**10. How the pursuit of true happiness can lead to mental health?**

From the notion that at the root of human pathologies there is probably a lack of wisdom or rationality, we can conclude, then, that the acquisition of more and more knowledge that reflects reality reasonably well (which represents developing the virtue of wisdom), and the acquisition of the habit of acting based on the knowledge that one has so far (which represents developing moral and other intellectual virtues) should provide a way out of a psychopathological condition and maintenance of mental health [19]. However, informing that the practice of virtues should lead to overcoming psychopathologies, and providing guidance on how to practice them daily, may not be enough for a patient to feel motivated to engage in this therapeutic process. This is because the human being does not seem to be naturally motivated to reach a state of absence of psychic pain simply, what the ancients used to call ataraxia [19]; but rather to achieve and feel happiness [1]. Thus, we understand that clarifying what happiness is (and that the practice of virtues is necessary to achieve it) is essential to "touch the nature" of the patient in order to awaken in him or her the motivation to practice the virtues.

We must not forget that our self-conscious questioning nature makes us want to know why we exist and that greater happiness can be experienced when we realize

<sup>3</sup> A person who feels joy at the loss of a friend in a game, in which they are competing, or who evaluates a difficulty a friend is going through as a good thing (because it can help him or her grow with the experience), could hardly be considered a psychopath. As we said, psychopathy has to do with the chronic experience of joy or indifference in contexts in which a friend is perceived to be in a situation of difficulty, and not with occasional joy or indifference in a context of this type.

<sup>4</sup> Based on this notion, it might be a good idea to divide the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) into seven large dimensions, related to the 7 basic emotions that we suggest exist, in order to consider the chronic excess and lack in each of them as being psychopathologies, which is equivalent to vices; and that, in general, it represents recurrent failures to act in the peculiar human way, according to Aristotelian philosophy.

that we are succeeding in fulfilling the mission we believe we have [5]. Based on such notions, we can understand that we can make the patient more motivated to practice the virtues through the clarifications that: (1) there is more intense happiness to be experienced, and (2) that it can be experienced from the moment we discover and take responsibility for our life mission. Regarding "2", it is noteworthy that its motivational power depends on the discovery of a mission that the person really sees purpose in fulfilling, which depends on a high reflective effort, especially with regard to personal interests, skills and problems of the world.

As a suggestion, we see that it is possible for a person to find his or her life mission through a reflexive effort to answer at least three questions:


It is important to mention that the engagement in the process also occurs because of the experience of happiness that the patient experiences with each rational decision that he or she perceives to have taken and that generated a good result. By the way, the increasingly frequent experience of this type of pleasure on the part of the patient may indicate that he or she is doing well in the treatment (as Aristotle would say, is doing well in having a good life according to the type of being we are); so that analyzing this data and presenting it, in case it is positive, can also contribute to the engagement in the therapeutic process of practicing the virtues with a focus on experiencing happiness.

It is noteworthy that, in parallel, the engagement in this therapeutic process should provide the overcoming of false beliefs, such as those linked to the notions of unlovability and incompetence, because with the practice of virtues, the individual is exposed to facts that contradict such beliefs, which can, little by little, lead to the expansion of his or her level of wisdom, from the replacement of false beliefs by others that reflect reality better. In the case of incompetence, for example, if the individual focuses on putting the virtues into action, he or she can see that not only is there a solution for almost everything but also that he or she is totally capable of finding them.

Finally, it is worth bringing to the therapeutic scenario three important notions linked to the objective of experiencing happiness, with increasing frequency, throughout life, that refers to the notions we talked about earlier, about emotions that only humans are capable of feeling:


*True Happiness as a Shortcut to Mental Health: A New Theory of Psychopathology… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103131*

Although emotions that depend on agency awareness are not in themselves defining psychopathologies (at least, not yet), they are present in a variety of psychopathological conditions. In the case of grief, for example, the anger phase can refer to self-directed anger, in which the person chronically blames him or herself because this person sees him or herself as the cause of the loss of the ally [35]. Therefore, we see that clarifying the nature of such emotions and how they relate to the greater goal of feeling happiness can help the patient to reflect on whether or not it is appropriate to feel them in certain contexts, and thus help him with the task of consciously reviewing or accepting them (i.e., helping him with the practice of the virtues), which, in parallel, helps the patient to avoid feeling these emotions chronically.

### **11. Conclusion**

The acquisition of the notion of what true happiness is (and the most intense of it) makes the person understand what he or she actually ultimately seeks: the pleasure of a kind of pride that arises when he or she perceives himself or herself as causing good consequences through rational choices, as we have argued; and this, both in the short term and in the long term as a whole (which represents having a life permeated by happiness; a happy life). Such understanding is a key part for the patient to discover where he or she should direct his efforts; which, in a world full of possibilities, represents finding the best path, the shortcut out of a psychopathological condition, and feeling the desire to go through it. However, it is not enough just to find such a shortcut and want to take it, it is also necessary to know how to walk on it; which, as we said, happens through the practice of virtues. Such practice represents each step on this path, which is capable of generating happiness in the recent past, if we see that we have just generated a good result, and even in a more distant past, when, after a set of steps, we look back and see that we have left traces of good results along the way, as a result of our choices.

In this work, we have argued that the pursuit of happiness represents a shortcut to mental health. First, because we see that such pursuit represents walking the path that by nature we all want to travel, so the level of engagement we would have on this journey would be greater than on any other, also because we will be reinforced throughout it due to the experience of pleasure with every rational decision that we perceive to have taken that generated a good result; pleasure that evolution "rewards" us for acting in line with our peculiar nature, as we said. And secondly, because the pursuit of happiness leads us to be increasingly successful in our interactions with reality, since in this pursuit we acquire more and more knowledge about reality and get into the habit of acting on what we know so far, which, in essence, refers to making categorizations that reflect reality reasonably well (increasingly better, as our knowledge evolves), which, in turn, as we said, makes it possible to feel emotions appropriate to the contexts, in objective terms, instead of feeling emotions chronically.

*Counseling and Therapy - Recent Developments in Theories and Practices*
