Opportunities, from Martin Seligman

Martin Seligman, PhD, is currently Fox Leadership Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. His areas of academic focus include positive psychology, learned helplessness, depression, and optimism and pessimism. He is well known in academic and clinical circles and is a past president of the American Psychological Association and the author of more than 20 books including his most recent, Authentic Happiness.
 

Seligman suggested that Pioneer think about a key re-framing of its focus.  As he put it:

It looks to me that you are about disease and not about health and you make the unwarranted assumption that health is the absence (or prevention) of disease.  Most Americans want better health and I do not think this equals wanting less disease.  Less disease is part of it, surely but we want more zest, fitness, reserve, vitality, and wellbeing.  By analogy, as a clinical psychologist, I occasionally helped my patients get rid of depression, anxiety and anger.  I assumed when I did so I would get happy people I did not; I got empty people and that is because the skills of fighting the disorders are almost orthogonal to the skills of positive emotion, engagement and meaning. Being disease free is not by analogy being physically healthy.

So I think you should get serious about health, not just disease, and support cutting edge research and health care practice (I decidedly do not mean “fringe” or alternative practices) in this arena.

Comments

[Dick Dillon]

I agree wholeheartedly. And, the pursuit of health in the broader sense has implications for both the improvement and avoidance of disease states.

As an example of putting this principle into practice, my organization has established a presence in the virtual world, Second Life. We are providing services consistent with our treatment mission (currently offer information and conversation and are exploring the ethics of providing actual counseling in a virtual environment), but we are also building a large initiative called "101 things to do instead of getting high" which will not only identify the many activities available that contribute to the quality of life (various forms of exercise, outdoor activity, cultural experiences, meaningful social interaction) but also direct Second Life residents to the parts of that world where they can engage in such practices. We hope this will serve as a model for similar practices in real life.

At the outset, our expectation is that some people who visit us will never talk to us about addictive behaviors, but may find activities worth doing that are so much more enjoyable (and less harmful) than drug use, that their overall condition of "health" will change for the better.

Wish us luck!