Seattle University Collaborative Projects - International Academy of ...

Happiness—or Else: Revising Our Expectations for Law Students and LawyersCorie Rosen, Arizona State University (corie.rosen@asu.edu)In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus famously wrote, “There is but one truly serious philosophicalproblem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to thefundamental question of philosophy.”Lawyers and law students, a notoriously depressive population with unusually high rates ofsuicide and related ills, have provided fertile soil for some of the most recent depressionresearch. Dr. Martin Seligman, one of the people credited with the invention of positivepsychology, studied depressive thinking in law students at the University of Virginia. Theresulting article, “Why Lawyers are Unhappy,” established, albeit inadvertently, the foundationsof an increasingly widely-held view that, for some, depression is perhaps a necessary ill and mayeven be crucial to the success of those who work in judgment-driven fields like law. This articlewill explore the findings of the University of Virginia study and its impact on the current popularconception of lawyer and law-student psychology.This presentation will explore sources of depression in lawyers and law students and, usingempirical and anecdotal data, will argue that students manifesting defensive pessimism may notnecessarily be at risk for depression, though they may not manifest "happiness" or "optimism" aspsychology currently defines those concepts.French Language Sessions216. La gestion de la perception du risque de violence enpsychiatrie: des alternatives à l’atteinte aux droits despersonnesUn centre d’étude : dans quel but ?Nathalie Baba, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada (nathalie_baba@hotmail.com)T.B.E.Pertinence d’une base de données commune pour mieux interpréter les tauxd’isolement et de contention des Instituts de santé mentale du Québec520