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SHORT INTRO to the different reach out themes
By Louis Cauffman
In the following paragraphs you will find basic information on the different themes that we have chosen as anchors for SOL2007. The different themes actually can be collected under the umbrella of what one might call ' the science of Mind, Brain, Genes and Evolutionary Psychology'.
The literature that we suggest is no indication of our personal preferences but serves only as a starting point that can help you move around in the realms of the different themes. You can use the references in each publication as starting points that will set you of in the direction of your personal liking. Of course, you will use the internet to travel faster to your destination of ever expanding learning and you will find out (again and again) that the journey is so much more important than the destination.
We do not doubt that you will discover that all the themes have a very direct link to the solution focused model and that they offer additional 'scientific' foundations that go far beyond the research on techniques and outcome results (however important these are).
Enjoy.
The Science of Happiness:
The leader of the tiny Himalayan state of Bhutan is more interested in the Gross National Happiness than in the Gross National Product. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is writing about happiness since many years (see book: The Art of Happiness, 1998). Buddhism has for many centuries now, offered a manual for living a happy (read: a satisfying) life. In the west, Epictetus wrote in the first century his Manual for the Art of Living. Yet one does not have to be a Buddhist or an ancient philosopher to be interested in happiness!
In contrast to this vast body of literature, one can wonder how it comes that the 'new' science of psychology in the 20th century was primarily occupied (read: obsessed) with everything that could possibly go wrong with humans, single mindedly focused (read: blinded) by pathology, even to the extent that it took a brave psychologist like Martin Seligman (see: http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu) (famous for his learned helplessness syndrome), until the late nineties before he discovered that you can reverse these ideas into learned happiness. His important book, Authentic Happiness (2002) really paved the road for the vast stream of academic and professional articles and books on the subject. This opening of the academic field and expanding the importance of the theme of happiness, is a real accomplishment that the famous psychologist Daniel Kahneman (see http://weblamp.princeton.edu/~psych/psychology/research/kahneman )was not able to do (even if he won the Nobel price in 2002 for his foundational work).
You might want to start out from the following sources to dive into this theme:
*Bertrand Russell: The Conquest of Happiness (1961)
*Daniel Nettle: Happiness, the science behind your smile (2005) (http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/daniel.nettle )
*Baker, Greenberg and Hemingway: What happy companies know (2006)
*Layard Richard: Happiness, lessons from a new science (2005) (http://www.lse.ac.uk/people/r.layard@lse.ac.uk )
The Study of Resilience:
Family therapists moved psychotherapy from a strict individual approach (that was only interested in trying to understand why a person did not function well) to an interactional model where the relations between the members of the system were studied in the hope to change rules in the interaction so that the problems would go away. Yet, most (classical) family therapists were using a deficit model that was (and still is) very problem focused.
It is very interesting to discover that the strength based approach to the functioning of systems (from couples over families to large groups and organisations) did not originate from psychology nor psychiatry departments and schools. The interest in resources, strengths, competencies in human systems was first studied in departments of sociology and social work. And we all know that Steve de Shazer was a sociologist by training while Insoo Kim Berg and Yvonne Dolan are social workers. Isn't that amazing!
Our working definition of resilience is: 'the ability to withstand and rebound from disruptive (life) events, to learn from these experiences and develop a pro-active response mechanism ('prodaptation') that helps one to 'bounce forwards'.
The exceptional usefulness of the resilience concept for organisational work is evident. Instead of concentrating on what not works, you can choose to tap into what does work. You can help staff and teams to appreciate the cognitive, emotional and behavioural strengths both on a personal and an interpersonal level.
You might want to start out from the following sources to dive into this theme:
*Walsh Froma: Strengthening Family Resilience (3th edition 1998) -the basic book!
(http://www.ssa.uchicago.edu/faculty/f-walsh.shtml )
*Sheffi Yosh, The Resilient Enterprise (2005)
(http://resilient-enterprise.mit.edu )
*Warren Bennis and Heifetz Ronald: Harvard Business on Building Personal and Organizational Resilience (2003)
Neuroscience:
Is the time coming that psychologists no longer have to rely solely on what their clients tell them or on what they themselves conceptualize in their sophisticated psychologist minds? Can it really be the case that the psychologist of tomorrow only needs to look at the screen where the results of the fMRI show up? Well, this is all a little (but not more than a little, mind you) premature. Yet, the neurosciences are developing on a daily basis. What was unheard of in the year 2000, is per today reality. Mind and body truly are one again. The nurture-nature dichotomy is replaced by careful (yet expanding) research that indicates the interwoveness of genes, behaviour and circumstances. Recent neuroscientific developments offer useful insights for all of us who earn their living with 'influencing people for the better'. Managers, leaders and coaches can benefit from the knowledge that the neurosciences offer us in order to become even better at what we (try to) do.
You might want to start out from the following sources to dive into this theme:
*LeDoux Joseph: Synaptic Self: how our brains become who we are (2002)
(see: http://www.cns.nyu.edu/home/ledoux )
*Pinker Steven: How the Mind works (1997) and: The Blank Slate (2002)
(see: http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu )
*Pink Daniel: A Whole new mind (2006)
(see: http://www.danpink.com )
*Damasio Antonio: Descartes' Error (1994)
(see: http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/faculty/faculty1008328.html )
Swarm Intelligence, Non-Zero sum games and Networking models:
Intelligence used to be 'something' inside the head of an individual, as early researchers in artificial intelligence thought. Indeed, this is the way we experience our own thinking, as if we hear private voices and see private visions. But this experience can lead us to overlook what should be our most noticeable quality as species: our tendency to associate with one another, to socialize. If we want to model human intelligence, we should do so by modelling individuals in a social context interacting with each other. These social interactions result in a change in the thinking process -not just the content- of the participants.
Since the time we were hunter-gatherers, evolution helped us to cooperate. In the light of harsh circumstances, humans developed the ability to enter non-zero sum games. A zero sum games is like tennis: 1 wins, 1 looses. Non-zero sum games makes all involved into winners and changes the game in the process. Particularly relevant to the solution focused approach are the insights from the study of swarm intelligence: 1. Mind is social, 2. Human intelligence results from interaction and 3. culture and cognition are inseparable consequences of human sociality.
You might want to start out from the following sources to dive into this theme:
*Kennedy James and Eberhart Russell: Swarm Intelligence (2001)
(see: http://www.cis.syr.edu/~mohan/pso )
*Wright Robert: NonZero, history, evolution and human cooperation (2000)
(see: http://www.nonzero.org )
*Axelrod Robert and Cohen Michael: Harnessing Complexity: organizational implications of a scientific frontier (2001)
(see: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~axe )
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