Private: Happiness lessons

Life handing you downer after downer? What if, when you were 11 years old, you had "happiness lessons" in school?

"Lessons in happiness are to be introduced for 11-year-olds in state schools to combat a huge rise in depression, self-harm and anti-social behaviour among young people. ... Professor Martin Seligman, from the University of Pennsylvania, one of the most influential psychologists of his generation, has been drafted in to train British teachers so that they can deliver classes to nearly 2,000 secondary school pupils.

Lessons using cognitive behavioural therapy techniques will ... help children build up their self-esteem, challenge negative ways of thinking and express their thoughts clearly. Trials have shown that the techniques can boost class performance and exam results. They will also be shown special breathing exercises to keep them calm when their parents are arguing and avoid blaming themselves for situations that are beyond their control, for example, the fact their parents may be divorcing. The anti-depression classes, due be introduced in South Tyneside, Manchester and one rural location, have been approved by Lord Layard, the Government's "happiness" tsar... - independent

Despite difficult life events, according to Seligman's Authentic Happiness site, "it is possible to be happier ? to feel more satisfied, to be more engaged with life, find more meaning, have higher hopes, and probably even laugh and smile more, regardless of one?s circumstances." Check out his books.

According to Martin Seligman, President of the American Psychological Association in 1996, today in 2006 we face an epidemic of severe depression which is more wide spread than AIDS and, through suicide, kills as many people.

I'm certainly not considering an early death, quite the opposite, I'd like to live to be 100+, but according to the test I just took on his site, I'm severely depressed. (My score was 35 and for any score over 25 you should seek help, says the site. I think that given the degree to which I'm aware of the reality of sickness of the world around me, war, lies, etc. I'm doing pretty well! Nevertheless, the real world is a bummer: lost love, war, global warming, evil people, etc. So, seeking help is smart. I'm currently in hot pursuit of increased happiness.)

So, is psychotherapy the answer? Years confronting the roots of your self-esteem problems from childhood? Actually, no.

"Although many thousands of patients have had hundreds of thousands of sessions, psychoanalytic therapy has not been demonstrated to work for depression." - Learned Optimism, Seligman, pp 11.

So, don't waste your money and time with this type of therapy. What about Prozac? The drug route is moderately effective, but depression returns if you stop taking the drugs. According to the National Bestseller "Learned Optimism " which I'm now reading, there is a better way. Cognitive therapy (as opposed to psychoanalytic) is as good as antidepressants and the effects last longer.

Cognitive therapy uses five tactics according to Seligman: 1. Recognize automatic thoughts that happen when you feel the worst. 2. Marshal contrary evidence to dispute those thoughts. 3. Make different explanations (reattributions) to dispute automatic thoughts. 4. Learn to distract yourself from depressing thoughts. 5. Recognize and question depression-sowing assumptions governing what you do.

This poor guy above looks like he just saw a woman he wanted to marry walk into a party with her new younger, better looking, happier boyfriend.