For many of us who came through the MAPP program, the pull of Dr. Isaac Prilleltensky’s work was immediate. He gave us the word mattering, but it was not only the power of his ideas that drew us to him. It was the conviction and humility with which he delivered them, the questions he asked, his clever use of humor, and the unmistakable sense that his scholarship reflected how he actually lived.
Read MoreThere’s a peculiar kind of panic that arrives in adulthood when life stops making sense in the neat, linear way we were promised it would. You know the feeling. Your boss retires. Your industry shifts. Your marriage changes. Your children leave home. You lose your job. Or perhaps nothing catastrophic happens at all. You simply wake up one Tuesday morning, stare into your coffee, and realize the life you carefully built no longer fits.
If that’s you, you are probably not sitting on a swing smiling at—who is she smiling at?—while you journal your dreams for the next phase of your life. And the idea of play feels as useful as being told to "follow your passion" by someone with a trust fund.
Read MoreAfter a recent Zoom workshop featuring several MAPPsters, that is, alumni of Penn’s Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) program, I was asked to write this piece due to my being an addiction counselor and my “strengths of humor and playfulness.” I quickly said yes, a habit I’m trying to break, because it felt good to be asked. I briefly regretted saying yes when the guidelines were sent because they stipulated APA citations and references, which made me wish I had a pricing structure that said I’ll write anything for free unless it requires APA—in which case I charge $250,000.
Read MoreWhen we think about play, many of us may think of childhood—of running around a playground, of a backyard sprinkler in the summertime, of toy trains and made-up stories of adventure. Few of us may even consider play’s pertinence in adulthood, but research indicates that play is not just a hallmark of childhood. It’s a necessity for well-being throughout our lives.
Read MoreWestern culture has been running a masterclass in romantic passivity for roughly five centuries. The idiom ‘falling in love’ is charming, ancient, and almost certainly making you worse at it. It traces its passive roots to at least the sixteenth century, though the underlying logic is considerably older. Medieval Europeans were helplessly fatalistic about most things—plagues, harvests, the general capriciousness of God, and love was no exception. Fortune's Wheel, that great spinning metaphor borrowed cheerfully from the Roman goddess Fortuna, captured the essential worldview: You do not steer; you are turned. You do not choose your position on the wheel; you simply hold on and hope the spin is kind. Love, in this cosmology, was something that happened to you in the same category as the weather, taxation, your next meal, or even the Black Death.
What is love? And what’s its role in the good life? Alongside three MAPP alumni authors and two subject matter experts, we invite you to join us as we unpack the poetry and practice of choosing, sharing, and feeling love. In this issue, we explore the power of its presence, the impact of its absence, and the multitudes of its expressions. How love can light the way when we’ve lost ourselves. And how we can find ourselves—even when we’ve lost love.
To begin, we spoke with co-author of the recently released book, How to Feel Loved, relationship researcher and teacher, Harry Reis, PhD.
For someone who has been in love with love throughout life, it surprised me that I never truly got into bed with heartbreak, not in the way it slides into your ribs uninvited and refuses to leave. I believed I had felt it before. It is clear now that I had only flirted with it. Heartbreak arrived not as betrayal or verdict, but as raw intimacy followed by the unbearable absence of it. No villains. No dramatic exit. Just the merciless unmaking of everything that had already begun to feel like home. So I did what any reasonably undone person does: I pulled up a chair and let it have me. Not to romanticize the pain. Not to justify it. But to understand it. To come out alive.
That morning, when I opened my eyes, my body was no longer mine. It was as if I had lost the last bit of control over it. My limbs and my head felt incredibly heavy. I told my husband, “I don’t think I can work today,” with tears streaming down my face. I asked for sick leave. After sleeping for hours, I finally gained the strength to get out of bed. I tried to walk to the bathroom and found that I needed to lean against the wall, taking slow, careful steps just to get there. Little did I know that this would be my reality for the next few months.
As Zerish Mattis-Easton taught her daughter, love lives in the spaces we hold and the stories we tell. It lives in our labor and the hours between shifts. It lives in a pot of soup for a neighbor who needs it, in the questions we ask, and the grace that we give. Love is catalytic and transformative. It’s transcendent.
Anyone who has spent time with her can attest, Zerish’s daughter Jacqueline Mattis, PhD embodies both the expansiveness and everydayness of love. And in a field that has largely overlooked love in urban contexts, Jacquie Mattis is helping to make love legible. To close this issue on the science of love, we’re pleased to share our conversation.
