfare• Richard Branson—multiple business

failures• Oprah Winfrey sued multiple times• Mark Twain, Ulysses Grant, and

Donald Trump filed for bankruptcy

What would Sisyphus do?

Albert Camus

“The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942)

“The struggle itself is enough to fill a man’s heart…One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Perspective

I wish the suffering had been optional if only because of the fact, that my life is so great now….. And then again, the richness of my current life may not have been so, if it were not for the years of heartbreak.”

Linden Morris Delrio

References

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi, Flow, Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 1990, “Cheating Chaos” and “Making of Meaning.”

Gilley, Kay, The Alchemy of Fear, 1997, p. 83.

http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/road-resilience.aspx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSayMXTaQY8