Lucas arrives for his weekly therapy session in an agitated and unhappy state. It’s confusing, hee tells me, because his life is going great. It’s been just two weeks since he succeeded in getting a big promotion at his job, the culmination of a year’s work of effort on his part. Just one week earlier…
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Last time I described a process for letting go of unproductive thoughts and habits in 2019. This time I want to discuss why it is also especially important to cultivate hope for the new year. But first a little about how psychology understands hope: Since Freud, virtually all psychological theories have assumed that the causes…
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The tradition of making New Year’s resolutions is ancient: it can be traced all the way back to the Babylonians. I think it has survived because it can be a very helpful practice. It seems to work best when the resolutions involve concrete and measurable goals (such as “lose a pound per week,” rather than…
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