(a slightly abbreviated version of this blog post is downloadable as both a Word doc & a PDF file)  

"If you want others to be happy, practise compassion.  If you want to be happy, practise compassion"  Dalai Lama 

Yesterday, Catero and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary with a ceilidh.  This is Auld Lang Syne at the end of the party.  I'm the loudmouth (on one glass of wine), with dear Catero on my left (to the right in the picture).  Laura, precious stepdaughter, is three places to my left and Kieran, precious son, only half shown four places to my right.  Celebration and gratitude ... and very relevant to this month's blog post themes of relationships and social networks.

 "No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."  John Donne

I blogged yesterday about the second full day of this "5th European conference on positive psychology".  So how was the last morning of the conference?  In order to catch my flight I only went in for the final two plenary presentations and then left at the coffee break - a pity, but I already have plenty new to chew over from this conference and I don't think I was missing anything too crucial - for the kind of work - I do by coming away a little early. 

I read a lot of research.  When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - EndNote - which currently contains over 14,500 abstracts. 

In yesterday's post "Targeting behavioural activation better both for decreasing depression and increasing wellbeing (first post)", I suggested that there are at least three (and probably many more) interesting ways that could make behavioural activation (BA) both more targeted and potentially more effective.  I wrote about aiming BA particularly to "problem solve" triggering factors (especially interpersonal ones) that seemed to have contributed to deterioration in a subject's psychological state.  I also mentioned the recent Mazzuchelli et al paper "Behavioral activation interventions for well-being: a meta-analysis"  showing how helpful BA can also be at building wellbeing as well as treating depression.