Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi The Father of Flow

 

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was the pioneering co-founder of the field of positive psychology. Known to many as the “father of flow”—a term he coined to refer to the psychological state of optimal performance—Csikszentmihalyi was a researcher, educator, public speaker, and co-director of the university’s Quality of Life Research Center.

He devoted his life to finding an answer to a simple question: What constitutes a happy life?

Affectionately known on the CGU campus as “Mike C,” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi—with Professor Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania—saw something lacking in psychology’s areas of study. So they set out to develop a focus on happiness, well-being, and positivity with a goal to create a field focused on human well-being and the conditions that enable people to flourish and live satisfying lives.

Csikszentmihalyi’s work with Seligman was preceded by his growing international reputation as the author, in 1990, of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. A bestseller translated into more than 20 languages, the book’s many admirers include business leaders, President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson who, following the team’s 1993 Super Bowl victory, said of Flow that “my team has won because of this book.”

Ideas & Interests

Csikszentmihalyi’s interest in what he later identified as“flow” started during his graduate years at the University of Chicago. He recalled in an interview how he would watch painters in their studios and how he was fascinated by their ability to forget everything while working. He was also surprised by what happened when they were done:

They’d finish a work of art, and instead of enjoying it…they would put it against the wall and start a new painting. They weren’t really interested in the finished painting.

What these artists were after, Csikszentmihalyi realized, wasn’t the finished work itself but the experience of full immersion and absorption in the act of creation.

Csikszentmihalyi went on to study how people attained this state, and in his early work he focused on athletes and artists. He soon discovered that this quality he referred to as “flow” applied to people in many different pursuits, whether they were rock climbers, basketball and hockey players, dancers, composers, or chess masters.