My main research topics are boredom, meaning and creativity and how they interact in order to prevent or promote the ‘good life’. Boredom seems to be a deficient experience that can become habitual in which a person experiences both a lack of meaning and creativity. We have a tendency to see meaning as a ‘cognitive’ function and overlook the emotional elements of meaning. Meaning appears to me to be more heart-mind! Meaning is often made after the event- even years later-and the inability to make meaning out of tragic events can, in itself, be experienced as stressful. Creativity seems to be the ability to take ideas and emotions and transform them into products that both embody and release emotions in one’s self and others. For the last decade I have been on the Executive Board of Division 32: Society for Humanistic Psychology which is part of the American Psychological Association. I have held a number of roles in the Division including Membership Chair, Member-at-large, Secretary, APA Conference Program Chair and Hospitality Suite Coordinator.
