MCEP (Mandatory Continuing Education for Psychologists): Rereading a Great Book

What You Can Change...And What You Can't
It's license renewal time, and to renew I had to take courses to make sure I'm keeping up with my field. I admit, I love continuing education. It gives me an excuse to read some psychology and to attend meetings/workshops/classes that I want to go to but wouldn't allow myself the luxury if I didn't have it as "mandatory." Those who have followed my ongoing story might remember I attended a great three day conference on "learning and the brain" which allotted me 19.5 units of my 36 mandated units. The past month I've done "online" courses, and I loved most of them. Most recently I took a course in Marty Seligman's book, What you can change...And what you can't. I read this years ago and loved it, and reading it again was even better. Seligman may have his weaknesses, like being a salesman at moments. But the story he's selling is spectacular, music to my ears. He's the daddy of "positive psychology," and before that new school in my field, he was the scientist and then popularizer of "learned helplessness" and "Learned Optimism." Seligman's basic message is that how we explain things that happen to us, or our "attributional style" defines how we feel about ourselves and the world. If we explain negative events and experiences as our own fault, likely to effect everything in our lives, and likely to go on forever (or for a long time anyway we're pessimistic and likely to be prone to depression. If we explain positive events as due to something outside of ourselves (someone else, luck, chance), unlikely to have much of an effect on our lives, and likely to be short lived, we're pessimists. If however, we take credit for good things that happen, if we think the good thing will have a powerful effect and that it will go on for a long time or even forever, we're optimists. Seligman focused primarily on how we explain negative events and the link these explanations have to depression. In research carried out in my lab we found out that how we explain positive events is equally important to depression proneness. If I can't take credit for some terrific event or experience, I'm in trouble, I'm at high risk for depression. Seligman's theory of attributional (or explanatory) style is, bottom line, a gem of a psychological theory and one that has been of use to me in understanding our psychology.

In this short and easy-read book, Seligman talks to us about the problems we can fix, and those we are stuck with. He chases after major myths in psychology (and in the whole culture) and lays them out starkly --there is no way to miss his message.
Experiences in childhood do not cause psychological problems
Weight is based on genetics, not psychology
Dieting backfires, if you diet, you'll gain it all back more easily each time
No treatment for alcoholism/addiction is better than a natural course of recovery
Childhood experiences are not correlated with proneness to problems with alcohol or other drugs
Obsessive compulsive disorder can't be effectively treated by talk therapy alone
Sex abuse is not necessarily the source of psychological problems
Sexual identification and orientation are not up for change
Sexual preferences show up in first adolescent experiences and rarely change later
Seligman holds on to the fundamental significance of a person's biology, while promoting psychotherapies that help change those pathogenic beliefs that are changeable. There's hardly a line in the book that misses the mark, and that isn't grounded in psychological science. He first published it in 1993, and its still right on almost all accounts, 14 years later. How many books can claim that?

The beauty of continuing education is that we are able to get credit for sitting around reading something like "What you can change...and what you can't..." It reminds me of how much I love to read in my chosen field, and that I have a passion for psychology. We get so ground down with the tasks we have to do, the nitty gritty of our daily lives. I thought "oh no, I have to get my MCEP units this month, my license has to be renewed by September 30th" forgetting that this was a chance to have some fun. I think I might extend this and take "just one more" online course...