Is it appropriate to set happiness as a therapeutic goal?

Happiness is very popular as a life goal, but... As a therapeutic objective is it viable?

This is the topic that we will explore throughout the article, as well as various ways of understanding what happiness is.

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What do we understand by happiness?

There are two general ways to define happiness. The first would be to refer to it as that experience that evokes us to an intense pleasure, which comes unpredictably and is fleeting.

This type of happiness is experienced intermittently and can be addictive, since it represents states of happiness to which there are people who They dedicate their entire lives and energies to the search for these moments and they cling to it in such a way that it ends up being their only goal of satisfaction. They achieve momentary levels of happiness that they intend to substitute for a happiness that can be found in another way, dedicating their talents to the service of longer-term goals.

The second way of defining happiness is that which has to do with

a more general satisfaction with life, understood as subjective well-being, defined by the items collected on the Life Satisfaction Scale developed by Diener, Emmons, Larser and Griffin.

• In most respects my life is close to my ideal.
• The conditions of my life are excellent.
• I am satisfied with my life.
• So far I have achieved the important things I wanted from life.
• If I could live my life again, I would hardly change anything.

This concept of life satisfaction proposes that it could be more productive and valuable to achieve happiness through the search for emotional stability and serenity instead of looking for peaks of excitement that in turn lead to falls and moments of downturn. Scientific studies indicate that general happiness is more related to the continuity of small pleasant experiences than to the achievement of few and great intense pleasures.

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How does the state of happiness arise?

Another of the unknowns about happiness has to do with its origin. It seems that it is a mistake to think that happiness is caused by external events, that is, to think that we could be happy "only if" something external happened.

We know, thanks to empirical studies, that happiness is in part the result of our expectations and perceptions, as well as the demands we have made on life. In other words, happiness is born more from within and from rewards that come from small but more predictable pleasures. As we have previously seen, happiness It has more to do with a stability and emotional serenity achieved from within., and this goes beyond the external circumstances that we live.

Without a doubt, we can increase our subjective well-being or life satisfaction by increasing our positive experiences and decreasing our negative experiences; However, decreasing a negative feeling does not necessarily imply an increase in positive feelings, but negative affects decrease if we overcome coping styles that have to do with, for For example, having an anxious view of life or a hostile view of life or having a more impulsive.

In the same way, We increase positive affects if we develop our own skills and resources, and carry out activities in the direction of creating satisfactory social bonds, we engage in rewarding activities, and develop appropriate assertiveness skills.

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Fordyce's program

There is a program, developed by Michael Fordyce, to help people increase their happiness. It consists of putting into practice a series of principles that we will see below; The investigations that have been made of this have concluded that the trained individuals in those who were most accommodated to They have stated to be happier than those who were in the control group (who had not been trained in these strategies):

• Be active and keep busy
• Spend more time socializing
• Be productive in performing meaningful work
• Get organized and plan things
• Not worry so much or nothing
• Lower expectations and aspirations
• Develop optimistic and positive thinking
• Focus on the present
• Accept yourself, like to know yourself and help yourself
• Develop an entrepreneurial social personality
• Be yourself, be authentic, don't pretend
• Eliminate negative feelings and problems
• Prioritize close relationships
• Value happiness

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What do we know about happiness?

In summary, studies on happiness indicate that specific life events that produce joy and enjoyment are appreciated and can be valued as long as they do not undermine the value of small everyday pleasures, being more effective to dedicate the energies to achieve a satisfactory life than to seek only punctual, transitory and fleeting gratifications.

In addition, we know that to enjoy a satisfactory life, knowing how to handle dissatisfaction is as necessary as increasing your own satisfactions.

On the other hand, a good support system and good close relationships are essential for people's well-being.

And finally, we also know that it is healthy set reasonable and achievable goals that serve to achieve satisfaction throughout the course of life, appreciating the process and the effort that life's challenges entail, rather than emphasizing the achievement of results concrete.

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Is happiness a good therapeutic goal?

So, can we psychotherapists offer happiness as a therapeutic goal?

We cannot and should not ignore that happiness is, for most people, a main goal in life and in the pursuit of which we devote considerable energy.

Now happiness should not be raised as a therapeutic goal, for two main reasons. In the first place, because happiness is something subjective and it is very difficult to create a possible strategy for all patients, since each one understands happiness in their own way; and secondly because, as we have said, happiness can be ephemeral, momentary and also fleeting.

However, psychotherapists and psychologists can help our patients to train some fundamental principles, strategies, skills and competencies to be happy, as well as help them discern between states of happiness and subjective well-being, being the first exciting and fleeting, and the second predictable and more stable, dedicating personal energies to benefits that lead to a life full and to the phenomenon of life satisfaction.