This November, the Jewish Learning Institute (JLI) will present How Happiness Thinks: Jewish Perspectives on Positive Psychology, the institute’s new six-session fall 2014 course. Rabbi Shmuly Altein of Chabad-Lubavitch will conduct the six course sessions at 7:30 pm on Tuesdays, starting November 4th at the Jewish Learning Centre.
“The science behind positive psychology has been become very popular in recent years, and has drawn a lot of attention” explained Rabbi Zalman Abraham of JLI’s headquarters in Brooklyn. “People innately understand that to be happy and to have a positive attitude, can greatly impact their work and personal life. How Happiness Thinks addresses the question that so many ask: What makes happy people happy?”
Prepared in partnership between JLI and the Washington School of Psychiatry, the course offers up to 15 American Psychological Association (APA) continuing education credits.
While positive psychology may be in mode today, Jewish wisdom and mysticism has addressed questions of what it means to be truly happy, when it is appropriate to be happy, and being happy in times of great difficulty for centuries. Combining Jewish thought with the latest research in the fast-growing field of positive psychology, How Happiness Thinks promises to offer a fresh perspective on this highly relevant and potentially life changing subject.
“This course is based on the premise that to be happy, you can wither change the world, or you can change your way of thinking,” said Rabbi Shmuly Altein, the local JLI instructor in Winnipeg. “How Happiness Thinks contrasts 3000 years of Jewish wisdom on happiness with the latest observations and discoveries in positive psychology.”