The Science of Simple Living Overview

In 2004, Simple Living America co-sponsored a groundbreaking conference for mental health professionals at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior called, “Mental Health and Simple Living.”  In follow-up work with psychiatrists Dr. Roderic Gorney of Ashley Montagu Institute and Dr. Peter C. Whybrow, author in 2005 of American Mania: When More Is Not Enough, the following academic definition of simple living was broadly framed for diverse perspectives:

Simple Living is a self-endorsed pattern of activities, possessions and values that is
substantially free of detractions from fulfillment and sufficiency,
fostered by conducive social policies.

In 2006, Simple Living America embarked upon a research study with Dr. Kirk Warren Brown and his team at Virginia Commonwealth University’s psychology department to scientifically construct the first simple living measurement scale for the general public, based upon this working definition.  The popular survey is now in the hands of Pollux Group, Inc. to collect data from the population-at-large.  Interest and participation in voluntary simplicity is currently estimated conservatively at ten percent of the U.S. population, adding thousands of new readers around the country each month as the global financial upheavals take place and as the subject becomes broadly accessible to the mainstream.

Interest in the simplicity field among mental health professionals in particular has continued to increase, with the 2007 Kaiser Behavioral Health Symposium in Los Angeles presenting sessions about this antidote to the stressful consequences of consumer-driven life.  It featured Dr. Peter C. Whybrow, Dr. Yukio Okano, and Carol Holst (see report below).  In 2008, all of this activity dovetailed with the distribution of SLA information through Monitor on Psychology and the development of a monthly speakers program on "Our Mental Health in the Culture of Consumption," launching in 2009.

Throughout it all, Simple Living America is striving to bring a compelling lay version of the broad definition to the mainstream with the phrase the satisfaction of enough – what fulfillment and sufficiency boil down to.   Our unique book, GET SATISFIED: How Twenty People Like You Found the Satisfaction of Enough, spans the country and features a Foreword by Dr. Peter C. Whybrow.

Kaiser Permanente 2007 Symposium Cheers Simple Living

With its vast focus on preventive care, Kaiser Permanente took steps at its 2007 Behavioral Health Symposium toward including Simple Living and Get Satisfied components in its services.  One-hundred seventy-five physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, and mental health professionals attended the accredited event on October 26 in the ballroom of the Pacific Palms Conference Center in Industry, CA.  With 32% of the U.S. population reporting that they feel anxious and depressed most of the time, the healing connection between the “Addictive Mania of Consumerism” and The Satisfaction of Enough was widely discussed and enthusiastically supported.

Dr. Yukio Okano, the Kaiser psychologist who spearheaded and largely organized our sessions, opened with an introductory overview, including dangers of materialism that underlie much psychopathology, positive contributions of voluntary simplicity, Tim Kasser’s studies of materialism, Martin Seligman’s positive psychology/authentic happiness work, and Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  Carol Holst, co-director of Simple Living America, covered the overall development of the Simple Living and Take Back Your Time fields, including the significant health and societal benefits.  Dr. Peter C. Whybrow, director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and author of American Mania: When More Is Not Enough, mesmerized participants with the sweep of his explanations and recommendations for our Age of Anxiety, including “why we need the simplicity movement.”


Kaiser Permanente 2007 Behavioral Health Symposium
Left to right:  Dr. Peter C. Whybrow, Carol Holst and
Dr. Yukio Okano     (Photo credit: Madelaine Okano)
 

Get Satisfied - A Promise Whose Time Has Arrived
By Michael Beck

Simple Living America has come of age with the ‘Get Satisfied’ campaign and book launch. This natural appeal to the ‘satisfaction of enough’ moves us to the brink of major positioning to help heal our frazzled society of its runaway consumerism.

Actually, we offer a twofer. First we demonstrate how it’s a joy to relinquish consumerism through an embrace of satisfaction, in the process enticing people out of the rat race into a saner, more civil and peaceful society, built one community at a time. Second we hold out a major new solution to the overconsumption dilemma that threatens our planet and Mother Nature, upon whose health we depend for survival.

Bringing us to this cusp is a powerful vehicle by which we plan to promote the first of the above dynamics and then segue into the second, with mutual synergy as the end result.

This vehicle is the vitality of the mental health field. We first gained traction here at a 2004 conference at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior; subsequently, recognition of our issue as a mental health tool has grown markedly. A series of workshops at Kaiser Permanente HMO most recently culminated with Kaiser’s 2007 Behavioral Health Symposium in Los Angeles that featured a session on Simple Living and Get Satisfied. Meanwhile, in 2005 eminent neuroscientist Dr. Peter C. Whybrow authored American Mania: When More Is Not Enough (W.W. Norton), and in 2006 Virginia Commonwealth University’s psychology department co-launched the first scientific measurement study of simple living for the general public.

The fit between mental health and SLA – with ‘Get Satisfied’ as the linchpin – is a natural. Think of what simple living promotes: less care and feeding of stuff but more family, friends, and community. Now look at the waves of dissatisfaction sweeping though America from a sea of overwork, time famine, maxed-out indebtedness, and gnawing anxiety. Mental health practitioners hold out an array of effective palliatives for the resulting psychic wreckage. But we offer an antidote, one that fits the gold standard of the field: a methodology for looking within ourselves, rather than outside, for satisfaction.

The implications of this for the ecology are enormous. The environmental movement’s standard approach to the public mostly hammers on the need to take action for the good of the planet, often underscored by a litany of the ways we’re trashing it beyond redemption. Though this message resonates with the choir, it unfortunately tends to leave the public subconsciously guilty and defensive. And this has allowed the polluting industries’ think-tanks to successfully reframe that message as an ‘environmental scold,’ which has in turn enabled much of the public to dismiss it.

Enter Simple Living America and ‘Get Satisfied’ with a subtle new approach to our consumption dilemma in particular and the environmental crisis in general. The time is ripe. We’re witnessing a growing fad for green products – a feel-good approach rather than a scold; the simplicity movement is demonstrating the self-interest in trading stuff for value and free time; and outreach such as our own Wanda Urbanska and the Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska TV series demonstrates the joy of community over materialism.

The simple living movement is heading in the right direction, but that has not yet translated into mainstream acceptance. We believe the mental health strategy could just change that. Not only is this field a big player in America’s fastest-growing sector – the health industry, it has major links to popular culture in areas such as self-help and personal growth. Significantly, my local bookstore carries Get Satisfied in its ‘Inspiration’ section.

Here’s a possible missing link to help environmentalists more effectively reach out to the public through its self interest. By stressing personal advantage and the authority of the health field, Simple Living America can promote a ‘satisfaction’ movement full of

• Peace of mind
• Time to relax and play
• Enjoyment of family and friends
• Space without clutter

• Financial solvency
• Environmental bragging rights