Science news and science current events, research and discoveries.
Top science news articles and science current events stories from the past week.
Science Resources
Science RSS News Feeds
Earth, Life and Space Science RSS News Feeds.
|
 |
 |
 |
| View Larger Image | Happiness Is.: Unexpected Answers to Practical Questions in Curious Times
by Shawn Christopher Shea
| | List Price: | $19.95 | | Price: | $13.57 | | You Save: | $6.38 (32%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 112410 | | Studio: | HCI | | | Binding: | Hardcover | | Number Of Pages: | 272 | | Publication Date: | October 01, 2004 | | Publisher: | HCI |
| |
EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
In this highly entertaining and literate book, Shawn Christopher Shea takes us on a provocative journey into the world of practical philosophy, applied spirituality and everyday psychology. Calling upon more than twenty years of clinical experience, fifty years of navigating life's ups and downs, and an array of thinkers and pop icons - from Alan Watts to Albert Einstein, Billy Graham to Bob Dylan, the Dalai Lama to the English mystic Julian of Norwich - he weaves a gentle compassion and a tart wit into this compelling look at human nature and our never-ending quest for happiness. Not content with traditional stereotypes of happiness, Shea is on a search for a tougher happiness that is present and revitalizing even during times of stress, loss, and pain. He begins with the intriguing twist that happiness is not so much a feeling as it is both an attitude and a feeling. He shows how to distinguish between success and happiness, emphasizing the importance of embracing life as a series of moments to savor as opposed to a series of goals to achieve. For Shea happiness is determined within each moment by five interacting processes - our biologies, our perspectives, our relationships, our environments, and our spiritual quests. These five interacting, constantly shifting processes, give happiness its fluid nature; change one factor, and you change them all. This "matrix effect" explains why happiness is often elusive and fleeting. It need not be so. Using the human matrix, Shea shows what it is that limits our ability to find happiness and what it is that allows us to transcend those very same limits. Shea demonstrates how an understanding of this human matrix can be used to forge a resilient and enduring attitude of trust and a resulting feeling of confidence and compassion - a combination we call happiness. Written with elegance, wit, and a disarming playfulness, Shea's surprising answers to difficult questions are not so much things to do as they are creative ways of thinking, fresh manners of conceptualizing and innovative approaches to understanding human nature - all of which are invaluable tools for finding our own unique answers to the puzzle of happiness. "A bold, dazzling, and wonderfully fresh antidote to the simplistic platitudes so common in the self-help books of today! Shawn Christopher Shea pulls on everything from his clinical practice to arcane philosophy to pop culture as he poignantly answers a most modern question: If we're so successful, why aren't we happier? The end result is deeply affecting, often funny, and always instructive. Destined to inspire an entire generation with the excitement and happiness to be found in the nurturance of compassion and the quest for meaning. "
-Paul Farmer, M.D., Ph.D.
Harvard Medical School "Following in the groundbreaking footsteps of M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled, Shawn Shea guides us down the road to happiness in his insightful and engaging book. I found it very compelling. "
-Jack Canfield
Co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul® "This book is in a very special group of works that, springing from clinical experience and wisdom, moves to expand with wondrous insights the life of all those it touches."
-Juan E. Mezzich, M.D., Ph.D.
President-Elect, World Psychiatric Association "A remarkable achievement that is a wonderful blend of science, philosophy, clinical wisdom and personal anecdote. Using a writing style that is enjoyable, engaging and incredibly effective, Shea has crafted a book that will have an impact and make a difference in many, many lives. It will stay with you, challenge you and change the way you look at the world. "
-M. David Rudd, Ph.D.
ABPP Baylor University
President, American Association of Suicidology "A moving book, filled with touching and insightful stories, containing much wisdom and the practical methods of applying them to our lives to help us find happiness, meaning and a successful life. "
-Bernie Siegel, M.D.
Author of Prescriptions For Living and 365 Prescriptions For the Soul |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 9 reviews)
|
Happiness is, and can be 
I am a lay person. I'm not a physician, nor expert of any kind with regards to mental health. I have however dealt with episodic depression in my own life. The most difficult thing about depression is the feeling that there is no reason to feel hope. In fact there is no reason to expend energy reading such a book because it simply offers no relief. I read Dr. Shea's book. The thrust of the book centers around making you feel a part of, rather than apart from. It is not a book of do's and don'ts. It opens your insight to a deeper understanding of what makes us feel the way we feel. I can't tell you what it will do for you. I can tell you that this book showed me how to live with a more compassionate heart,a more loving acceptance of myself. And most importantly a feeling that with continued vigilance my life could experience what "Happiness Is". I am extremely grateful to Dr. Shea for writing a book that reads as though your best friend wrote it. A book so approachable that from the opening chapter to the final page you feel warmth of heart, insight, and most importantly hope. I so hope that people will read this book. It will change your perspective. Reading is believing. In fact I would say "Happiness can be!".
May 11, 2008 | |
Philosophy I can understand
This book takes a subject that sounds very simple, takes it apart, examines it thoroughly and helps us comes to an understanding of what happiness is for me. His use of sages- both from long ago and current times make the book interesting and enjoyable. There are more than a few chuckles here. I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more of what makes each of us tick and enjoy the process. This is NOT dull.
July 28, 2007 | |
Happiness Encompassed
Peter A. Olsson, M.D.
(...)
Book Review of:
HAPPINESS IS: Unexpected Answers to Practical Questions in Curious Times. By Shawn Christopher Shea, M.D.
Publisher, Health Communications Inc.
340 pages, $19.95.
Shawn Shea M.D. is a psychiatrist colleague who has authored two outstanding books considered classics in our field, THE PRACTICAL ART OF SUICIDE ASSESSMENT: A Guide for Mental Health Professionals, and PSYCHIATRIC INTERVIEWING: The Art of Understanding, 2nd Edition. Now Doctor Shea has written a splendid book for the general reader, (and us professionals as well!). In Shea's HAPPINESS IS, he introduces us to an array of unusual, unlikely, and fascinating heroes and heroines of Happiness. One could see how St. Francis, Einstein, the Dali Lama or even Billy Graham could be used as examples or role models to help us find Happiness, but Benny the limo driver? A feisty teenager? That dwarf Casper Hauser? Come on now Doctor Shea? However, Shea does it! The reader finds him or herself feeling sad with, inspired by, chuckling with, or entering waves of belly laughs with Shea and his cast of unique characters.
With this lively style and helpful guests, Dr. Shea starts off with a lively defining discussion about happiness as not a feeling, but as an amalgam of attitude and feeling. He confronts us with the critical importance of distinguishing between success and happiness. Uniquely discovering happiness "In the present moment", IS success, and not the dead-end search for success as a futile means to gain happiness. Shea's discussions of Hope and Trust are spellbindingly illustrated.
Shawn Shea's writing style is like a double-barreled literary shotgun. He writes elegant, clear and evocative prose that provides cascades of vivid images to ponder. The other barrel of his literary approach is an elfish, disarming and playful sense of humor. Shea's wit dances rumbas and scherzos with the reader.
Our psychiatric and psychoanalytic literature is replete with references to the "Bio-psycho-social-spiritual model". Dr. Shea creatively develops this framework into a lively and layperson-friendly fabric that he calls the Human Matrix. The matrix has five wings in its palace of personhood. The five wings are: (1) The biological; (2) The Psychological (Mind); (3&4) The Environmental (Both Impersonal [floods, earthquakes, and other disasters], and Personal [Relationships]); (5) Spiritual. Shea provides key questions about how to tell which wings of the matrix are troubled and what the trouble is. (pp278-280). Shea's discussion of the "Secrets", "Guiding rules" and "Strategic Principles" in regard to the wings of the human matrix and their interactions, is very important. (Chapter14). This chapter is challenging for the reader, but has enormous implications for personal preventative mental health and healing applications.
Shawn Shea in his chapter 18, The Journey Outward, provides a profoundly concise and eloquent presentation on the topic of Compassion. With Shea's helpful ideas about Compassion, it is not an exaggeration to say the reader can get a glimpse of God.
July 30, 2005 | |
A thoughtful and inspirational exploration
Happiness Is.: Unexpected Answers To Practical Questions In Curious Times by Shawn Christopher Shea (Director of the Training Institute for Suicide Assessment & Clinical Interview and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Dartmouth School of Medicine) combines practical philosophy, applied spirituality, and everyday psych-ology to explore the true nature of happiness and how best to achieve it. Describing happiness as determined by five interacting processes - biologies, perspectives, relationships, environments, and spiritual quests - Happiness Is. focuses especially upon the importance of the quest and its rules inside the human matrix. A thoughtful and inspirational exploration of processes used to find meaning and bring joy to one's life.
May 12, 2005 | |
A very serious topic discussed in an entertaining package...
When the author of "Happiness Is." contacted me by e-mail and asked if I would be interested in reading and reviewing his latest book, I felt that I should warn him in advance regarding my views of traditional and contemporary psychiatry, some of which are posted on my website under the heading "The Psychiatric Game." So, to be fair and upfront with Dr. Shawn Christopher Shea, the author of the book, and provide him with full disclosure, I sent a rather lengthy response to him, outlining my philosophical positions about the theory and practice of psychiatry, about the concept of "mental illness" as usually defined, and my personal opinions regarding various "psychotherapies."
Furthermore, I informed him that I was supportive of the ideas promoted by the iconoclastic-psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz, the theories and practices developed by the "Cognitive Therapy" movement, and especially the procedures and programs utilized by the "Reality" therapists as developed by psychiatrist Dr. William Glasser back in the 1970s. I figured my advisory would cause any "normal" psychiatrist or mental health practitioner to take a pass on me and find a more sympathetic reviewer. Well, Dr. Shea is apparently not your "normal" psychiatrist and my warnings didn't bother him a bit; he sent the book, I read it, and here is my brief review of a delightful book that I recommend without any hesitation to anyone interested in improving his or her life and pursuing that sometimes elusive phenomenon we call "happiness."
I know it's hard to believe, but here is a psychiatrist who can write an informative book for the common person in ordinary English, fill it with interesting anecdotes, compelling stories, and engaging personalities (including such diverse figures as the famous "elephant man" John Merrick, Saint Francis of Assisi, the mystical Julian of Norwich, ice skating champion Michelle Kwan, the celebrated Helen Keller, the Dalai Lama, and more), and entertain the reader with a witty style and appropriate humor, all while discussing a serious subject that is probably number one on anybody's list: What is happiness and how can we work toward achieving it? That, I suggest, is quite a feat, and Dr. Shea, in my opinion, pulls it off with flying colors. Even the clever subtitles that he uses throughout the book make their point in such a way that is both entertaining and memorable.
An initial remark about the term "happiness" may be advisable, particularly for those who are within the same philosophical tradition as I am, that is, the Classical Realism of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. The term "happiness" as used by the author in his book is not quite the same as it is used, for instance, by Aristotle, who defines happiness as "action in accordance with virtue." Aristotle's definition is primarily an "ethical" definition and perfectly appropriate for the context in which that great philosopher employs that concept.
On the other hand, Dr. Shea's use of the term "happiness" is perfectly appropriate within "philosophical anthropology" or that broad philosophical discipline which thinks about human beings and their activities in the widest sense possible. Many of the principles, for example, that the book's author discusses, have a philosophical foundation but are used in an applied or practical sense. There is no contradiction here between the two uses of the term "happiness" because the term is used in different, yet related, contexts. Dr. Shea's "happiness" is what most of us Classical Realists would refer to as "overall contentment" or, maybe, a "feeling of personal fulfillment." And these are certainly important objectives.
One critic seems to think that "Happiness Is." doesn't contain anything really original. This is probably true in the sense that all the ideas contained within the text have been discussed many times in other works. I submit, however, that the way in which Dr. Shea utilizes these concepts and develops his model of the "human matrix" and applies the strategies suggested by his model to ordinary human situations is unique and, furthermore, probably more valuable to the general reader than the complicated "academic" models which have filled the literature of psychology and psychiatry for generations.
Let's give the good doctor a break here. He makes it quite clear, at least to me, that his book is for the public at large, for the ordinary educated reader, for the common man or woman full of intellectual curiosity and a need for explanation and commonsense guidance, not for that narrow group of professionals whose writings may be sophisticated and "academic," but are largely ignored and dismissed by the general public as chimerical.
The key concept presented in this book is a model which Dr. Shea calls the "human matrix." This matrix is "a set of systems whose ultimate composite functioning creates something new, something completely unique, a distinctive, one time only pattern with each passing second." It consists of five "wings": Biological, Psychological, Interpersonal, Environmental, and Spiritual. Each of these wings, in the ideal state, must be in healthy balance with all the others. There are a few "rules" which apply regarding this situation. For instance, there is the "Interdependence Rule" which states that "All wings of the human matrix intersect and are interdependent upon one another." There are three other rules which follow.
Further on, there are the "principles" and "strategies." For example, the Cast a Wide Net Principle states that "No matter what the apparent cause of the immediate unhappiness, look at all wings of the matrix for contributing problems related to smaller yet still damaging matrix effects." Later, there are the "paradoxes," such as the Paradox of the Multiplicitous Knob which suggests that one "Eagerly change the wings of the matrix yet make changes with caution for every knob you change is two." (You'll have to read the book to see what this means!)
I enthusiastically recommend Dr. Shea's book to all. I have reviewed a lot of books over the past few years, but this one has got to be in the top of my "A-List."
February 19, 2005 | |
SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
| |
|
|
|
|
