Thriving & Happiness

“Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open”.
– John Barrymore

It is recognized that most approaches to helping with mental health issues and stress, are directed at alleviating symptoms.  Much effort has been focused of treating problems like depression, anxiety or managing stress.

This is definitely a goal at the Centre for Cognitive Therapy, however we often would like to go beyond alleviating problems and help clients achieve a greater sense of thriving, or flourishing in life.  In the past 20 years there has been an increased research interest in the critical elements that lead to happiness and psychological well being.

Surprisingly, we are very poor at predicting what will lead to happy outcomes.  We can become stuck on principles that are supposed to lead to thriving, but are not working out that way.  Dan Gilbert of Harvard University has found that lottery winners are generally less happy within a year of winning than they were before. 

Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania has founded a branch of Psychology now known as Positive Psychology.  Positive Psychology is “founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play”.   

At the Centre for Cognitive Therapy we use elements and teachings from Positive Psychology, with the goal to go beyond alleviating symptoms and help clients learn the core elements of thriving in life.