Blessedness!

July 23rd, 2022| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

Decades ago, the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) proclaimed that many were “wrecked by success,” in his essay, “Some Character-Types Met With in Psycho-Analytic Work”:

Psychoanalytic work has furnished us with the thesis that people fall ill of a neurosis as a result of frustration. What is meant is the frustration of the satisfaction of their libidinal wishes. … People occasionally fall ill precisely when a deeply-rooted and long-cherished wish has come to fulfillment. It seems then as though they were not able to tolerate their happiness; for there can be no question that there is a causal connection between their success and their falling ill.”

Or as Steven Berglas describes it in his The Success Syndrome: Hitting Bottom When You Reach the Top:

The condition that develops when the rewards of success expose an individual to a variety of psychologically stressful situations; these render him vulnerable to disorders ranging from depression and drug abuse to self-inflicted failures and even suicide.”

Well, Freud was wrong.

So declared a five-decade study involving 2,322 participants, Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth, a 50-year longitudinal survey of gifted students overseen by researchers at Vanderbilt University who published their findings recently in “Wrecked by Success? Not to Worry” in the Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Said David Lubinski, professor of psychology at Vanderbilt:

We had a lot more data. This was data that was not available and really unimaginable in Freud’s time.”

Using income as the closest proxy for success, the researchers found that Freud had erred. The exceptionally successful were not unhappy. In fact, if anything, the opposite: They were healthier and happier than the unsuccessful. (They also looked at marriages, feelings of self-esteem, attitudes on aging, psychological distress levels, rankings on a variety of scales that calculate well-being, as well as 44 different health conditions.)

The authors:

Our results do not support the idea that exceptionally accomplished individuals are wrecked by their career success. Although some individuals may experience substantial hardships from their career successes, our findings suggest that this is not the norm. … According to our empirical findings, the age-old assumption that outstanding career success and compromised physical and psychological well-being are inextricably linked appears to be in ill health.”

When a Wall Street Journal reporter, Ben Cohen, spoke with Dr. Lubinski, he couldn’t resist an obvious question. His team had just finished a project that was many years in the making. How did he feel about this success? Replied Lubinski:

I’m so happy!”

The misconception of Freud has been pervasive throughout the humanities, popular press, and modern scientific literature. Said Tennessee Williams:

Security is a kind of death, I think, and it can come to you in a storm of royalty checks beside a kidneyshaped pool in Beverly Hills. . . . Ask anyone who has experienced the kind of success I’m talking about—What good is it?”

The key to happiness is achieving the right kind of success. You want to be really happy? For life … and beyond?

Blessing is [with] the person
who has not walked by the advice of the wicked,
οr in the path of sinners stood,
nor in the seat of scoffers sat!
But, instead, in the law of Yahweh [is] his delight,
law he meditates day and night.
And he is like a tree
transplanted by canals of water,
which its fruit—it yields in its season,
and its foliage—it does not wither;
and [in] all he does, he succeeds.
Psalm 1:1–3

Now, that’s real success! And real happiness, blessedness!

SOURCE:
Wall Street Journal; Perspectives on Psychological Science