Positive Psychology: Brain Plasticity and Adaptibility are two Strategies

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Brain Plasticity and Adaptibility are two Strategies

Chuck Close

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127745750&sc=nl&cc=es-20100627

Radio Lab interview with Oliver Sachs and Chuck Close, Portrait Painter - on the right side of the article about the writer who could not read, is even more inreresting. They discuss Robert Rauschenberg, Painter, who was learning disabled and dyslexic and said, "When you're this way, you have to find other venuues for your intelligence."

Positive Psychology given credence by Academia:

Positive psychology is the scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

Commentators on the subject Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, note that:

"The field of positive psychology at the subjective level is about valued subjective experiences: well-being, contentment, and satisfaction (in the past); hope and optimism (for the future); and flow and happiness (in the present).

At the individual level, it is about positive individual traits: the capacity for love and vocation, courage, interpersonal skill, aesthetic sensibility, perseverance, forgiveness, originality, future mindedness, spirituality, high talent, and wisdom.

At the group level, it is about the civic virtues and the institutions that move individuals toward better citizenship: responsibility, nurturance, altruism, civility, moderation,tolerance, and work ethic."