Gratitude

Torah Sources

• Shabtai, D. G., Pirutinsky, S., & Rosmarin, D. H. (2015). Integrating Judaism into cognitive behavioral therapy. In Applied Jewish Values in Social Sciences and Psychology (pp. 133–149). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21933-2_7 p 170-173.
• Schnall, E., Schiffman, M., & Cherniak, A. (2014). Virtues that transcend: Positive psychology in Jewish texts and tradition. In C. Kim-Prieto (Ed.), Cross-cultural advancements in positive psychology: Vol. 9. Religion and spirituality across cultures (p. 21–45). Springer Science + Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8950-9_2 p 28. (PDF)
• Pelcovitz & Pelcovitz (2014), Life in the Balance: Torah Perspectives on Positive Psychology.
• Sacks (2015), The Power of Gratitude (Ekev 5775).

Reference

How We Benefit from Gratitude Gratitude broadens our perspective and builds other positive emotions and attributes within us. According to Robert Emmons (Emmons & Mishra, 2012), a leading researcher in gratitude, research has shown that practicing gratitude can offer eight distinct benefits, including ... [Optimal Benefit, Self Worth & Self Esteem, Coping with Stress, Helping Others, Better Relationships, Fewer Negative Comparisons, Less time for Negatives, Slower Adaptation. Rashid, Tayyab; P. Seligman, Martin. Positive Psychotherapy (p. 82). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Three Good Things

• Described in Parks, A. C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2007). 8-Week Group Positive Psychotherapy (PPT) Manual, p. 11-14.
• Suggested Script for the Clinician Rashid, Tayyab; P. Seligman, Martin. Positive Psychotherapy (p. 83 -87). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition. Has many tips.
  • Link to worksheet - "Gratitude Journal" (2018)
  • In Parks, A. C., & Schueller, S. M. (Eds.). (2014). The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Positive Psychological Interventions. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118315927 p. 361 it suggested that "During week 3, or quit week, participants are asked to specifically focus on good things related to quitting smoking. At this time, therapists encourage participants to think of and include aspects of quitting in the three good things that they write down each day." (In that intervention, the 3 good things exercise is introduce in week 1). [In Rashid & Seligman p 84 he anyway suggests to alternate the style so that it doesn't get boring, "Some clients adapt to writing good things. We adapt to both positive and negatives (Lucas, 2007; Kahneman et al., 2006). Therefore, it is important to keep the gratitude strategy fresh by varying it and by avoiding overuse. The following are strategies to vary expressions of gratitude".]
  • Being grateful to God enhances the psychological benefits of gratitude in accordance with one's level of religious commitment. David H. Rosmarin, Steven Pirutinsky, Adam B. Cohen, Yardana Galler & Elizabeth J. Krumrei (2011) Grateful to God or just plain grateful? A comparison of religious and general gratitude, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 6:5, 389-396, DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2011.596557
  • See also https://www.gratitudetogod.com/.
  • Possibly a way to do it is to ask, "What hishtadlus did you to make this happen?
• Two of the exercises—using signature strengths in a new way and three good things—increased happiness and decreased depressive symptoms for six months. Seligman, M. E. P., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: empirical validation of interventions. The American Psychologist, 60(5), 410–421. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.60.5.410
  • Three good things in life. Participants were asked to write down three things that went well each day and their causes every night for one week. In addition, they were asked to provide a causal explanation for each good thing.
  • Using signature strengths in a new way. Participants were asked to take our inventory of character strengths online at www.authentichappiness.org and to receive individualized feedback about their top five (“signature”) strengths (Peterson et al., 2005a). They were then asked to use one of these top strengths in a new and different way every day for one week.
• Ch. 1 Gratitude Interventions in Parks, A. C., & Schueller, S. M. (Eds.). (2014). The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Positive Psychological Interventions. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118315927
  • ...participants listed weekly up to five things they were grateful for, listed five hassles they encountered, or made downward social comparisons indicating ways in which they were better off than others. The daily gratitude journal-keeping exercise resulted in higher reported levels of the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness, and energy compared to a focus on hassles or a downward social comparison (Emmons & McCullough, 2003, Study 2).
• Video: Three Good Things, Seligman, M explains the exercise. Emphasizes it's 3 things that went well today, and why it went well. Start for a week, usually guys want to continue on their own.
• Asked "What are the three things that went well today, and what was your role in bringing them about" for 2 weeks. Rippstein-Leuenberger, K., Mauthner, O., Bryan Sexton, J., & Schwendimann, R. (2017). A qualitative analysis of the Three Good Things intervention in healthcare workers. BMJ Open, 7(5), e015826. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-015826.

Why it's important

• Happiness involves having gratitude for the past, enjoying the present, and being optimistic about the future. Telling a miserable story about one’s situation creates suffering. Telling oneself a more positive and grateful story increases happiness. SAMHSA. (2015). Whole Health Action Management (WHAM) Peer Support Training Participant Guide. Includes worksheet on page 29 (“Optimism Based on Positive Expectations”)
• "Many individuals with a history of substance use problems may tend to focus on their current circumstances, problems, and difficulties. A preoccupation with the negative aspects of one’s self and life may not only affect mood, but can also contribute to a “glass-half-empty” perspective and to self-defeating behaviors."
• PRACTICING GRATITUDE: Sex addicts have typically used their sexual fantasies and behaviors to numb themselves for so long that they’ve forgotten how to experience emotions—especially uncomfortable ones like anxiety, depression, shame, fear, and the like—in a healthy way. Sometimes, especially early in the recovery process, sex addicts can become overwhelmed by those feelings and lose sight of what is going right in their lives. A great way to combat this is to create a gratitude list. Writing a ten-item gratitude list nearly always counteracts almost any trigger and halts the addictive cycle. For some sex addicts, every gratitude list begins the same way: “I am grateful to be sober at this moment.” A side benefit of gratitude is that it promotes happiness. As my colleague Brené Brown notes in her book, Daring Greatly, gratitude and joy are inextricably linked. After conducting quite literally thousands of in-depth interviews examining the causes and underlying factors of happiness, Dr. Brown found one primary difference between happy people and unhappy people: happy people are grateful for what they have. Period. People who are grateful for what they have tend to focus on their strengths rather than their weaknesses, and they are in general more hopeful, less stressed-out, less likely to wallow in shame and depression, and more likely to recover from an addiction. Weiss, Robert. Sex Addiction 101 (pp. 206-210). Health Communications, Inc.. Kindle Edition. 
• Obviously, the half-dozen tools listed above are hardly the full kit. Journaling, written twelve-step work, ongoing outreach to others in recovery, twelve-step sponsorship (both giving and receiving), reading recovery-related literature, changing old routines, developing healthy hobbies, prayer, meditation, and just plain “thinking it through” are just a few of the hundreds of other tools that sex addicts can use to combat their addictive patterns. Weiss, Robert. Sex Addiction 101 (p. 211). Health Communications, Inc.. Kindle Edition.