Re; “A PROPOSAL TO CLASSIFY HAPPINESS AS A PSYCHIATRIC DISORDER�

[Guest guest]

rebuttal :

“Happiness - The Only Desirable Psychiatric Conditionâ€

by Dr Marc Cohen

http://www.lifepositive.com/Mind/happiness/happiness-psychiatry.asp

 

What is happiness? Perhaps the only completely desirable psychiatric

condition in the world! It is difficult to study joy and happiness

scientifically

since it can only be defined by what people say. There is no blood test or

imaging

technique to detect happiness or joy.

 

While we can identify the funny bone, a physical substrate for happiness is

still elusive and scientific attempts to define it have met with limited

success.

 

Happiness: A psychiatric condition?

 

One recent attempt to classify happiness scientifically was discussed in the

Journal of Medical Ethics.

 

A paper titled 'A Proposal to Classify Happiness as a Psychiatric Disorder'

suggests that happiness fits all requirements to be a psychiatric condition and

that it should be listed as a 'Major Affective Disorder

(MAD)-Pleasant Type'!

 

In this somewhat tongue-in-cheek article, the authors argue for classifying

happiness as a psychiatric condition because happiness

 

a) Is statistically abnormal; b) Consists of discrete clusters of symptoms;

and c) Is associated with particular affective, cognitive and behavioral

components.

 

The paper identifies happiness as being either reactive, manifesting as an

acute episode followed by a rapid remission of symptoms, or endogenous, which is

more chronic and less likely to be associated with spontaneous recovery.

 

The cognitive components of happiness include general satisfaction with

specific areas of life such as relationships and work, as well as the happy

person's belief in his or her own competence and self-efficacy.

 

The behavioral components of happiness, while less easily characterized,

include particular facial expressions, such as smiling, as well as carefree,

impulsive and unpredictable behaviour.

 

Certain kinds of social behaviour are also identified, including frequent

recreational interpersonal contacts and pro-social actions towards others.

 

Happiness, apparently, is also associated with irrational behavior, including

overestimating one's control over environmental events (often to the point of

perceiving completely random events as subject to personal will) and giving

unrealistically positive evaluations of personal achievements.

 

In summary, the authors conclude that happiness fulfils all the criteria for

being labeled a psychiatric condition, except the fact that happiness is not

undesirable.

 

However as desirability is a question of ethics and not science, it was

decided that this is scientifically irrelevant.

 

What causes happiness

 

It seems that western medicine is much more comfortable analyzing

pathological conditions than looking at the positive states of health.

 

In psychiatric literature over the past 30 years, there have been 46,000

articles on depression, 36,000 on anxiety, and only 2,000 on happiness and 400

on

joy.

 

Further, where studies on happiness and joy base the common correlates of

these conditions on epidemiological data, they have relatively little to say.

 

A recent review of the literature on happiness, reported in Scientific

American, suggests that happiness is unrelated to the demographics of age, sex,

income, country (unless you live in a war-torn or famine-ravaged nation),

occupation, or the ownership of consumer goods.

 

Evidences collected to date suggest that happiness is related more to

personality factors, such as high self-esteem, optimism and extroversion, than

external factors.

 

Many people endure the present in anticipation of happiness: 'I'll be happy

when I'm rich', or 'I'll be happy when I get a good job', or maybe, 'I'll be

happy when I get a nose job'.

 

This line of thought is not supported by available evidence. If you are happy

now, you are likely to be happy later. If you are unhappy now, you need to

change your attitude to your circumstances rather than the circumstances.

 

There's no use waiting for a lottery win. One study, in fact, found that

lottery winners tended to be much less happy after winning. Correlates of

happiness include a sense of control and the sharing of one's life through close

personal relationships, most commonly found in marriage.

 

Another factor consistently associated with happiness is participation in

religious activities with self-reported happiness, doubled in highly religious

people. The various health benefits of being joyous have also been acknowledged

since antiquity.

 

However, serious study of this aspect had to wait until the 1960s, through

the work of Norman Cousins, a US-based journalist.

 

Stricken with ankylosing spondylitis, Cousins received only limited benefit

from conventional medical treatments. Yet he overcame much of his pain through

comedy and laughter.

 

In his book Anatomy of an Illness, Cousins chronicles his fight against, and

eventual victory over, his ailment, aided by high doses of vitamin C and

humor.

 

The Tao of joy

 

Unlike its western counterpart, eastern medicine has always defined happiness

with ease. Most eastern traditions are based on a concept of perfect bliss,

variously called nirvana, satori, enlightenment or 'living according to the

Tao'.

 

This is said to be our natural state and occurs when we are 'at one with the

universe', which is achieved by giving up day-to-day worries, desires and

attachments. Perfect bliss also suggests a state of ideal health where

perceptions

flow freely.

 

To help achieve enlightenment, most eastern traditions have developed

sophisticated daily practices that can help induce this state. These practices

generally involve yoga, meditation and a particular attitude to daily life.

 

Meditation attempts to dissolve the barriers between the ego and the outside

world by focussing the mind until the object of concentration disappears and

the simple state of being is achieved.

 

It also involves letting go of attachment to daily concerns that may

otherwise preoccupy consciousness, for a new, detached observation. While there

are

different systems and philosophies of meditation, any single-minded endeavor may

be considered meditation.

 

Thus, when you are involved in an activity that absorbs your awareness so

much that you seem to 'lose yourself in the moment', you are meditating. You can

meditate while pursuing any activity that you 'love' to do: martial arts,

gardening, individual sports or creative activities such as painting and music.

 

The act of 'loving' an activity seems to enhance the ability to lose oneself

completely in it, and including such activities in the daily routine enhances

the overall experience of life.

 

Meditation is also associated with predictable and reproducible changes in

physiological functioning, including a reduction in the heart rate, blood

pressure, and oxygen consumption.

 

There are also distinctive EEG changes that include a greater coherence and

synchrony across the brain and a tendency for increased activity in the

alpha/theta frequencies (around 8 hertz).

 

This altered EEG activity results in the brain adapting similar frequencies

to the electromagnetic frequencies that occur around the planet called Schumann

Resonances.

 

Tuning into the planet

 

Schumann Resonances are naturally occurring electromagnetic waves that travel

freely around the planet as a result of global lightning. They are named

after Professor W.O. Schumann who proposed the existence of such waves and

calculated their main frequency.

 

These resonances occur in the non-conducting spherical cavity created between

the ionosphere, which is the upper stratum of the atmosphere above 50 km, and

the surface of the earth, which consists mainly of seawater.

 

The production of Schumann Resonances may be likened to the tone produced

when a hammer strikes a bell or piece of metal. The resulting clang contains

many

different frequencies that dissipate rather quickly.

 

 

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“A PROPOSAL TO CLASSIFY HAPPINESS AS A PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERâ€

 

www.psych.utoronto.ca/~michael/ psy342/Happiness_Disorder.pdf

 

Richard P. Bentall, Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol.