Happiness Won’t Save You… Philip Brickman was an expert in the psychology of happiness but he couldn’t make his own pain go away…
This week’s discussion is inspired by Jennifer Senior’s moving opinion piece in the NY Times. She tells the story of Philip Brickman – a gifted psychologist who took his own life at aged 38. His tragic story informs our discussion of happiness study. We’ll consider the primacy of Professor Laurie Santos’ “GI Joe Fallacy” (i.e. knowing is not half the battle) and our relationship with pain.
Read the original article here – https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/opinion/happiness-depression-suicide-psychology.html
I’ve had a couple people forward this article to me in the last few weeks – thanks Dr. Ted Trost and John Rotonda.
[watch this post] or keep reading.
Brickman’s story is tragic. And it’s interesting. It highlights the complexity and tragedy of the human condition.
It makes me think about my journey in the study of happiness. It speaks to the chasm between knowing and doing (a la Laurie Santos). It challenges us to explore our relationship with pain.
Brickman’s story humbled me. It reminds me of how exceedingly complicated the study of happiness is. I have a tendency to consider myself (at times) a happiness expert. That’s silly. I’m not sure there’s any such thing. Even the happiness experts aren’t happiness experts.
I’m a student of happiness. And at our best, we’re all students of happiness. At our worst, we’re not paying much attention to it. So let’s do our best (speaking largely to myself) to remain humble and studious students of happiness.
Knowing vs. Doing
Positive psychologist Laurie Santos is the mind behind Yale’s most popular course – the science of wellbeing. She’s to happiness as Elvis is to rock or Bill Nye is to elementary science. She brought her subject matter into the mainstream. In one of her first lectures, she introduces the “GI Joe Fallacy”. The name comes from the GI Joe series which featured a common trope of “knowing is half the battle”. The thought is if we know something is good for us we’ll do it. If we know something is bad for us we’ll avoid it. This is a common misconception in the realm of cognitive science and psychology.
Knowing is not half the battle. There’s a chasm between theory and practice: knowing vs. doing. I can’t and won’t try to solve the riddle of Brickman’s life. But I think the GI Joe phenomena could be at work. He clearly knew the principles and theories of psychology, but it seems there was a lack of implementation. This speaks to Santos’ observation of the challenge presented by this fallacy.
I’m curious, what were Brickman’s habits? Was he practicing meditation, gratitude journaling, or other positive interventions? Did he exercise? What was his diet? This might sound like some self-help shit, but these things matter.
Each one has been proven to cause marked increases in measurements associated with happiness and wellbeing. This could be changes in neurological activation in the brains of experienced meditators. This could be the hormonal changes driven by exercise and diet. Or it could even be the increase in subjective well-being reported by participants who practice positive interventions.
Habits are our automatic, repeated behaviors. They’re the link between theoretical knowledge and lived application. So a key question to consider — what were his habits. Was he practicing the principles or did he just know them? I’d wager that Brickman was a victim of this GI Joe Fallacy. Like all of us, he struggled to practice what’s preached. His story ought to inspire us to go beyond knowing and strive to build habits of happiness.
The article points out that Brickman thought it impossible to get off the hedonic treadmill. That’s the human tendency to revert to a relatively fixed happiness level despite major positive or negative events. We’re basically on a happiness treadmill chasing the carrot. This is partly true. But I dare challenge it. I believe that practice (i.e. habits) are the vehicle that we can use to step off the treadmill.
Again, it’s been shown that mind training changes the brain, that exercise is as effective as antidepressants, and that positive psychology interventions can lead to sustainable changes in happiness.
When I look at Brickman’s legacy I believe that perhaps his biggest contribution has yet to come. His story can spark further work into the key question of happiness study: how do we cross the chasm from knowing to doing – from knowing to living?
Pain
Finally, we ought to consider our relationship with pain – a significant part of Brickman’s story. First, I must admit I’m fortunate. I haven’t had any major trauma or tragedy in my young life. What does some privileged 23 year old kid know about pain? Probably not that much. But here are two perspectives to consider.
First, we can think of our struggle with pain as a war on two fronts. Pain can be more existential, cognitive pain viz. “what’s the point of life” or “why is this happening to me”. It can also be more the ground level, affective state of suffering viz. chronic back pain or a chemical imbalance. These are two ends of the spectrum that we can address in turn.
For the reflective, big question pain we may want to consider Victor Frankl’s Logotherapy School of thought – the psychology of meaning. He believed there were three paths to cultivating a meaningful life: creating a work or doing a deed, fully experiencing someone or something, and the attitude taken towards suffering. Of course there’s more to this. But that framework can be used for initial work on the pain we feel at the existential end of the spectrum.
On the other end, there’s how do we feel in the moment. That’s where these systematic positive interventions come in. We can use intentional activities – mind training, exercise, spending time with loved ones, etc. – to elevate our actual mental-physical affective state.
This is the war on two fronts idea I mentioned before. We want to work on both the reflective (stepping back from life) and affective (stepping into life) varities of pain.
We may also consider pain as stimulus and response. This perspective is informed by Buddhism and Mindfulness-Base Stress Reduction (MBSR). The Buddha used the analogy of two arrows. The first arrow is the actual sensation of pain (the stimulus). That’s nerves firing or changes in neurochemicals. Then there’s the second arrow: our response to the stimulus.
So not only do we feel the sensation of pain, we respond in a way that often causes more pain. We go crazy trying to avoid the pain. We ruminate. We obsess over it. This amplifies pain.
It’s easier said than done, but with practice we can handle pain less painfully. We can notice the stimulus, observe the sensation, and begin to regulate our response. Again, I think Brickman was incredibly gifted. But it seems this sort of self-regulation was a challenge for him based on accounts of his reaction to rejection or negative feedback.
I belief that with practice we can condition ourselves to better regulate our response to the stimulus of pain. The science of mindfulness-based stress reduction and the long tradition of contemplative practice support this belief.
My wish is that Brickman’s tragedy will inspire more interesting discussion around the study of happiness. I hope this qualifies as such as discussion.