FAQ

Q : Is the goal of Lifetrack Positive Mental Health happiness?

A: Yes, the goal of Lifetrack is happiness or wellbeing!!

Yet the means to achieve well-being and happiness is not to be mistaken with seeking pleasure.  Those who seek happiness directly through pleasure rarely find it!  Those who build self, strong intimate relationships (with others, to a spouse or equivalent, nature, God or the universe) and achievement with a great sense of life purpose often experience frequent and longer lasting peaks of wellbeing (peace, friendliness, wellbeing, physical health, mastery) throughout their lives.

Happiness and well-being are a by-product of experiencing and growing one’s three spheres of inner existence.  Happiness and well-being result when one lives fully in the present in all three spheres of life (self, one’s close relationships and achievements) with a sense of love, lightness and joy.

Happiness means different things to different people.

Some people mistake happiness as pleasure or some–more modestly–a mere release from pain.  Whatever definition you have of happiness, what remains important is not the words you use, but the experience itself.

Not to confuse happiness with pleasure, the Lifetrack model uses a broader definition of well-being that encompasses happiness.  Dr. Yukio Ishizuka has defined and measured well-being as positive peaks of: peace, friendliness, physical well-being, happiness and a sense of mastery.

Well-being comes from within, it does not come from what we do externally.

One experiences inner happiness and well-being through our three spheres of psychological existence.

When inner transformation occurs, not only do peaks of wellbeing increase, but negative peaks decrease.

A new personality emerges with a more lasting sense of well-ness and health.  Peaks of anxiety, anger, physical symptoms, depression or psychosis may disappear altogether or surface only occasionally.  Behind them lies a far greater sense of well-being, a deeper penetrating sense of peace, friendliness, physical wellbeing, happiness and mastery.

Copyright © 2010 Lifetrack Corporation

Visit the Positive Mental Health Foundation to support a study of human beings at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

The intimacy sphere extends one’s thoughts, feelings, and actions beyond the self to become close to another human being.

Different types of intimate relationships such as that with a parent, spouse, significant other, children, friend(s), God or the universe bolsters the psyche.

A Close Interdependent Intimate Relationship

There are many forms of intimacy.  A 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.  It is for this reason, that in Lifetrack therapy, Dr. Yukio Ishizuka focuses on marriage intimacy or the development of an equivalent close couple relationship.

Through breakthrough intimacy, he facilitates a transformation of personality to encompass larger, intimacy, achievement and self spheres.  This initial breakthrough in the intimacy sphere influences profoundly the Achievement and Self sphere.

Each of the three spheres influences the others.  No sphere exists in isolation.

Love Definition, Closeness Definition, Intimacy Definition

Love is an over-used word.  In the context of an adult couple relationship love means different things to different people.  In the Lifetrack model we use the word intimacy or closeness.  We refer to such intimacy in the couple relationship because such intimacy has the potential for the greatest level of emotional, physical and intellectual-social in human relationships.

Intellectual-Social: How close you are in the intellectual-social dimension

Accept:  Your willingness and ability to accept your partner
Depend: Your willingness and ability to trust and depend upon your partner
Let Depend:  Your willingness and ability to let your partner depend on you

Emotional:  How close you are in the emotional dimension

Concern: Your thoughtfulness and concern over your partner’s wellbeing
Affection:  Your willingness and ability to feel and express affection
Love:  Your willingness and ability to feel and express love

Physical-Sexual:  How close you are in the physical-sexual dimension

Togetherness: The extent to which you want to be (and enjoy being) together
Sensualness:  The extent to which you desire and enjoy touching, holding, kissing and caressing
Sexual Excitement: The extent to which you desire and enjoy giving and receiving sexual excitement

Closeness

Closeness is defined as all 3 dimensions of intimacy (intellectual-social, emotional, physical-sexual) or in all 9 elements: accept, depend, let depend, concern, affection, love, togetherness, sensualness and sexual-excitement.

Couples are asked to increase these nine elements of intimacy far beyond a previous best level of adjustment.  Those who arrive single in Lifetrack therapy are encouraged to find someone and are helped to become closer to that individual.

Copyright © 2010 Lifetrack Corporation

Visit http://www.PositiveMentalHealthFoundation.com to understand individuals at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

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Definition of Self

Traditionally, the integrity of the Self refers to the entire personality of the individual.

The Lifetrack model of positive mental health developed by Dr. Yukio Ishizuka defines Self more narrowly.  Self is the ability and willingness to be “in touch,” “at peace, ” and “in control, ” of one’s thoughts, feelings and actions.

The Self Sphere does not exist in a vacuum

Self interacts with our Achievement and Intimacy spheres.   What happens in our work day and our close intimate relationships influence our sense of self.   Similarly, our sense of Self affects our experience of Intimacy and Achievement.

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.  We can do this be observing our Self and remaining present in the given moment.

Self Definition in the Lifetrack Model

The Self Sphere is defined as how well you are in touch, at peace, and in control of “self.”

In Touch: How well you are in touch with your thoughts, feelings, and actions

Positives: The extent to which you are aware of happy or optimistic thoughts, feelings, and actions
Negatives: The extent to which you are aware of pessimistic or unpleasant thoughts, feelings, and actions
Integration: How well you integrate your positives and negatives, while maintaining self-justification

At Peace: How well you are at peace with your thoughts, feelings and actions

Positives: The extent to which you accept, appreciate, and feel comfortable with positive thoughts, feelings, and actions
Negatives: The extent to which you can accept, and come to peaceful terms with negative thoughts, feelings, and actions
Integration: How well you integrate your positives and negatives, while maintaining self-justification

In Control: How well you are in control of your thoughts, feelings, and actions

Decision: Your ability to make choices and decisions
Action: Your ability to act on decisions once they are made
Monitor/Control: Your ability to be flexible, and to modify your thoughts, feelings, and actions

Copyright © 2010 Lifetrack Corporation

Visit http://www.PositiveMentalHealthFoundation.com to understand individuals at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

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Definition of the Self in positive terms, in touch, at peace, in control, true self

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Econometric Modeling, Quantification and the Subjective Mind

Ishizuka, Nathalie, “Travel inside the Mind of an Executive: To Hell, Back and Beyond,” Analyzes the extensive daily self-rated data by one of Dr. Yukio Ishizuka’s patients over a five month period of dramatic change (200 pages), Econometric Modeling Applied to Examine Model on Well-being and Happiness, July 1996.

Kishi, N., “A Man Who Dares: A Psychiatrist who Quantifies the Human Mind,” Bushu Weekly, November 4,1993. Interview with Dr. Ishizuka.

Casey, E., “A New Computer Tool,” Wall Street Micro News, Oct. 1985.

Wadie, M., “Psychiatric Software Moves Ahead,” American Business, Winter 1986. Interview article with Dr. Ishizuka.

Samuels, R. Ph.D., “Life-Track,” Computer Software Review, Psychotherapy in Private Practice, Spring 1986.

Ishizuka, Yukio. “Breakthrough Intimacy – Treating Personality” APA (American Psychiatric Association) Annual Meeting, San Diego, May 2007. The paper discusses the quantified results of 1,172 patients treated with Lifetrack method over the last 20 years.

Ishizuka, Nathalie and Ying Zhao, “Applying quantitative modeling to the study of the Mind,” Submitted in class on quantitative methods at Haas School of Business, May 1998.

APPLYING QUANTITATIVE MODELING TO THE STUDY OF THE MIND

ABSTRACT
In this paper we will use Dr. Yukio Ishizuka’s model of mental health (Ishizuka, 1982, 1988) and the extensive daily self-rated data presented by one of his patients (who shall be called Mike) to better understand whether inescapable causes of well-being really exist. Simple multiple regression will be used to allow the reader the pleasure of jumping into Mike subjective world.

It is the hope of the authors that the theory, data and methodology found in this research can in time lead to (1) better understand the nature and interaction of human psychological needs for self-actualization, (2) provide the first quantifiable means to examine and refine an understanding of psychological health from a systems perspective, and (3) explain how subjective perceptions of a person’s sense of self, intimacy and achievement can contribute to overall psychological health.

This paper is a shorter version that builds on the earlier work by Ishizuka, Nathalie “Travel Inside the Mind of an Executive: To Hell, Back and Beyond.”

Editors and Journals

If an editor is interested in a chapter for book format, or journal form, please notify the author. If you have a syllabus with assumptions about healthy human beings applied to organizations, economics, negotiation, political science or other fields contact Nathalie Ishizuka through the Positive Mental Health Foundation Contact Form.  She is interested in collecting these for future use and sharing.

More on Psychology of Health, Organizations and Nations:

• Organizations
• Nations
• Japan
• Economics
• Negotiation
• Crisis Management & Diplomacy
• Economic Integration
• War, Crisis & Health
• International Affairs
• Political Science

A Need for Models based on Healthy Human Beings

Organizational and International behavior should be based on assumptions about healthy human beings.  Read section a Science of Health (life way), Criteria for Health Models (science of happiness), Happiness Defined? Quantified?  (cycle of life),  Happier? (fear of the unknown),  Why Positive Mental Health Works (objective subjective), and Insights (life purpose).

Visit http://www.PositiveMentalHealthFoundation.com to understand individuals at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

Ready Made Descriptions to Link to Organizational and International Behavior:

Individual Health, Organizational Health, National Health
Applications about healthy human beings to economics, international affairs, nations, organizational behavior.  A new organizational behavior concept or simply a new field of international behavior based on healthy human beings?

What are the basic assumptions about human beings in economics?   Are these assumptions based on healthy human beings?  If not, can they be fine-tuned?

Nathalie Ishizuka applies the assumption about human fear and how it affects optimal decision making to the 2009 Nobel laureate Olivier Williamson’s, Transaction Cost Economics.

Economics is Based on Simple Assumptions about Human Beings
Economic models are based on simple assumptions about human beings.

Whereas traditional economic man is considered as omniscient and able to take into account the consequences of all alternatives, transaction cost economics (TCE) incorporates an understanding about human beings or human costs that include Herbert Simon’s (Nobel Prize, 1978) cognitive assumption of “bounded rationality” (from the little we do know, we make the best decision), and Oliver Williamson’s (Nobel Prize, 2009) behavioral assumption of “opportunism” (suggesting that transactions and organizations benefit from safeguards and the aligning of incentives).

Adding an Assumption about Healthy Human Beings to Economics
The assumption by Simon and Williamson are useful to understanding economic costs.  However, human beings do not only think (cognitive assumption of TCE economics) and act (behavioral assumption of TCE economics), but also feel. The question then becomes what emotion influences the make or buy decision?

Adding Affect: Fear
Based on her understanding of healthy human beings from Dr. Yukio Ishizuka‘s model of human personality,  Nathalie Ishizuka adds a healthy assumption about human affect (fear) to the make or buy decision.  According to Nathalie Ishizuka, the human affect fear implies we are not only “limited cognitively,” but even when we do know the best decision–due to fear–we may not always chose it.

Fear and other Economic Theories
Nathalie Ishizuka hopes that the assumption fear will be included in transaction cost economics (in Ishizuka’s viewpoint one of the most formidable paradigms in economics and organization).  She also follows with interest the work of Agency Theory by Michael Jensen.  While important work on fear in small decisions (gambling) in economics is notable, Ishizuka is not talking about risk aversion, but about how fear can lead us not to act optimally even when we know what is best for us. It is this type of fear that can place the economic system at risk.  In the future Nathalie Ishizuka wishes to work on how fear varies, and identifying the factors that are responsible for this variation.

The ‘Psychological’ Make or Buy Decision,
Ishizuka, Nathalie, “The Psychological Make or Buy Decision: Psychology and Transaction Cost Economics,” paper presented at the Academy of Management, Boston, August 1997.

ABSTRACT
Transaction cost economics is integrated with cognitive and affective aspects of ownership and contract.  Integrating these distinct streams of literature leads to a more comprehensive view of the “make or buy” decision, describing not only how individuals behave, but also how they think and feel within alternative exchange relationships.

EXCERPT

TRANSACTION COSTS ANALYTICAL ASSUMPTIONS
Transaction costs or the “costs of running the economic system” (Arrow, 1969: 48) are ultimately about human costs.  Once one recognizes that firms are “legal fictions” that serve as a nexus of “contracting relationships among individuals,” (Jensen & Meckling, 1976: 311) then one must admit that transaction costs or agency costs are neither experienced by the market nor the firm in the abstract, but by individuals. The “friction in physical systems“  (Williamson, 1985: 19) that economists have baptized transaction costs are the equivalent of friction or stress created in the interaction of human beings with each other, with their environment and within themselves.  In this sense, agency costs and transaction costs are very much the same.   In a like manner, agency costs can be thought of as the equivalent of friction in “any situation involving cooperative effort by two or more people,” (Jensen and Meckling, 1976: 309) and can exist in the form of conflicts with oneself (Thaler and Shefrin, 1981).

Coase’s insights on individuals are consistent with this point.  Coase tells us that the choice of markets versus firms to organize transactions is the result of, “man as he is, acting within the constraints imposed by real institutions” (Coase, 1984: 231).  Williamson also concurs attributing transaction costs to “behavioral assumptions” of “bounded rationality” and “opportunism.” Although Williamson lumps these assumptions of “bounded rationality” and “opportunism” together as “behavioral assumptions,” or assumptions about how individuals act, bounded rationality is really a cognitive assumption or theory about the limits of the thought process.  Opportunism, on the other hand, is a behavioral assumption about the way individuals behave.

Bounded Rationally: The Cognitive Assumption of Transaction Cost Analysis
The idea of bounded rationality comes from Simon, who argued that human beings are “intendedly rational, but only limitedly so” (Simon, 1976: xxviii).   Whereas traditional economic man is considered as omniscient and able to take into account the consequences, probabilities and utilities of all alternatives, Simon argued that individuals are “limited in knowledge, foresight, skill and time” (Simon, 1957: 199).  The cognitive abilities of individuals are “bounded” in that they can only take in and make sense of a limited amount of information.  In terms of transaction cost analysis, cognitive limits have important implications for planning, adopting and monitoring exchange relationships.  To the extent that internalization can serve to reduce uncertainty and complexity (Williamson, 1975), one can successfully reduce transaction costs and economize on bounded rationality (Chiles and McMackin, 1996) .

Opportunism: The Behavioral Assumption of Transaction Cost Analysis
Opportunism is the behavioral attribute that underlies transaction cost analysis.  According to Williamson, opportunism is not just self-interested behavior, but  “self-interest seeking with guile“  (Williamson, 1985: 47).   Opportunism includes not only “subtle forms of deceit,” such as “incomplete or distorted disclosure of information, especially to calculated efforts to mislead, distort, disguise, obfuscate, or otherwise confuse,” but also overt “lying, stealing, and cheating” (Williamson, 1985: 47).   This assumption about human beings is important because it suggests that transactions and organizations would benefit from safeguards and the aligning of incentives(Williamson, 1985: 48).   Ghoshal and Moran (1996) have argued that this behavioral assumption of opportunism is an overly pessimistic view of human nature.  They seem to have interpreted Williamson’s statement to mean that organizations exist solely because of their ability to attenuate opportunism through hierarchical control.   This is not Williamson’s central point.  Williamson is not assuming that all individuals act opportunistically, rather that without evidence to the contrary, the assumption of opportunism is reasonable.  Naturally, “rules” or hierarchical organization can at times serve to limit opportunism, however, if humans have the capacity to be opportunistic then opportunism will continue to exist both in the market and within the firm.  Williamson’s point then is not to remedy market failure with “benign forms of organization,” but rather to stress the importance of a comparative approach (Williamson, 1993a: 102). Ultimately, the existence and extent of opportunistic behavior by individuals and the degree to which it impacts internalization (Hill, 1990) is an empirical issue.

Affect:  The Missing Assumption in Transaction Cost Analysis
Adherents to the transaction cost view accept the assumptions of bounded rationality and opportunism as descriptions of the way human beings think and act in make or buy decisions.  These simple assumptions distinguish transaction cost economics from classical economics, which does not recognize the “psychological make-up” of individuals. Classical economics limits itself to the constraints that are external to the individual and to the organization, such as technology and the interests of individuals who depart from one’s own (Simon, 1957: 199).  By embracing more realistic cognitive and behavioral assumptions about individuals, transaction cost economics provides strategic management with a perspective that connects the individual actor with its larger institutional structure.

What remains surprising, however, is that transaction cost economics has yet to make explicit affective assumptions about human actors that may influence the make or buy decision.  Just as Simon and Williamson made assumptions about the cognitive and behavioral attributes of humans, a similar assumption should be made explicit regarding the affective capacities of individuals. While Williamson’s view on this issue has yet to be determined, Simon, himself, suggests that any mature social science “will have to come to accommodate both intellect and affect” (1957: 200).

End Note by Ishizuka:
“As they say in academia, all errors are mine.  I do believe Oliver Williamson, given his openness and interdisciplinary scope will one day incorporate fear into TCE and that this will have fundamental implications on understanding the current financial crisis and lessening the impact of future ones.  His framework is important because it is an integrated paradigm in economic organization.  For fear to be included in such a paradigm, however, it is my turn to work, to get Dr. Yukio Ishizuka’s theory and understanding of fear known and accepted.  In the future, I would like to work on how fear varies, and identify the factors that are responsible for this variation.”

— Nathalie Ishizuka

The paper was accepted for presentation at the Academy of Management, Boston, August 1997.  To ask that the full article or parts be included in a journal or book, please contact the author through the Lifetrack Contact Form on this site.

If you have a syllabus with assumptions about healthy human beings applied to organizations, economics, negotiation, political science or other fields please contact Nathalie Ishizuka through the Positive Mental Health Foundation contact form.  She is interested in collecting these for future use and sharing.

Copyright © 1997 Nathalie Ishizuka

For More on Healthy Individuals and applications to Organizations, Nations, and International Behavior See:

Organizations

Nations

Japan

Negotiation

Crisis Management & Diplomacy

Economic Integration

War, Crisis & Health

International Affairs

Econometric Modeling

Political Science

A Need for Models of Healthy Human Beings

Organizational and International behavior should be based on assumptions about healthy human beings.  Read section a Science of Health (life way), Criteria for Health Models (science of happiness), Happiness Defined? Quantified?  (cycle of life),  Happier? (fear of the unknown),  Why Positive Mental Health Works (objective subjective), and Insights (life purpose).

Visit http://www.PositiveMentalHealthFoundation.com to understand individuals at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

Ready Made Descriptions to Link to Organizational and International Behavior:

Individual Health, Organizational Health, National Health
Applications about healthy human beings to economics, international affairs, nations, organizational behavior.  A new organizational behavior concept or simply a new field of international behavior based on healthy human beings?

Models of the Nation State that interact with the Individual and Organizational Models can be useful for analyzing different levels of analysis.

Selected Readings and Lectures:

Ishizuka, Nathalie.  “A Trinitarian Model of War and Peace,” Working Paper submitted to Herbert Kelman for his class, Social-Psychological Approaches to International Conflict, Harvard University.

Ishizuka, Y., and Ishizuka N. ” ‘Fear of Closeness’ Underlies Interpersonal as Well as International Conflicts,” Proceedings of World Congress of Psychiatry, Spain, 1996.

“The U.S.-Japan Relationship from a Psychological Perspective” A panel on the U.S. – Japan Relationship, with Prof. Paul R. Krugman and others, Tufts University, Medford, MA (45 minutes)

Ishizuka, Yukio.  “The Japanese Mind: Its Implications for Corporations and Nations”The Institute for Global Business Strategy, Distinguished Lecture Series, Pace University, New York, November 12,1991 (3 hours)

Ishizuka, Yukio.  “The Japanese Mind: Its Implications for the U.S.-Japan Relationship”AT&T Global Business Symposium, with Mr. Clyde Prestowitz and others, Bedminster, NJ, December 12,1991 (1.5 hours)

Copyright © 2010 Lifetrack Corporation

A Need for Models based on Healthy Human Beings

Organizational and International behavior should be based on assumptions about healthy human beings.  Read section a Science of Health (life way), Criteria for Health Models (science of happiness), Happiness Defined? Quantified?  (cycle of life),  Happier? (fear of the unknown),  Why Positive Mental Health Works (objective subjective), and Insights (life purpose).

Visit the Positive Mental Health Foundation to support a study of human beings at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

Ready Made Descriptions to Link to Organizational and International Behavior:

Individual Health, Organizational Health, National Health
Applications about healthy human beings to economics, international affairs, nations, organizational behavior.  A new organizational behavior concept or simply a new field of international behavior based on healthy human beings?

Behind Science, Simple Assumptions about the Nature of Human Beings

Behind every social science are some fundamental and simple assumptions about the nature of human beings and human personality.  When models of science incorporate assumptions about humans in our optimal most creative form, we can understand better what we are truly capable of, as well as our limits.  Models about healthy human beings can provide new insights into our organizations, and international affairs, forming not only a new individual science, but new organizational models, and a more comprehensive science of international behavior.

All Models of Man are Working Models in Progress

Some of the work on this site applies a healthy assumption about human beings to other fields (for example to the work of the 2009 Nobel Laureate in Economics).  Other work attempts to bring to life conceptual models that can be used as a level of analysis (individual, organizational, national or international).  At the core of such models are Lifetrack assumptions about healthy human beings.

Naturally, human beings are not organizations or nations.  However, having models that can interact as systems allows us to understand how each unit of analysis influences and impacts the whole.

• Organizations
• Nations
• Japan
• Economics
• Negotiation
• Crisis Management & Diplomacy
• Economic Integration
• War, Crisis & Health
• International Affairs
• Econometric Modeling
• Political Science

New Models Based on an Individual Model of Health

In the future, we would enjoy working on such models and applications further, but now our priority is to get one individual model of health and personality known and used on a wider scale by the general public.

Manage with an Understanding of Healthy Human Beings

We encourage politicians, CEOs, and scientists, to think about the assumptions about the nature of man or human personality that underlie a healthy nation, organization or any field of science.

We encourage academics to build models based on an understanding of healthy human beings or models of human personality that can explain man at his best, most creative form as well as in distress. These models should encompass our potential and our limits.

Enjoy Yourself, Join Us

Please join us by opting-in on the newsletter on the website.

Apply assumptions about healthy human beings to your firm, to science, to organizations, nations or international affairs.  If you have a syllabus or other interesting links on the study of healthy human beings and applications to sciences, send it to Nathalie Ishizuka through the contact page. She will find a means to share some of these links, works, or articles on healthy human beings.

Copyright © 2010 Lifetrack Corporation

A Need for Models Based on Healthy Human Beings

Organizational and International behavior should be based on assumptions about healthy human beings.  Read section a Science of Health (life way), Criteria for Health Models (science of happiness), Happiness Defined? Quantified?  (cycle of life),  Happier? (fear of the unknown),  Why Positive Mental Health Works (objective subjective), and Insights (life purpose).

Visit the Positive Mental Health Foundation to support a study of human beings at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

Ready Made Descriptions to Link to this Page:

Individual Health, Organizational Health, National Health
Applications about healthy human beings to economics, international affairs, nations, organizational behavior.  A new organizational behavior concept or simply a new field of international behavior based on healthy human beings?

http://positivementalhealthfoundation.com/happiness-and-health/international-behavior/