Happiness in this World

The Importance Of Maintaining Consistent Boundaries

Alex Lickerman — Sun, 19 May 2013 22:00:50 +0000

Photo: Daquella manera

A few weeks ago my wife, my son, and I went out for dinner. My son, though usually well-behaved and pleasant, was boisterous and disruptive, alternately leaping off his seat to crawl under the table and banging his silverware on his water glass to see what different volume of sound [...]

The Three Realms Of Confidence, Redux

Alex Lickerman — Sun, 12 May 2013 22:00:58 +0000

In 1979, as I was about to enter seventh grade, my parents moved our family from one suburb of Chicago to another where we soon discovered anti-Semitism ran rampant. Changing schools for any boy of thirteen is traumatic enough, but finding myself persecuted verbally and physically for belonging to a particular religion made the [...]

A Clinical Psychologist For President

Alex Lickerman — Sun, 05 May 2013 22:00:34 +0000

Photo: Sharon Mollerus

Of all the different criteria people use when deciding for whom to vote in presidential elections, I’ve never heard anyone talk about the importance of a background in clinical psychology—but it’s always struck me as important for a president to have as for a clinical psychologist. Certainly, foreign policy experience, [...]

How To Be A Leader, Redux

Alex Lickerman — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 22:00:10 +0000

Photo: pedrosimones7

In 2001, just as I was about to take over as Medical Director of Primary Care at the University of Chicago, I expressed reservations to a previous Director about my ability to run a clinic that included several clinicians who were not only older than I but who had actually been [...]

How To Reset Your Happiness Set Point

Alex Lickerman — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 14:46:27 +0000

Photo: puuikibeach

The set-point theory of happiness suggests that our level of subjective well-being is determined primarily by heredity and by personality traits ingrained in us early in life and as a result remains relatively constant throughout our lives. Our level of happiness may change transiently in response to life events, but then [...]