
Flow : the psychology of optimal experience
Title:
Flow : the psychology of optimal experience
Author:
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly.
ISBN:
9780061339202
Personal Author:
Edition:
1st Harper Perennial Modern Classics ed.
Publication Information:
New York : Harper Perennial, 2008, c1990.
Physical Description:
xii, 303, 16 p. ; 21cm.
Series:
Harper Perennial modern classics
General Note:
Includes reader's guide.
Contents:
Happiness revisited -- The roots of discontent -- The shields of culture -- Reclaiming experience -- Paths of liberation -- The anatomy of consciousness -- The limits of consciousness -- Attention as psychic energy -- Enter the self -- Disorder in consciousness : psychic entropy -- Order in consciousness : flow -- Complexity and the growth of the self -- Enjoyment and the quality of life -- Pleasure and enjoyment -- The elements of enjoyment -- The autotelic experience -- The conditions of flow -- Flow activities -- Flow and culture -- The autotelic personality -- The people of flow -- The body in flow -- Higher, faster, stronger -- The joys of movement -- Sex as flow -- The ultimate control : yoga and the martial arts -- Flow through the senses : the joys of seeing -- The flow of music -- The joys of tasting -- The flow of thought -- The mother of science -- The rules of the games of the mind -- The play of words -- Befriending Clio -- The delights of science -- Loving wisdom -- Amateurs and professionals -- The challenge of lifelong learning -- Work as flow -- Autotelic workers -- Autotelic jobs -- The paradox of work -- The waste of free time -- Enjoying solitude and other people -- The conflict between being alone and being with others -- The pain of loneliness -- Taming solitude -- Flow and the family -- Enjoying friends -- The wider community -- Cheating chaos -- Tragedies transformed -- Coping with stress -- The power of dissipative structures -- The autotelic self : a summary -- The making of meaning -- What meaning means -- Cultivating purpose -- Forging resolve -- Recovering harmony -- The unification of meaning in life themes.
Abstract:
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's famous investigations of "optimal experience" have revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called flow. During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life. In this new edition of his groundbreaking classic work, Csikszentmihalyi demonstrates the ways this positive state can be controlled, not just left to chance. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience teaches how, by ordering the information that enters our consciousness, we can discover true happiness and greatly improve the quality of our lives.