Üsküdar Üniversitesi Founder Rector Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan, participated as a speaker in the “Online Psychotherapy Trainings” organized by the Psychotherapy Institute Headquarters. During the program held via Zoom, Tarhan made evaluations under the title “From Positive Psychology to Positive Psychotherapy” and stated, “Genes are not your destiny; you are not victims of your genes. Beliefs and perceptions can change biology. What makes us who we are is not our genes, but the changes we create through our perceptions of our genes. Therefore, humans are free enough to change their genes.”
“If thinking turns into belief, it eventually becomes a habit”
Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan touched upon why positive psychotherapy emerged and its contributions. Tarhan: “What should be considered in psychotherapy approaches in the changing new world? Because new bases have emerged in psychotherapy. Previously, when psychotherapy was mentioned, there was only psychoanalytic theory, cognitive theory. According to this, there was an influence on an individual’s thought processes. But here we have discovered other processes. How will we be able to influence these processes, and what will be our criteria when influencing these processes? For this, every psychotherapy attempt made without knowing neuroplasticity is a neuroplasticity intervention. When we do therapy, we change the network in a person’s brain. This actually involves automatic thoughts, automatic behaviors, and emotions. These are situations known as habits. The clinical equivalent of neuroplasticity is known as our automatic habits. If thinking turns into belief, it eventually becomes a habit, and if it lasts longer, it becomes a personality. It is necessary to answer the question of whether genes are destiny. It is now known that genes are not destiny, and that there is also epigenetics, that genes actually play a thirty to forty percent role in personality structure, and that there are epigenetic changes we make in genes with sixty to seventy percent placebo and nocebo effects.” He said.
“In other therapies, they do not care about the person’s principles of hope, balance, and values”
Tarhan, who touched upon the four basic principles in positive psychotherapy and their importance: “There are four basic principles in positive psychotherapy. Hope, balance, values, and PERMA. The principle of hope is the most important principle. In other therapies, they do not care about the person’s principles of hope, balance, and values. They say that emotion and thought arise in behavior. The principles of hope and balance are already absent, and the principle of values is completely absent. Seligman’s PERMA model forms the theoretical basis. This model includes being able to immerse oneself in a topic, establish relationships, pursue meaning, and taste the success of one’s work. Seligman accepts this as a theoretical thesis.”
“A person is what they believe in”
Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan emphasized that it is possible to make changes on genes and that it is within one’s own hands. Tarhan: “Genes are not your destiny; you are not victims of your genes. Beliefs and perceptions can change biology. What makes us who we are is not our genes, but the changes we create through our perceptions of our genes. Therefore, humans are free enough to change their genes. Changing genes means changing gene expression. We cannot change the structure of DNA. But our genes are like a blueprint. We can play with this copy. We can make changes to our genes and change gene expression. This means that no one can say about genes, “My genes are like this, I have to be an alcoholic, I have to have sexual identity problems, my genes are like this, obesity is inevitable.” Genes are characteristics that we can change. Here, a person’s beliefs are very important. A person is what they believe in.” He said.
It causes the stress level among people to rise!
After touching upon the general relationship between behavior and genes, Tarhan made evaluations regarding today’s reality: “Big family small house, high income less peace, high IQ less emotion, countless relationships zero real love, more people less humanity, countless friends on social media zero true friends in reality, expensive watches no time at all, higher income less peace, good information less virtue. These are today’s realities. This situation caused the stress level among people to rise. Social supports weakened, and people’s expectation levels increased. When all these combined, the rich but unhappy person of the era emerged, and the rate of people prone to diseases increased.” He said.
“This branch of science teaches people to be happy with what they have”
Tarhan; “Currently, the Western world is experiencing a crisis of modernism and civilization. One symptom of this is hedonism; it chooses pleasure as an ego ideal. There is narcissism. In narcissism, a person prioritizes their own interests. They prioritize their own interests and do not care about the people around them. As a result, the person becomes lonely, and when they are lonely, they experience unhappiness. The Western world has offered positive psychology as a science of happiness against the crisis of civilization. Harvard University introduced positive psychology in 2015, Yale University in 2018, and Bristol University in 2019. As Üsküdar Üniversitesi, we started offering this course to our students in 2013. After examining this course, we observed the following: They took our Eastern wisdom, systematized it, developed a methodology, and presented it to us based on theoretical foundations. The capitalist system stated that you can only be well by making yourself happy; there is hedonism. However, positive psychology says that when a person makes others happy, they also become happy. This branch of science teaches people to be happy with what they have.” He said.