Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being Book

Preface 1

Part 1 A New Positive Psychology 3

Chapter 1 What Is Well-Being? 5

The Birth of a New Theory 9

The Original Theory: Authentic Happiness 11

From Authentic Happiness Theory to Well-Being Theory 13

Well-Being Theory 14

The Elements of Well-Being 16

Kindness Exercise 21

Flourishing as the Goal of Positive Psychology 26

Chapter 2 Creating Your Happiness: Positive Psychology Exercises That Work 30

The Gratitude Visit 30

Can Well-Being Be Changed? 31

What-Went-Well Exercise 33

Positive Psychology Interventions and Cases 35

Signature Strengths Exercise 38

Positive Psychotherapy 40

Chapter 3 The Dirty Little Secret of Drugs and Therapy 45

Cure Versus Symptom Relief 46

The 65 Percent Barrier 47

Active, Constructive Responding 48

Dealing with Negative Emotions 51

A New Approach to Cure 53

Applied Psychology Versus Basic Psychology: Problems Versus Puzzles 55

Wittgenstein, Popper, and Penn 56

Chapter 4 Teaching Well-Being: The Magic of MAPP 63

The First MAPP 64

Ingredients of Applied Positive Psychology 66

Intellectually Challenging Applicable Content 66

Personal and Professional Transformation 70

Transformations 71

Called to Positive Psychology 75

Chapter 5 Positive Education: Teaching Well-Being to Young People 78

Should Well-Being Be Taught in School? 79

The Penn Resiliency Program: A Way to Teach Well-Being in School 81

Three-Good-Things Exercise 84

Using Signature Strengths in New Ways 84

The Geelong Grammar School Project 85

Teaching Positive Education 89

Embedding Positive Education 90

Living Positive Education 92

Positive Computing 93

A New Measure of Prosperity 96

Part 2 The Ways to Flourish 99

Chapter 6 GRIT, Character, and Achievement: A New Theory of Intelligence 101

Success and Intelligence 102

Positive Character 103

Drawn by the Future, Not Driven by the Past 104

What Intelligence Is 106

Speed 106

The Virtue of Slowness 110

Executive Function 112

Rate of Learning: The First Derivative of Speed 113

Self-Control and GRIT 115

GRIT Versus Self-Discipline 118

High Human Accomplishment 119

GRIT's Benefits 122

Building the Elements of Success 124

Chapter 7 Army Strong: Comprehensive Soldier Fitness 126

A Psychologically Fit Army 126

Global Assessment Tool (GAT) 129

Online Courses 137

Emotional Fitness Module 139

Family Fitness Module 142

Social Fitness Module 143

Spiritual Fitness Module 149

Chapter 8 Turning Trauma into Growth 152

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder 152

Post-Traumatic Growth 159

Post-Traumatic Growth Course 161

Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory 161

Master Resilience Training 163

Building Mental Toughness 167

The Hot Seat: Fighting Catastrophic Thoughts in Real Time 169

Hunt the Good Stuff 171

Character Strengths 171

Building Strong Relationships 173

The Rollout 177

Chapter 9 Positive Physical Health: The Biology of Optimism 182

Turning Medicine on Its Head 182

Origins of Learned Helplessness Theory 184

Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) 190

Infectious Illness 194

Cancer and All-Cause Mortality 200

Is Well-Being Causal, and How Might It Protect? 204

Positive Health 208

Army Database: A National Treasure 211

Cardiovascular Health Assets 213

Exercise as a Health Asset 214

Chapter 10 The Politics and Economics of Well-Being 221

Beyond Money 221

The Divergence Between GDP and Well-Being 222

The Financial Downturn 228

Ethics Versus Values 228

Optimism and Economics 232

Reflexive and Nonreflexive Reality 234

Perma 51 237

Appendix: Signature Strengths Test 243

Thanks and Acknowledgments 267

Notes 271

Index 321