A blogger once took me to task – quite publicly – for naming our applications “Optimism”. According to him, they should be called “Hope”. Without a doubt.

I’ve always been puzzled by this. “Optimism” has an element of confidence, with an expectation of progress. Hope is more wishful* . You could say that hope is a precursor to optimism.

With applications unashamedly named “Optimism”, naturally enough I’m very interested in the role of optimism in improving mental health.

In the Huffington Post Dr. Tian Dayton recently wrote about how optimism can be learned, drawing on the well known work of Martin Seligman. Seligman’s work has been foundational in understanding helplessness as a learned psychological condition, and “learned optimism” as its remedy.

From the article:

“Optimists, according to research tend to be healthier, are more active, eat more fruits and vegetables and spend more time actively with others. So who wouldn’t want to be one? The question is, can optimism be learned, and if so, wouldn’t that be a great New Year’s resolution…”

Read more of the article at the Huffington Post, or visit Martin Seligman’s home page at Authentic Happiness.

* except Christian hope, which in the Bible means confident expectation – the return of Christ, transformation and eternal life.

There is a common misconception that all depression is biological in origin: a simple deficiency in certain brain chemicals. Too often it is treated as a homogenous illness, not a spectrum of disorders with biological and / or non-biological causes.

I found an interesting article by “Boring Old Man” (otherwise anonymous) that addresses this issue in a historical perspective. It touches on what I would call a “dumbing down” of diagnostic criteria, and the influence of politics and big pharma money.

“If probably not biological mental illness is not to be in the domain of psychiatry, let it go and make no claim that the DSM-5 [or psychiatry] is comprehensive. If psychiatry intends to continue being a specialty that treats mental illness proper, reflect the probably not biological mental illnesses in the DSM-5 revision accurately – beginning with the deconstruction of Major Depressive Disorder. Otherwise, psychiatry will continue to be a pretend science dwindling into irrelevance. I’ve got a hunch that 2012 will be a year when that choice will probably have to be made, one way or another…”

Read the full article at 1 Boring Old Man » probably, in 2012….