The Practice of Happiness

"Recently, I was having dinner with a group of friends who also work in mental health when the conversation turned to happiness. What stood out wasn't that everyone wanted to be happier, but how differently we defined happiness. Despite the range of perspectives, one shared assumption kept resurfacing: Happiness is something we reach after checking off the right boxes."

"My clinical experience and a growing body of research suggest that this way of thinking often works against us. Not because happiness is unattainable, but because it doesn't function like an achievement to reach. Happiness is something built gradually through how we think, act, and connect rather than something we earn at the finish line."

"One of the most important, and commonly misunderstood, points about happiness is that it is not simply the absence of depression. Decades of mental health research show that psychological distress and well-being are related, but they are not opposite ends of a single continuum."

Happiness accumulates through repeated patterns of thought, behavior, and social connection rather than functioning as a single goal to be achieved. Well-being and psychological distress are related but distinct constructs. The dual-continua model describes separate yet overlapping pathways: one aimed at reducing pain, anxiety, and sadness, and another toward cultivating connection, curiosity, purpose, and pleasure. Progress on symptom reduction does not guarantee increases in positive well-being, and vice versa. Everyday habits that strengthen connection, curiosity, purpose, and pleasure reliably support enduring well-being alongside clinical interventions that reduce distress.

Read at Psychology Today