What do Theodore Roosevelt and Snoopy have in common? The same thing that propelled John Muir, James Watson, J.M. Barrie, P.T. Barnum and Mary Poppins to act on their wildest dreams, according to psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison. In one word: exuberance. Jamison, a former Palisadian, is the author of a new book on the subject, “Exuberance: The Passion For Life,” which she will discuss at 3 p.m. on October 29 at the Palisades Branch Library, 861 Alma Real. Jamison defines exuberance as a psychological state characterized by high mood and high energy. To be exuberant, she says, is to possess a childlike curiosity and playfulness, the capacity to explore and create with irrepressible wonder and joy, and the desire to immerse oneself in adventure again and again. In her book, Jamison introduces readers to people, animals and fictional characters who are, or were inherently exuberant, and illustrates the critical role that exuberance plays in their lives and work. She includes herself in this eclectic group, along with several scientists she interviewed for the book, including elephant biologist Joyce Poole, and Robert Gallo, who discovered the first retrovirus and co-discovered the AIDS virus. “I delight in the company of these people,” Jamison said in a recent interview with the Palisadian-Post. She believes that exuberance is largely inherited but that it can also be environmentally determined. Jamison herself grew up in a stimulating environment’around her scientist father and his “ebullient” friends and colleagues who appreciated and nurtured her own exuberance. “Childhood tends to be an exuberant time,” said Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “But only about 10 percent of the population remains exuberant the rest of the time.” She explained that around puberty, children start to become less exuberant because they feel as though they have to move on, to mature and assume adult responsibilities. This is especially the case with females. “I have a lot of concern that young girls get it squashed out of them,” Jamison said. “They’re wildly enthusiastic about everything from running through trees to science, and then they feel at some point that they have to reign it in.” Exuberance “tends to be more manifest in males of the [human] species,” according to Jamison, a Palisades High School graduate who completed her doctorate at UCLA. She believes that exuberance is an essential temperament in both sexes, and that it plays an important role in creativity, scientific discovery, leadership and survival. However, while it increases one’s active engagement in the world and is crucial to social cohesiveness, it is also vulnerable to ridicule because exuberant people can be irritating, rash in their actions and difficult to take seriously. But the real danger, she maintains, is when exuberance is stifled. Jamison’s exuberance manifests itself in “almost everything: my intellectual work, clinical work and my friendships.” Part of what she so enjoyed about writing this book on exuberance was the people she was writing about, particularly Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley, a Vermont farmer who devoted his life to photographing snow crystals for their study and preservation. “I fell deeply in love with Bentley,” Jamison said. “He was so amazing; he made such beauty of life and had such passion for what he did.” Jamison’s decision to write a book on exuberance reflects a trend towards the study of positive emotions, which she says psychologists have started to take more seriously in recent years. “I’ve always been very interested in high mood states, more interested in mania than depression,” said Jamison, who herself suffered from manic depression, also known as bipolar disorder, which is characterized by extreme emotional highs and lows. Jamison told the story of her own affliction in “An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness” (1995), a book that went on to become a New York Times bestseller. She is also the author of “Touched with Fire: Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament” and “Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide.” In “Exuberance,” Jamison explains the connection between manic-depressive illness and exuberance: “There are overlapping characteristics’high mood and expansive energy, among others’but there are critical distinctions as well. Exuberance is far from a pathological state for most who have it. It is, instead, a highly valued and integral part of who they are and how they meet the world.” Jamison said that when she was diagnosed with manic depression, she questioned what was related to mania and what was natural exuberance. “Mania is not exuberance,” she said. “It’s a psychotic, life-threatening illness, and is damaging to people who have it. Bipolar people who have mild mania aren’t particularly disabled by it, but severe mania is disabling. “I think that some people who have bipolar illness have an underlying exuberance. There’s a tendency to be worried that it’s too extreme.” Jamison emphasizes that it is important for our species to have a diversity of temperaments, and hopes her book with help people with bipolar disorder to feel more hopeful about their underlying exuberance. Exuberance, she said, is a source of resilience. Her late husband, neuropsychiatrist Richard Wyatt, died while she was writing this book, and his death “tried my level of exuberance, to say the least.” But “life comes back and you come back.”
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