He’s Going With Flow

The man whose research and theories are said by some to be revolutionizing American psychology started his professional life as a painter in Hungary. A diplomat’s son, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi interspersed his painting exhibitions with work as a correspondent for the French daily Le Monde. He learned English by singing American folk songs and reading Pogo comics.

In 1956--the year Soviet tanks crushed the Hungarian revolution--he came to this country. He was 22.

Working his way through the University of Illinois, he took remedial courses in rhetoric and writing, analyzing the literary styles of magazines such as the New Yorker. Then he submitted some of his own fiction to the magazine, which published it.

But it was always psychology that beckoned him.

“I was confused about why people oppress each other,” he says. “During World War II, we saw many inhuman things which didn’t make sense. I was resolved to find out a better way of living.”

Surprised at psychology’s focus on the study of rats as predictors of human behavior--”I didn’t think rats held the key to world peace”--Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced Chick-sent-me-high-ee) studied the work of Carl Jung. From Jung, he adopted the idea that “the individual and the collective are connected. By restoring individual harmony, we can make the world a better place.”

Transferring to the University of Chicago, Csikszentmihalyi wrote his doctoral thesis on “how visual artists create art,” taking photos every three minutes as painters transformed a blank canvas into a painting. In studying this, “I was struck by how deeply they were involved in work, forgetting everything else. That state seemed so intriguing that I started also looking for it in chess players, in rock climbers, in dancers and in musicians.

“I expected to find substantial differences in all their activities, but people reported very similar accounts of how they felt.

“Then, I started looking at professions like surgery and found the same elements there--a challenge which provides clear, high goals and immediate feedback.”

Such individuals know that “if they focus on doing everything well, they will be in control.” They forget themselves, the time, their problems, he says.

Thus began his study of “flow,” the results compiled in “Finding Flow:the Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life,” (Basic Books, 1997).

American Psychological Assn. President Martin Seligman says Csikszentmihalyi’s research represents “a sea change” in his field, moving its primary focus away from alleviating dysfunction and toward optimizing life.

Flow occurs when a person’s highest skills are challenged by high demands, says Csikszentmihalyi.

“Because of the total demand on psychic energy, a person in flow is completely focused. There is no space in consciousness for distracting thoughts, irrelevant feelings. Self-consciousness disappears.

“When a person’s entire being is stretched in the full functioning of body and mind, whatever one does becomes worth doing for its own sake; living becomes its own justification.”

The experience is not limited to a few. Csikszentmihalyi tells of a New York deli man who went into flow while thinly slicing lox. “He described his art like building spaceships,” Csikszentmihalyi says.

At its most intense, flow results in “peak experiences” or, for an athlete, playing “in the zone.” Csikszentmihalyi’s goal, however, is to also identify how to make “lower-end experiences more accessible” to the public. “You can’t make flow happen,” he warns. “All you can do is learn to remove obstacles in its way.” Thus, for example, the effort to recapture a perfect run down a ski slope will rarely succeed because “you’re splitting your attention from what’s happening now,” he says.

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To induce flow, he says, an individual should focus not on the hoped-for reward--the psychic high following the great ski run--but on the activity itself. “What’s important is to get a clear mental picture of how it could be done better and to do it,” he says.

He says many Americans seek flow where they are least likely to find it--in passive leisure activities. “Most people look so much forward to being home, relaxing. Then they get home and don’t know what to do. They aren’t challenged, so they sit in front of the TV, depressed.”

Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University, calls Csikszentmihalyi’s work “exceptional.

“He begins with the important questions and comes up with methods to study them.”

Csikszentmihalyi’s work is “groundbreaking,” Seligman says. “He has been the first figure in psychology who had courage to ask about the best things in life. As a result, he opened up in the most rigorous way what had been the realm of fringe psychology boosters and Madison Avenue--the study of human happiness.

“Right now, we are building the best things in life almost as a byproduct of society. But the side effect of developing a science of human strength is that we will have tools enabling people to pursue the best available life.”

The best life is more than the absence of psychopathology. “We have people who want to lead better lives at work, be better husbands. Psychology should help these people who lead decent lives live exemplary lives,” Seligman says.

‘We’ll have to start asking ourselves, if what Mike says about flow is true, how come we still choose to do these things that don’t give us flow?”