Aristotle

- good life = happy life

- happy life = functioning well as a person -> life of virtue

moral virtue = subordinate sensual appetites to reason -> accquired by practice

intellectual virtue = understnading how the world works -> accquired by being taught

- good life is the higest possible goal

- virtues are character traits b/w excess and deficiency

motivation is to seek pleasure but needed to keep impulses under control

life is struggle b/w desires and moral constraints

self actualization is highest motivation

8 fold way

to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances to choose ones own way

we can discover the meaning of life in 3 ways

1. creating work or doing a deed

2. experiencing something or encountering someone

3. by the attitude we ake towards unavoidable suffering

East vs. West

- transcendence

- philosphy and religion

- fate

- hedonia and eudimonia

west - transcendence done after death

east - done while still alive

- philosophy and religion seperate in west, intertwined in east

- fate in our hands in the east, fate out of our control in west

- hedonia and eudimona present in both 

- hedonia - personal subjective happiness in the life that makes for the good life 

- eudimonia - not about personal experiences, about realtionships around us and with others

Aristippus and Hedonism

(frued??)

ultimate goal is pleasure

present pleasures should not de deferred for the sake of future pleasure

dont give up the opportunity to seek pleasure

we should control not be controlled by our pleasures

- life goal = ultimate self knowledge/betterment

- we lose touch with our true self due to involvement w/ our physical self and its search for hapniess

- by achieving awareness of our true self and ultimate reality we sill be free from pain

Confucianism

H/P/D/W/H

- must attain cirtues and morality 

5 central virtues:

1. humanity

2. propiety

3. duty

4. wisdom 

5.honesty

Taoism

(motivation)

- highest motiavtion is to be un motivated

- striving/wanting is counterproductive

- things should be effortless

- one should follow natural flow of events

- naturalness and spontaneity is most important goal

- most influential in the west

- human problems arise from the way we think

= 8 fold path - middle way

- similar to cognitive therapy

- fixed, unchanging things are an illusion 

- things are constantly changing, nothing is constant and nothing stays the same

- everything is somehow interconnected in a web of causes and conditions

- everything in the world is conditioned based on inter-connected causes

Buddhism and Physics

- underlie buddhist thinking

1. Life is filled of suffering

2. suffering is caused by ignorance of reality and our attachment and craving

3. suffering can be ended by over coming ignorance

4. relief from suffering comes through 8 fold path

8 Fold Path

1. Right View -> see and understand things as they really are

2. Right Intention -> commitment to mental/ethical self improvement

3. Right Speech -> dont say anything harmful, be truthful

4. Right Action -> makring the world a better place for others by our actions

5. Right Livelihood -> wanting to do something that is beneficial to society

6. Right Effort -> work towards wholesome states of mind

7. Right Mindfulness -> see things and concepts clearly, being in the moment

8. Right Contemplation -> concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions -> 4 functions of meditation

1. teach focus: incrase ability to focus on what is happening in the moment

2. developing mindfulness: open awareness about all that is happening

3. desensitizing: desensitive yourself to things that give you anxiety fear

4. seeking understanding: being cognitively aware how one can lead a better life

- loving kindness

- compassion

- altrusitic joy (joy for achievements of others)

- equanimity (not being overwhelmed by anything that happens)

- deficiency motivation = D cognition -> purpose, striving

- self actualization = B cognition -> more expressive, guided by desires to realize a set of values in ones life, more open, greater awareness, instrinsic growth, behaving purley expressive, to become everything we are capable of becoming

Self Actualizing Individual

(11)

1. accurate perception of reality

2. acceptance

3. problem centered

4. comfort w/ solitude -> being comfortable in own skin

5. spontaneity -> what you see if what you get

6. Autonomy -> growth motivation

7. fresh appreciation

8. human kinship -> identify w/ all human kind

9.humility and respect -> honestly & respect/humble towards others and what they know

10. deep interpersonal relations

11. peak expereicnes (B cog) -> beomcing more powerless and helpless

object oriented = related to outside world

philisophical/religious oriented = come through meditation, changing your mind set

Peak Experiences 

(12) 

1. wholeness and universiality -> whole world seen as unity

2. full absorption -> being fully absorbed in things and the world around you

3. richness of perception -> intra object richness = repeated exposure causes us to see more within the object

4. sense of human irrelevance -> seeing more truley the nature of the object in itself

5. ego transcendence perception -> one w/ the object, merege w/ it

6. spacial temporal dissociation -> perception of time is distorted

7. always a pos experiece

8. provides a diff view of reality -> more absolute and less relative

9. passive rather than active -> b-cog = passive

10. expereinced as wonderful

11. compassion -> accpetance for the world and compassion for others

12. falling away from neg emotions

Peak Experiences - The Individual 

(8)

 1. more integrated/individual

2. more spontaneous and expressive

3. more effortless

4. more fully functioning

5. more in charge

6. more creative 

7. more unique 

8. more ego less

Peak Expereinces - Afterwards 

(6)

1. removes neurotic symptoms

2. change self awareness

3. change view of others, relationships

4. creativity relaxed

5. wants to repeat experiences

6. life seems more worthwhile

Maslow B Values

(12)

1. wholeness

2. perfection

3. justice

4. aliveness

5. richness

6. beauty

7. goodness

8. uniqueness

9. effortlessness

10. playfulness

11. truth, honesty, reality

12. self sufficiency

Maslow and 8 Fold Way 

(8)

1. self awareness

2. self development

3. growth choices

4. trusting judgement

5. peak expereinces

6. honesty

7. concentration

8. no ego-defenses

Rogers Fully Functioning Person

(5)

1. openness to experience -> interpret things in their own way

2. exisstential way of living -> increasing tendency to live fully in each moment

3. organismic trusting -> trust your own judgement, doing what feels right

4. experiential freedom ->feeling in charge of ones own life

5. creativity -> finding new and interesting ways of doing basic things

Flow

- 9 conditions

1. challenging activity requiring skill

2. skills equal to the challenge

3. clear goals and feedback

4. autoletic experience

5. concentration on task

6. merged action and awareness

7. loss of self consciousness

8. transformation of time

9. sense of control

Self Growth After Flow

(3)

- integration of the self

- higher complexity of self organization

- self transcendence -> belonging to things, ego-less aspect, sense of one-ness

Other Effects of Flow

(5)

- higher SE

- lower anxiety

- more active coping

- morea ctive commitment to daily life

- more pos affect

Personality and Flow

(3)

- curiosity -> willing to explore

- persistance (conscientiousness) -> willing to continue working at whatever one is doing

- autoletic personality 

- consists of 3 statemets

- ppl read these statements and figure out if they had ever engaged in an acitivity where the statement was true to figure out what activities resulted in Flow

- 36 ites

- ask ppl to think of a time you were engaged in your activitity and you were exhibitying optimal performance and rate the truthfulness of these 36 items in regards to that optimal state of performance

- US adults = most flow during work

- US teens - most flow during gaming/sports

Mindfulness Qualities 

(6)

1. non judging

2. patience

3. beginners mind

4. trust

5. non striving

6. letting go

Mindfulness Emerging Qualities

(5)

1. gentleness

2. generosity

3. empathy

4. gratitude

5. loving kindness

Developing Mindfulness

(3)

1. body mindfulness

2. thought/emotion mindfulnes

3. mindfulness in daily life

Minfulness Practices

(2)

1. Bialetical Behaviour Therapy

- developed for treating borderline PD

- acceptance and change, balance, synthesis of opposing ideas

2. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

- clients recognize an observing self

-experience thoughts, emotions w/o valuing, judging

- no evaluation of thoughts as irrational

- no specific goal changes

- therapist as practitioners