Where Health and Entertainment Meet

Nathalie — Thu, 27 May 2010 09:27:24 +0000

A New Irressistible Series

“The Nat Says Series provides busy adults and kids with a better understanding of optimal mental health, how to fortify it and improve it– all while being entertained.”

–Len Duhl, Professor of Public Health at Berkeley & Pioneer of WHO Healthy Cities Project in Europe

Busy Adults & Curious Kids
“Today’s busy adults and curious kids need to be entertained. They are not going to be found pondering over health pamphlets, working through a stress management program, or reading self help books, unless they already have a life changing problem and are in real pain. By then its often too late. The divorce has happened, the kids are hanging out with the wrong crowd or addicted to drugs, and one’s job has become so stressful that you don’t sleep well at night,” says author and illustrator, Nathalie Ishizuka. “Psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers can all do their part in helping us pick up the pieces, but somehow we have to help ourselves before things get that bad.”

Don’t Wait Until Things Fall Apart
Rather, than waiting until the pieces fall apart, Ishizuka wants to entertain and educate people before problems arise. Hence the birth of an entertaining illustrated health series, Mom Says, Dad Says, Nat Says: Other that reads much like the St. Exupery’s The Little Prince, but with a different message. The book is about optimal health, what we wished our Mom had told us, what our Dad may not have known, and what our own head and heart might still have difficulty grasping. Unless, like the characters in the book, your Mom has a ‘savoir vivre’ that is larger than life, your Dad an internationally renown Harvard trained psychiatrist on health, and you like the author Nat, has spent years trying to integrate both your Mom’s heart and your Dad’s head.

Enjoy Being Outside the Box
This heartwarming illustrated book is for busy adults and kids who have felt picked on (and who hasn’t), or constrained by a label (their own or someone else’s). Child psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and teachers will also get a lift from its freshness. Through the surprising coping strategies in the book, being different, can suddenly become a formidable stepping stone to health.

Nathalie Ishizuka is a Franco-Japanese American author and illustrator of Mom Says, Dad Says, Nat Says: Other who has spent over 15 years writing about a model of health and happiness. Her innovative interdisciplinary approach integrating the psychology of individuals, organizations, and the nation state has lead her to work with people from many fields and to receive the George A. Plimpton Fellowship for the study of social, economic, and political institutions.

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http://www.PositiveMentalHealthFoundation.com

Spheres of Psychological Health: What Makes Us Happy?

Nathalie — Thu, 27 May 2010 08:46:00 +0000

Spheres of Psychological Health?

Wellness is not the absence of disease. It is the presence of something — the question is of what?

After returning to medicine, Dr. Yukio Ishizuka asked himself what does it mean to be well? What is the objective of therapy?

As he actively interacted with his patients, he observed over and over again that despite their infinitely varied and unique symptoms and personal backgrounds, the elements that determined their well-being or distress were strikingly predictable. This lead to the hypothesis that there may be certain psychological spheres which when fulfilled built successful psychological adjustment, and when unfulfilled or repeatedly neglected, caused distress and made one vulnerable to distress.

Basic Psychological Needs : The Three Spheres
By 1975, he realized that the three spheres critical to building health in our daily lives were quite simple. These three spheres –self, intimacy, and achievement — remain broad enough to encompass nearly all psychological events. None of the spheres exist in isolation. They are overlapping and inter-related. These three spheres together dynamically interact and constitute a person’s personality.

Self
To be “in touch,” “at peace,” and “in control” of self requires the capacity to recognize and accept both positives and negatives in life, integrating them into a balanced perspective. It also includes the flexibility to initiate, modify, and control thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Intimacy
To extend one’s thoughts, feelings, and actions beyond the self and become close to another human being. Many different types of intimate relationships such as those with a parent, spouse, significant other, children, friends, or God can bolster the psyche. The couple relationship, however, enables human beings to experience fullest union of personality, in all three dimensions of human intimacy – Intellectual/Social, Emotional, and Physical/Sexual.

Achievement
To reach beyond the self through the productive, creative, and the constructive expression of one’s capacities. It is an indirect way of finding an intimate union or relationship with the world in which one lives. Behind one’s work, career, athletics, hobbies or other intellectual and productive activities is the desire not only to subsist, but also to find meaning and achieve value, acceptance, respect, admiration and deep down love. A person who is either unable or unwilling to build a relationship with the world through his or her constructive capacities may turn in desperation to destruction – an attempt to be noticed and counted and freed from total insignificance by a forced relationship of dominance.

To learn more about the three spheres and other basic concepts of Lifetrack positive mental health please sign in our Opt-In Box and blog. If you would like to write an article on LifeTrack please download a Press Packet or use the contact us form to contact Dr. Ishizuka for an interview & opportunities to speak at your organization.

Join Us by Linking to Positive Mental Health or Psychological Health
http://www.PositiveMentalHealthFoundation.com

Nathalie – Positive Mental Health

Where Health and Entertainment Meet

Spheres of Psychological Health: What Makes Us Happy?

Spheres of Psychological Health?

Wellness is not the absence of disease. It is the presence of something — the question is of what?