Happiness in the Garden of Epicurus

Epicurus was a philosopher who lived in Greece in the 3rd century B.C. Like his contemporaries, he was much concerned with the question of how to live a good life. In his view the Chief Good is to decrease pain and increase pleasure. Though Epicurus is reputed for advocating the pursuit of refined sensorial pleasures, he recognized the need for deferring gratification or enduring pain. He advised his followers to lead a modest and contemplative life in friendly communities. His advice can be characterized as ‘serene hedonism’. This paper explains that position and considers its applicability for the present day. It concludes that Epicureanism was quite accurate in describing the conditions of happiness and that he offered valuable guidelines in dealing with hardship and difficult emotional content. His ideas that happiness is the same as the absence of pain and that one should withdraw from society are less fortunate. It made him assume that happiness automatically follows if one is in the right state of mind, and that there is no need to actively seek interaction with the environment for the betterment of the circumstances of life. However, Epicurus’ advice might have been a good option for his contemporaries given the societal turmoil in his times.

Exploring Master Therapists’ Use of Power in Conversation

Various theoretical approaches to therapy place different emphases on the use of power in therapy. In this study, we explore six master therapists’ use of power via communicational control for theoretical consistency. Results indicate that all therapists, regardless of their stance on power, use the role of therapist to exert power in an initial therapy session. Master therapists, in general, did appear to be theoretically consistent with their stated philosophies of therapy. Suggestions for future studies exploring power therapists have are included.     

Self-constructing

In our societies, where jobs are unstable and employment uncertain, and where the traditional social bearings tend to lose their hold, individuals must deal with a major issue: designing their lives. To help them do this, counselors need to develop certain appropriate procedures. This development supposes that knowledge is available about the main factors and processes of self-construction. This article puts forth a general theoretical model that describes self-construction as a system of (past, present and anticipated) subjective identity forms the dynamic of which originates in the tension between two kinds of reflexivity. Furthermore a counseling interview that builds on this self-construction model is outlined. It aims to help clients develop some expectations regarding their future, to consider their system of subjective identity forms from a future perspective and to commit themselves to the advancement of this design and its redesigning.     

Expressions of positive emotion in photographs,personality, and later-life marital and health outcomes

A previous study of females at an elite liberal arts college found that the degree of positive emotion expressed in persons’ college yearbook photos was correlated with personality, marital, and health outcomes decades later in life. We examine whether the same pattern is observed among respondents in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, using high school yearbook photographs and outcome measures obtained mostly when respondents were in their fifties. Despite some seeming advantages of our design, we were unable, with a few exceptions, to replicate the findings of the previous study. Possible explanations for this divergence in findings are discussed, including differences in measurement, the sample, and the photographic occasion itself.     

Love, Power, and Being Born Married

This article responds both sympathetically and critically to some feminist writing about the psychology of women and of gender differences. Though love and the will to power often oppose one another, as Jung maintained, to understand their bearing upon gender it is sometimes important to regard other kinds of relations between them. There is something to be said for imagining the self as being born married. Still, the otherness of the sexes to one another cannot be overcome, and appreciating the implications of this given leads to a more complex understanding of the relational self symbolized by marriage.     

Job satisfaction related to tested congruence and differentiation

Tested personality-environment congruence and differentiation, singly and in combination, as measured by the Vocational Preference Inventory (J. L. Holland, Palo Alto, California, Consulting Psychologists Press, 1977b), were predictive of reported job satisfaction for teachers employed in five subject matter areas. Time-related variables and sex were not significantly related to the job satisfaction measure used in the study.     

Factors within the 1969 SVIB for women and relationships to Holland's theory

The Basic Interest Scales (BIS) and the Occupational Scales (O-S) of the revised Strong Vocational Interest Blank for Women (TW 398) were assigned Holland codes, and component scores for the BIS and O-S were separately developed, intercorrelated, and evaluated along with standardized composite scores representing each of the 11 O-S Groups on the profile. The dimensionality of the BIS and O-S was similar, and similar in number to Holland's theory, but the components were only partially congruent. Some profile Groups provided relatively good representations of BIS and/or Occupational scale components, and the grouping of the O-S provided important information not otherwise readily available. Holland's dimensions are not uniformly represented in either the BIS or O-S, and despite some similarities, fundamental problems of compatibility appeared to exist in relating the structure of this instrument to Holland's formulations. Women's interests are in need of independent study.     

The accuracy of self-administration and scoring on Holland's Self-Directed Search

This study assesed the extent to which Ss commit various types of errors when completing Holland's Self-Directed Search (SDS) entirely on their own. Nearly all Ss made some type of error and approximately half of the Ss made errors which affected their final three-letter summary codes. Almost one-fifth of the Ss made errors resulting in an incorrect high-point code. Whether or not Ss made errors that affected their summary codes was unrelated to the extent to which they were interested in knowing more about occupations or academic majors they might like. Neither were such errors related to whether Ss felt the occupations suggested by their summary codes seemed reasonable. Only slightly over one-third the Ss actually did feel that the occupations seemed reasonable.     

Succès de carrière et bien-être psychologique au travail des conseiller-e-s de l’accompagnement professionnel : rôle médiateur de la satisfaction des besoins psychologiques

Within the framework of complex links between well-being and performance, this study aimed at examining the relations between objective and subjective career success and psychological well-being at work (PWBW) as well as the mediating effects of psychological needs satisfaction (PNS). French career counselors (n = 138) completed a questionnaire. Results showed that psychological needs satisfaction of autonomy, relatedness and competence had a mediating effect between objective career success (financial and hierarchical) and subjective career success (social and psychological), and the well-being. More exactly, three types of PNS had a mediating effect between the social and psychological career success and the PWBW while autonomy and relatedness PNS mediatized the relation between financial career success and PWBW. Only need satisfaction for relatedness mediatized the link between hierarchical success and PWBW. Occupational success would be a positive health at work resource. Facilitating forms of success and SBP becomes a promising track in health. The investigation can be widened to other jobs linked to counseling and to other different business sectors.