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The Jubilation Procedures

by James Geiwitz Ph.D.

256 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #99-0040; ISBN 1-55212-289-1; US$20.50, C$23.95, EUR17.00, £12.00

The Jubilation Procedures describes recent scientific research on joy and happiness that makes it possible to construct step-by-step procedures for living a life of joy, with no negative emotions.

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about the book      about the author      table of contents      review by Prof. Michael Bond      catalogue info

About the Book The Jubilation Procedures describes recent scientific research on joy and happiness that makes it possible to construct step-by-step procedures for living a life of joy, with no negative emotions. That is, if you follow these simple instructions, you will experience days of happiness and contentment peppered with frequent occasions of intense joy. You will never again experience depression, anxiety, worry, guilt, or jealousy. Additional benefits include a three-fold increase in productivity and creativity (higher earnings at work); an astounding increase in social attractiveness; parenting skills to raise happy and creative children; and, more abstractly, knowledge of how to live a life of virtue - the only route to joy. After a brief introductory chapter describing the origins of the Jubilation Procedures, we plunge right into the three procedures. Each step is described and explained in detail, with just enough information to perform the steps efficiently (task knowledge). The following chapter describes applications of the procedures to daily life, at work, at home, at school. Next, we turn to techniques for handling negative emotions - in most cases, eliminating them completely. No more depression, no more anxiety! Finally, we review the scientific research and theories, and combine them into a general theory of joy that explains why the Jubilation Procedures work. The theories and research are not required for the performance of the procedures, but it is a fascinating story, with many surprises. And the theoretical knowledge will help t he reader apply the procedures in novel situations. In the last chapter, we establish the Jubilation Forum, a newsletter and an interactive web site, for readers to ask questions, make comments, and report results. A note from the author: "C.S. Lewis wrote a book entitled Surprised by Joy, a spiritual autobiography and a philosophical argument for the existence of God and Heaven. I have often though that Lewis's title fits my book as well. I began my studies of joy and happiness (20 years ago) with serious misconceptions and erroneous assumptions, that money could facilitate happiness, for example, or that good health was a prerequisite. I didn't fully understand the difference between pleasure and joy. As a result, I was constantly "surprised by joy," by what philosophers had concluded and by what psychologists had discovered. The most unexpected finding was that joy and happiness are available only to those who live a life of virtue - the only life worth living, according to Socrates. My quest for the Jubilation Procedures thus turned to a search for the behaviors of virtue, that is, how to be virtuous. And the final surprise was that the question of how to live a life of virtue was easier to answer than the original question of how to live a life of joy!" -- James Geiwitz, October 21, 1999.

About the Author James Geiwitz was educated at Saint Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He has taught at the University of Michigan, Stanford University, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. His publications on human motivation and emotion include over 60 articles and reports and 13 books. In recent years, Dr. Geiwitz founded the Canadian Hemp Institute to further the development of the industrial-hemp industry in Canada, where he now resides.

One: Overture and Origins       1

History of the Jubilation Program       3
The Advent of the Jubilation Program       8
Outline of This Book       13

Two: The Jubilation Procedures: How to Enjoy Life       16

Ch. 2A: Jubilation Procedure I:

How to Increase the Rewards in Your Life       17

Training the Skills Required for Jubilation Procedure I       19
How to Make People Do Something Interesting       21

Ch. 2B: Jubilation Procedure II:

How to Become a Kind and Loving Person       31

How to Do It       37

Ch. 2C: Jubilation Procedure I:

How to Create and Appreciate Beauty       40

How to Do It       41
Learn to Create       43
Learn to Appreciate       49

How to Enjoy Potentially Enjoyable Experiences       51
How to Solve Problems       54
Self-Efficacy: The Key to Emotional Control       57
Solutions Therapy       61
Dialectical Joy       63

Three: Enjoying Life: Using the Jubilation Procedures in the Real World       66

The Jubilation Procedures: A Brief Review       67
Using the Jubilation Procedures at Work, School, and Home       70

Enjoying Your Work       70

Create Beauty       71
Make It Challenging       71
The Social Aspects of Work       73
Love Your Coworkers       76

JP-II in Business: Dale Carnegie and Paddi Lund       78

Solving Problems       82
The Social Aspects of Education       90
Love Your Fellow Students       92

Enjoy Your Family and Your Self       93

Learn a Skill       93
Create a Jubilant Personal Life       95
Sadness and Badness       97
Children       101
Friends       104
Self       105

Four: The Anacapa Techniques: How to Avoid Negative Emotions       107

The Anacapa Techniques 109     

Anacapa Technique #1: Counterconditioning       109
Anacapa Technique #2: Rational Control       110
Anacapa Technique #3: Cognitive Control       113
Anacapa Technique #4: Miscellaneous Methods to Control Your Thoughts       116
Anacapa Technique #5: How to Relax (Meditation and Biofeedback)       119
Anacapa Technique #6: Sleep       122
Anacapa Technique #7: Turn Off the Stimulus       124
Anacapa Technique #8: Take drugs.       125

The Best Techniques for the Worst Problems       127
Al Bandura and the Dalai Lama       128

Five: The Roots of Joy       131

Theories of Joy       132

Russell on Happiness       132

The Causes of Unhappiness       132
The Causes of Happiness       134

Schutz on Joy      136
Csikszentmihalyi on Flow       138

Research on Joy       144

Csikszentmihalyi's Interviews       145
Wholey's Interviews       146

Relations with People       147
Using Ourselves Well       149
Personal Growth and Self-Esteem       149

Geiwitz's Survey       150

The Causes of Joy       152

Psychological Studies       154

When Does Joy Abound?       154
Social Factors       156
The Development of Joy in Children       158
Honesty and Focus       162

Optimism and Self-Efficacy       163

Optimism and Pessimism       163
Self-Efficacy and Joy       167
Mastering the Jubilation Procedures       171

Joy and Productivity       173

Emotional Jubilance       174
Pessimism is Sometimes Better than Optimism       175
Happiness and Performance       177
Flexible Jubilance       179

Six: The General Theory of Joy       182

What is Joy?       182

Joy and Happiness       184
A Thing of Beauty is a Joy For Ever       185
The Worst Sin Passion Can Commit Is To Be Joyless       186
Joy Cometh in the Morning       189

Joy in the Virtuous Life       190

A Theory of Joy       191

Joy as a Reward       192
The Roots of Joy       194

Creation and Appreciation of Beauty       195
Loving Relationships       198

Dialectical Joy       202

Dialectical Philosophy       202
Dialectical Psychology       205
Art as a Dialectical Process       209
Joy as a Dialectical Process       211
She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not...       214
Joy is Based on Sex       215
The Jubilation Procedures as Dialectical Processes       218

Seven: Share Your Joy: An Invitation to the Jubilation Forum       220

The Jubilation Newsletter       221
The Jubilation Web Page and The Jubilation Forum       223
Preliminary Contacts       225

Appendix: The Jubilation Survey       232
Bibliography       235
Index       240

The symmetry of delight: A review of "The Jubilation Procedures"

This review was submitted by Mike Bond, president of the International Association for Crosscultural Psychology

Let's have some fun! Yes, I know of course we are the only animal species that knows it will die. Ernest Becker developed a neo-analytic theory around this terrifying awareness, claiming that each of us crafted our own Oedipal project in the teeth of our doom, thereby dispelling the beast from conscious awareness. Jim Geiwitz is a scientist by bent of mind and a psychologist by discipline. One of his projects over the last few years has been to unweave the rainbow of joy to give us all the opportunity to know how to rev up the delight possible in our daily rounds. He does this by extracting, organizing and integrating a wealth of findings culled from the scientific literature in psychology about joy and how to build it. He is specific about the steps one can choose to take in living a life of joy. One can read such popular psychology with the rare confidence that his prescriptions are based on a scholarly appreciation of the latest in research from Bandura to Myers, with acute observations from Aristotle to the Dalai Lama added for better measure.

Geiwitz is easy to read -- his prose is simple, humorous, clear, and engaging. How does he write so effortlessly about complex topics that other scientists manage to obfuscate so? His discussion on the heritability of happiness is a marvel; he manages to explain why happiness is still controllable despite its misleadingly high coefficient of heritability (.80) I've taught introductory psychology for over 20 years and am going to use his discussion of this thorny issue in my next lecture on environmental influences on personality. Geiwitz circulated various chapters to many readers, including some of those whose work he discusses, so perhaps one should not marvel at his sparkling prose. Instead, take the lesson for our own writing and invite critical feedback from interested others.

Geiwitz invites your inputs: he has put together a Jubilation Newsletter and plans a web page to stimulate discussion and exchange. I for one would like to ask him about intractable pain, and how that constricts the window of possibilities for experiencing joy. Some questions asked by earlier readers are addressed by Geiwitz in the book, so this offering promises to generate further discovery and refinement of the insights already presented in this useful book.

Do yourself a favor -- put this neat book into your hands, open it up, and chance yourself to joy. Re-weave your own rainbow!

-- Michael Bond, Chinese University of Hong Kong

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