Authentic Happiness

Front Cover
Nicholas Brealey Publishing, Jan 11, 2011 - Self-Help - 338 pages
In this important, entertaining book, one of the world's most celebrated psychologists, Martin Seligman, asserts that happiness can be learned and cultivated, and that everyone has the power to inject real joy into their lives. In Authentic Happiness, he describes the 24 strengths and virtues unique to the human psyche. Each of us, it seems, has at least five of these attributes, and can build on them to identify and develop to our maximum potential. By incorporating these strengths - which include kindness, originality, humour, optimism, curiosity, enthusiasm and generosity -- into our everyday lives, he tells us, we can reach new levels of optimism, happiness and productivity. Authentic Happiness provides a variety of tests and unique assessment tools to enable readers to discover and deploy those strengths at work, in love and in raising children.
By accessing the very best in ourselves, we can improve the world around us and achieve new and lasting levels of authentic contentment and joy.
 

Contents

Preface
POSITIVE EMOTION
Positive Feeling and Positive Character
How Psychology Lost Its Way and I Found Mine
Why Bother to Be Happy?
Can You Make Yourself Lastingly Happier?
Satisfaction about the Past
Optimism about the Future
Your Signature Strengths
IN THE MANSIONS OF LIFE
Work and Personal Satisfaction
Love
Raising Children
Reprise and Summary
Meaning and Purpose
Terminology and Theory

Happiness in the Present
STRENGTH AND VIRTUE
Renewing Strength and Virtue
Acknowledgments
Endnotes Index
Copyright

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About the author (2011)

Martin Seligman, PhD, is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, director of the Positive Psychology Center, and former president of the American Psychological Association. He received his BA in philosophy from Princeton University, and his PhD in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and holds ten honorary doctorates. He was named the most influential psychologist in the world by Academic Influence. Along with writing for numerous scholarly publications and appearing in The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, and many others, he is also the author and coauthor of over thirty books, including Flourish, Authentic Happiness, and Tomorrowmind.

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