DaveShearon

WikiMindMap

Thanks to Brian Friedlander for pointing me toward www.wikimindmap.org.  Cool site to search wikis, including wikipedia, and display the results as a mindmap.  Here's a picture of the search results for "positive psychology."

   

Seven Positive Psychology Steps to Thriving in Law School

Lots of students are starting law school for the first time.  Although they may not know it yet, they are heading into a set of experiences that many find extraordinarily toxic. Studies going back more than 15 years have repeatedly shown that law students suffer significant negative psychological changes during law school. Although they look much like other undergraduates coming in, by the end the first year 30% are depressed, and it goes to 40% by the end of law school. Drinking as a coping behavior goes up. Anxiety, hostility and paranoia increase.  And, there is a shift from intrinsic to extrinsic motivations for practicing law. In other words, students go from wanting to do good to wanting to get the goods.   And these trends continue into practice where lawyers lead the professions in the rate of depression.

However, beyond just avoiding bad things, recent research in positive psychology suggests reasons to maintain a positive emotional space. In general, we are more creative, better able to connect with others, more action oriented, more helpful, and better leaders when we are experiencing significantly more positive than negative emotions. This is Barb Fredrickson's "Broaden and Build" explanation of the results that have been found in positive psychology. Basically, this theory states that the evolutionary function of positive emotions is to help us broaden our thought/action repertoire and build psychological and social capital.

Here are some positive psychology suggestions to help navigate the experience:

#1. Other people matter.Pay attention to relationships. If you are in law school in the same area where you did your undergraduate work, stay plugged in with your friends, including those who aren’t in law school. If not, start looking for ways to build a set of friends both inside and beyond the law school. Friends are important to your health and success – and they help to make life worth living.  If you are married, you are likely newly married. Work on the relationship. For ways to improve both friendships and marriages, I recommend the work of John Gottman.  Also check out Tom Rath's Vital Friends.

#2. Sustain your positive emotional base (or, how to stay happy).I don't have the space here to go into all of the research findings that support Dr. Fredrickson's "Broaden and Build" work, but it is very clear that frequent and sustained positive emotions are important not only for well-being, but for health, relationships, and success in work and life. If you want a baseline for how happy you are now, take the “Authentic Happiness Index” at www.authentichappiness.org.

Several of the suggestions here will work to increase and sustain positive emotions, but one simple and pleasurable activity is called "Three Good Things." This activity has been proven to boost happiness and decrease depression in a large scale, placebo-controlled study. At the end of each day, take a few minutes to write down three good things that happened that day, why each one happened, and what you had to do with it. They can be big things or small; experiential, relational, or professional. Over time, your writings may become the source of some insight into how you approach life and the types of events you tend to notice, but don't overthink this one.  Write ‘em down and go to bed!

#3. Remember your strengths – ALL your strengths. Law school has a tendency to focus on only a very limited range of strengths, mostly centered on verbal skills and analytical thinking. While important for legal analysis and reasoning, there are many other vitally important strengths for leadership, organizational and personal growth, building meaning, and other important tasks in life and in the law. Many of us don’t know our own strengths very well because they seem so, well, unexceptional. Within our strength patterns, we act effortlessly and almost flawlessly. We think very little about the excellence of our contributions and frequently assume such behavior carries little value. But positive psychology research has shown than utilizing our strengths in new ways can make us happier, healthier, and more successful. And by learning more about our strengths, we learn to see strengths in others, and that boosts #1 above.

To help you recognize some strengths you may have taken for granted, here are two resources:

The Values in Action Signature Strengths Survey www.authentichappiness.org. This is a 240-item questionnaire that will take you around 35 minutes to complete. This instrument produces a rank ordering of 24 character strengths that have been ubiquitously-valued around the world for 3000 years. Others will feel uplifted when you're acting from your strengths and therefore like you better, and you will be happier. Thus, using strengths works to build your well-being and that of those around you in multiple ways. From your top-listed strengths, pick the 3, 4, or 5 that seem really “you” and each week think of a new way to exercise one of them. This effort has been proven to reliably increase happiness for most individuals, and it is fun! Do it in combination with a friend to build the relationship. $0

Strengthsfinder 2.0.This tool focuses on a set of action strengths that matter in the workplace, as opposed to the strengths of being, or character, that are the focus of the VIA. The book provides background information on the development of Gallup's strengths survey instrument and an access code to take the online questionnaire. The book also provides a brief chapter on each of the 35 strengths of action. $12.

#4. Watch your explanatory style. Each of us tends to explain the good and bad things that happen to us throughout each day. Little things and big things, we explain them all. We are generally unaware of this running explanatory commentary in our heads, but it is there, and we tend to follow patterns. To learn your style, take the "Optimism Test" at www.authentichappiness.org.

Those with a positive explanatory style assign me/always/everything causal explanations to the good things that happen in their lives and out there/only that/over and done with (or “not me/not always/not everything”) explanations to bad events. This leads to greater resilience, greater productivity in business and sports, better marriages and other relationships, and other good things. Of course, accurate thinking is the goal, and for many of us that means seeing the causes that our primary explanatory style tends to hide from us. But, in ambiguous circumstances, go with the positive style – it tends to work better.

If you want to modify your style, you can find more explanation in The Resilience Factor and The Optimistic Child. Each is under $12.

Because of the high incidence of depression in law school and the practice, explanatory style is especially important. Depression tends to return and multiple bouts can lead to long-term susceptibility and serious health consequences. Plus, frankly, depression sucks. Don’t go there if you can help it. And you can help it. Developing and maintaining a positive explanatory style (“optimism”) has been shown to drastically reduce the likelihood of depression. And optimism energizes and enables. If your Optimism Test shows you in the pessimistic range, buy a book and get started! You can change.

#5. Exercise.Tal Ben-Shahar, Harvard, summarizes the research on the relationship of exercise to depression by saying, “Exercising is not like taking an anti-depressant. Not exercising is like taking a depressant." Extremes aren’t needed. Thirty minutes of brisk walking three times a week is enough.

#6. Do steps 1-5 with friends.  Other people matter.  All of these efforts are easier, more fun, and more productive with a friend or friends.  Doesn’t have to be the same person or group in each area, but think about inviting others to join you. Maybe a reading group to read and work through The Resilience Factor. Maybe some friends to hike, run, play ball or otherwise exercise with. Doing Three Good Things with a significant other will build that relationship. Same for finding new ways to engage your strengths together.  Ask someone!

#7.  Remember (or find out) why you want to be a lawyer.  I mentioned above that one of the effects of law school is that students (especially those who get better grades) tend to switch from intrinsic (internally valued and rewarded) to extrinsic (externally valued and rewarded) goals.  This can mean a switch from wanting to go into public interest law to choosing to go to a large firm.  It can mean a switch from wanting to practice in one's home town to going where you are offered the most money.  Whatever the switch, if it is driven by values and rewards that come from the outside, not the deepest and most meaningful personal ones, be wary!  This switch often comes back to haunt lawyers, sometimes within a few years of starting to practice, sometimes many years later.  Either way, it is much harder to switch back once experience and responsibilities have shaped you to a particular position.

If you know why you went to law school, keep it in mind.  Learn more about the opportunities in that type of practice.  Seek out mentors in the field.  Look for folks who are happy, positive, and satisfied with their practice and lives who have done what you want to do and connect with them.

If you don't know why you went to law school, i.e., "because I didn't get in medical school" or "because I couldn't think of anything else to do" or some other vague, unfocused reason that doen't give you a direction to the future, now is a good time to start finding your own vision.  I have left this suggestion until last for a reason.  You will be much better able to identify your personal values and see a path forward to a practice that is satisfying and sutainable if you are working from a base of positive emotions and relationships.  Remember "Broaden and Build"?  That's the emotional space you want to be in as you develop a vision for your first years out of law school.

There are other hints, tips, and techniques for building and sustaining well-being, but these are foundational and ongoing. They are offered with best wishes for a great law school experience!

Dorian Paskowitz is a positive person

Update May 23, 2008: Positive person?  Well, he sure seemed that way from the material I had when I wrote this post.  And his wikipedia entry as it exists today seems to back that up, but, in today's Wall Street Journal, Joe Morgenstern writes:

 

The distributors of "Surfwise" are selling it as a surfing movie with a strong hippie undertow. Doug Pray's documentary does cover a lot of coastal territory. But its core is a case study of narcissism, and what a remarkable case it is -- a dropout doctor, now 85 years old, who enlisted, or imprisoned, his wife and their nine children in his dream of endless summers, primal vitality and perfect waves.

***

As you watch Doc Paskowitz perform for Mr. Pray's camera, it's hard not to judge him harshly. His narcissism seems boundless, even when he cloaks it in self-deprecation. ("I went out into the desert like Jesus of Nazareth or some other screwball," he says of a pre-fatherhood trip he took to Israel and its beaches.) An apostle of uninhibited sex, he rated the women he slept with. He prides himself on having raised disciplined kids, however permissive his parenting may have seemed to others, but then we learn from some of those kids that he was dictatorial, even wrathful, sometimes beating them and setting them against one another, by way of teaching them to be competitive, "like crabs in a bucket."

***

Yet Dorian Paskowitz was more than a heedlessly free spirit who seduced and enslaved those closest to him. He was a principled man with a fanatical dedication to the idea of family, an emotionally damaged physician trying to heal himself while giving the gift of health to his kids.

 

Judging people is a harsh business.  I prefer to see positives, but complexities are part of all of us.  I certainly have mine!  Meanwhile, here's the original post:

He's jewish.

He's 86.

He can't stand well and has titanium in his hip.

And he's a surfer who just donated surfboards to Palestinian surfers after reading of two who had to share one board with him.

Arthur Rashkovan, a 28-year-old surfer from Tel Aviv, said Paskowitz's project was part of a larger effort called "Surfing for Peace," aimed at bringing Middle Eastern surfers closer together. He said eight-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater, who is of Syrian descent, is expected to arrive in Israel in October to take part in the drive.

"We want Palestinians to enjoy the surfing experience. We believe it brings people together," Rashkovan said. "The idea is for people to forget about the violence and follow the journey to peace on the waves."

Paskowitz is venerated by Israeli surfers as the man who brought the sport to the Jewish state five decades ago. Rashkovan called him a "guru" to Israeli surfers.

h/t: Instapundit

August post up at Positive Psychology Daily News

My monthly post is up at Positve Psychology Daily News:  Leadership by and for Rider/Elephants

Mindset Website

Carol Dweck has a new website that promotes her book, Mindset.  The site offers the opportunity to take a simple mindset assessment, suggestions for change, and tips for teachers, coaches, parents, and business leaders to use the material.  She also has some commentary on various topics based on the mindset construct.  I particularly liked the one on "The Mindset of Athletes" that includes this:

"[T]he mark of a champion is the ability to win when things are not quite right—when you’re not playing well and your emotions are not the right ones."

Yep!  Saw this often enough when my older son was playing baseball, especially in pitchers.  Some had the ability to win on the days when they "didn't have their best stuff."  Others didn't, and often didn't seem to ever have their "best stuff" for the big games.  Dr. Dweck's research suggests that praising talented players for having "it" -- "stuff", "talent", "game", etc. -- encourages a fixed mindset that makes them likely to respond poorly to failure.  Like Martin Seligman, Dr. Dweck is not a big fan of "self esteem" of the "keep telling them they are great" model.  Dr. Dweck's work was inspired by Dr. Seligman's construct of explanatory style and is a particular application of that construct that seems easy for folks to understand and use.  Her books are readable and useful.  Recommeded!

Mirror neurons and positive psychology

Today's Wall Street Journal has a Science Journal column by Rober Lee Hotz reporting on new discoveries about mirror neurons -- the brain structures that appear to enable empathy.  Experiments at UCLA on exposed brain tissue of patients undergoing neurosurgery have, for the first time, identified the individual mirror neurons in humans.

The link between psychological experiences such  as empathy and brain structures is fascinating.  Of course, I am interested in the links to positive psychology.  For example, here's the next to the last paragraph of the column:

These mirrors also are attuned to cultural experience and ethnic identity, Dr. Iacoboni and Dr. Molnar-Szakacs reported in the journal PloS One last month. (Read the journal article.) They determined that this involuntary sense of empathy responds differently depending on whether we are looking at someone who shares our culture or someone who doesn't.

But we also know from Barbara Fredrickson's work that individuals in a positive emotional state lose the "own-race bias" in recognizing faces.  So, what's the connection between the activity in neural structures involved in positive emotion and the mirror neurons?  Can understanding of patterns of such activity help us better learn how to promote well-being?  No answers here, but I'm certainly looking forward to learning more as new research is done!

A well-rounded education

Last Wednesday's Wall Street Journal had an op-ed piece from Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Diane Ravitch focusing on concerns that NCLB and recent legislation increasing funding for science, technoloyg, engineering and math subjects will increase the tendency of public school districts to abandon history, literature, geography, economics, etc. in favor of tested subjects.  Anyone familiar with recent education reform will recognize that Mr. Finn cannot be accused of a "don't worry; our schools are fine" mentality.  He was in the vanguard of raising cconcerns that urban students (primarily minorities) were being cheated of a solid education.  He's still on the same message, but now concerned that the focus on some "basics" will actually continue to shortchange these students.  The authors raise some good points, and at least one that addresses MNPS' SSA.  The full article seems to be available at:

http://online. wsj.com/article/ SB11865375953249 1305.html? mod=googlenews_ wsj

On the possible cheating of public school students, I pull two paragraphs:

Students who garner high-tech skills may still get undercut by people halfway around the world who are willing to do the same work for one-fifth of the salary. The surest way to compete is to offer something the Chinese and Indians (and Vietnamese, Singaporeans, etc.) cannot -- technical skills are not enough.

***

Pragmatic folks naturally seek direct links from skill to result, such as engineers using their technical knowledge to keep planes aloft and bridges from buckling. But what about Abraham Lincoln educating himself via Shakespeare, the Bible and other great literary works? Alan Greenspan's degrees are in economics but he plays a mean jazz saxophone. Indeed, many of today's foremost (and wealthiest) entrepreneurs, people like Warren Buffett, studied economics -- not a STEM subject -- in college. Adam Smith studied moral philosophy.

Of course, the children of well-to-do parents won't be subject to such shortchanging.  That means the children of the members of Congress who are passing these laws won't be subject to them either.  In the last couple of years, I've had a great deal more opportunity to get to know the world of elite private education.  "Focusing on the basics" is NOT the priority for such schools!

Abandoning the liberal arts in the name of STEM alone also risks widening social divides and deepening domestic inequities. The well-to-do who understand the value of liberal learning may be the only ones able to purchase it for their children. Top private schools and a few suburban systems will stick with education broadly defined, as will elite colleges. Rich kids will study philosophy and art, music and history, while their poor peers fill in bubbles on test sheets. The lucky few will spawn the next generation of tycoons, political leaders, inventors, authors, artists and entrepreneurs. The less lucky masses will see narrower opportunities. Some will find no opportunities at all, which frustration will tempt them to prey upon the fortunate, who in turn will retreat into gated communities, exclusive clubs, and private this-and-that' s, thereby widening domestic rifts and worsening our prospects for social cohesion and civility

What CLE is most important?

Recently, I have asked the following question of a number of attorneys in CLE programs and at a meeting of MCLE regulators from around the country.  Each time, I've gotten similar responses.  Overwhelmingly, lawyers, and those who regulate CLE, recognize that it is NOT lack of substantive knowledge and it is NOT poor legal management skills that most often cause poor results for clients.  Rather, poor results most frequently result when a lawyer's commitment, energy, and engagement are too low.

Positive psychology offers some avenues to address this situation.  Positive emotions, according to Barbara Fredrickson's research, broaden our thought/action repretoire and help us build social and psychological capitol for the future.  Happiness, as measured by the Authentic Happiness Index (check yours at www.authentichappiness.org) includes engagement and meaning.  Engaged individuals who experience flow in their day-to-day activities have energy.  Individuals who feel connected to something bigger and greater than themselves have commitment to carry through. 

We need CLE that focuses on helping lawyers develop commitment, energy, and engagement.  And we need to accredit such CLE.  Unfortunately, most MCLE regulators indicate that such programs would have difficulty getting accredited in their states.  That needs to change.