Welles,
This is very exciting -- thank you for sharing this!!!
Every so often, neuroscience confirms a tenet of psychoanalysis. I'm always cheering by that time, because "psychoanalysis isn't science"
, it's not 'evidence-based,' but instead derived from people's incredible intuition.
So a few years ago, when many of Freud's ideas were validated by neuroscience, it was a huge boost to the profession. Freud didn't have the benefit of MRIs and this modern equipment, but he was right anyway!
So this latest about gratitude is very exciting for me, because my favorite analyst, Melanie Klein, had proposed that gratitude is the single greatest marker for mental health. If you have gratitude, she said, you are mentally well, and you can heal. If you don't have gratitude, you instead usually have envy, and envy she said was the greatest marker for mental illness.
So many non-envious, grateful people count themselves "mentally ill," where by her definition they are absolutely nothing of the kind! Instead they are in need of healing, but in their hearts, they are already well.
So this research is truly exciting to me!!
Thanks for sharing it! With love and peace to you! Michele