Fernando Sarráis Oteo holds a PhD in Medicine and Surgery, as well as a degree in Psychology and is a specialist in Psychiatry, fields in which he has been working intensively for many years as a clinical consultant and university professor. In short, his professional career has given him a deep understanding of our mental mechanisms, and he has dedicated a number of books and publications to sharing this knowledge. The latest of these is Una mente positiva, una felicidad plena (A Positive Mind, Complete Happiness), which he will be presenting in Zaragoza on Friday, October 24, in the auditorium of the Colegio Compañía de María, at an event organized by the Asociación Cantal. But before that, we spoke with Dr. Sarráis to get a preview of some of the ideas he will be discussing in depth next Friday.
You are coming to Zaragoza to present your book: Una mente positiva, una felicidad plena(A Positive Mind, Complete Happiness). In it, you follow the precepts of Positive Psychology. Please tell us what that is.
In 1998, Martin Seligman, president of the American Psychological Association, and some of his colleagues founded a new branch of psychology, positive psychology, with the aim of spreading the positive qualities of human beings, to give 21st-century citizens a guide to living happily. In 27 years, they have managed to spread the importance of empathy, assertiveness, resilience, emotional intelligence, creativity, and other positive qualities that are classified as personal strengths throughout the world. In essence, it is about encouraging people to think, perceive, remember, and imagine positive things in order to feel positive, that is, with peace and joy.
A very interesting idea is that happiness, or the lack thereof, is a consequence of each person’s attitude towards life, right? Circumstances, what happens to us and what surrounds us, are important, but how we deal with them is even more so. Is that right?
Many people are convinced that happiness comes from outside oneself, from the outside world, in the form of valuable things, money, prestige, success, power, leisure activities, travel, friends, lovers, free time, etc. My professional experience allows me to affirm that the source of happiness lies within oneself. It has to do with being at peace and content with oneself, having self-control, feeling free and autonomous, being who one wants to be and doing what one believes one must do, knowing what interests and pleases one. For this reason, it is important to know oneself deeply in order to know how to manage oneself well, with the aim of living in such a way as to be happy today, now, and tomorrow. In this way, we are immunized against the problems and sufferings of life, which allows us to quickly recover our inner well-being when we suffer, which positive psychology calls resilience.
“The source of happiness is within oneself; it has to do with being at peace and content with oneself, having self-control, feeling free and autonomous, being who one wants to be, and doing what one believes one must do.”
I understand that positivity, and therefore our happiness, has personal effects, but does it also have social effects?
The contagious effect of emotions is well known. People radiate their emotions to others, like the ripples produced by a pebble falling on the surface of a lake. Cheerful and serene people bring joy and peace to those around them, while fearful, angry, and melancholic people bring fear and sadness to those around them. The latter are now referred to as toxic people. It is often said that “no one gives what they do not have, nor teaches what they do not know”; that is why positive people, that is, those with positive emotions of peace and joy, think and act positively and spread positivity. They are models of positive living for others. While negative emotions hinder and block, positive emotions stimulate and provide extra energy to the will to do the things that need to be done and that produce psychological well-being.
Broadly speaking and in your personal opinion, how positive is the attitude of our younger generation?
The excessive protectionism and permissiveness of today’s education is making it difficult for young people to be resilient, that is, to assimilate and overcome the suffering that comes with aspiring to valuable goals that produce deep satisfaction in personal life. This education is one of the reasons for the increase in mental illness, harmful substance use, addiction, violence, consumerism, and suicide among young people. Another cause of the spread of negative attitudes among young people is the generalization of complaints, lamentations, and victimhood.
And what are the causes of this?
Apart from what has been said about education, I would add the Western hedonistic culture, which proposes feeling good as the primary goal in life, that is, having pleasant feelings, regardless of what is good, or rather, affirming that bad behaviors are good if they make you feel good: overeating or eating junk food, drug use, casual and experimental sex, continuous body transformations, and the acquisition of valuable material objects. In this way, happiness is equated with emotional well-being, which is fleeting and drives repetition, ending in addiction that robs us of freedom, a necessary quality, along with doing good, to be truly happy.
“Cheerful and serene people bring joy and peace to those around them, while fearful, angry, and melancholic people bring fear and sadness to those around them.”
Will children and adolescents be the focus of your talk in Zaragoza?
The real focus will be on parents and educators, who are responsible for teaching children and adolescents, through their words and example, to live positively, to know the difference between feeling good and being happy, and what it means to have a positive, mature, balanced, healthy, and happy personality.
In addition to A Positive Mind, Full Happiness, you have many books to your credit. Specifically, those titled Personality and the next one you published, Temperament, Character, and Positivity, already anticipate some of the issues that define your latest work, don’t they?
Seeing so many people suffer in my practice, I have realized that the root of so much suffering has to do with a negative way of being: envious, jealous, resentful, self-conscious, obsessive, perfectionist, sensitive, pessimistic, hypochondriac, greedy, etc. Therefore, helping people to be positive is the way to prevent much suffering and mental illness, and it facilitates achieving high levels of happiness. A harmonious and balanced personality, in which reason, will, and affectivity work together as a team, allows us to successfully develop and perform the roles we must play in our professional, social, and family lives, which brings great personal satisfaction to those involved and to others.
Other titles of yours, such as Understanding Affectivity and 30 Tips for a Happy Life, emphasize the importance of seeking happiness. Tell us about them.
The education of personality, which is the integration of temperament and character, is directly related to the education of affectivity. To achieve a mature personality, it is necessary to have voluntary control over emotions and feelings, so that they are not so intense that they prevent us from functioning according to reason, which is the GPS that marks the path to happiness, and acting freely, which is a quality of the will. To control affectivity and keep it positive, it is necessary to understand how it works. This means knowing the names of the feelings experienced at any given moment and their intensity, since fear is not the same as panic, anger is not the same as rage, and sadness is not the same as depression. It also means knowing the causes and consequences of these feelings.
“The excessive protectionism and permissiveness of today’s education is making it difficult for young people to be resilient, that is, to assimilate and overcome the suffering that comes with aspiring to valuable goals that produce deep satisfaction in personal life.”
Since your talk in Zaragoza is organized by the Cantal Association, we would also like to know something about your book Familia en armonía.
We all know the vital importance of living in a happy family, that is, where all members live in peace and joy, which is the right environment for harmonious, mature, and healthy personalities to develop. This book describes the main characteristics of a family in which there is harmony and conflicts, which are wars that produce victims, are avoided.
Finally, you are surely working on a new project. Can you tell us anything about your next work?
The book I have started writing is titled Mental Health (20 Brief Tips), in which I briefly and easily explain the most effective tips to help my patients regain their psychological well-being.
