What is wellness? The role of human values

Wellness and psychological distress

The most common way of framing the notion of wellness in the existing literature on wellness for law is to refer to the worryingly high levels of psychological distress in law students and legal practitioners. Reference is often made in Australia to studies finding that more than one third of law students experience high or very high levels of psychological distress. ⁴ This way of framing the issue, if not supplemented with further discussion of the notion of wellness, suggests a negative definition of wellness as the absence of markers of psychological distress. However, there are two key problems with this approach to the notion.

The first problem, to which I will return below, is that this account of wellness offers what I will call a thin definition of the concept. It is thin in the sense that it tells us what wellness is, but it does not explain what its causes are or what measures are needed to achieve it. It therefore offers limited guidance as to what reforms and initiatives are likely to be effective in improving wellness among law students and practitioners. The second problem, related to the first, is that a negative definition of wellness tends to suggest that all that is needed to achieve the goal of wellness is eliminating markers of psychological distress. However, this gives the misleading impression that wellness programs are focused on imparting psychological coping mechanisms at the expense of deeper issues about human flourishing and welfare.

A prominent critique of wellness for law offered by Christine Parker illustrates this problem. Parker argues that the focus of wellness programs on avoiding psychological distress constitutes a personal, rather than political, response to the underlying structural problems in legal education and practice. ⁵ There is, she claims, ‘a risk that the emphasis on diagnosing and resolving psychological distress at the individual level … will domesticate, depoliticise and defuse profound ethical and socio-political questions’. ⁶ Parker’s critique highlights the danger that focusing on individual well-being may lead us to ignore wider problems with social and economic structures. It also illustrates the drawbacks of a purely negative definition of wellness for law. This kind of definition risks giving the impression that wellness programs are about giving individuals the ability to cope with stressful and toxic conditions without becoming psychologically unwell.

The wellness movement in law has, of course, never been solely about papering over the toxic nature of legal education and practice by giving individuals additional coping mechanisms. It has always aimed at more fundamental change. However, a purely negative definition of wellness is unable to give clear guidance on what this more fundamental change might look like. It also offers potential succour to universities and law firms who want to be seen to do something about wellness without challenging the underlying culture of their institutions. Parker’s critique, although perhaps overstated, is to this extent well taken.

Wellness and positive affect

A second common way of framing the notion of wellness for law is as the presence of consistent states of life satisfaction or positive affect. This approach to wellness is influenced by positive psychology and, in particular, the influential work of Martin Seligman. ⁷ Discussions of positive psychology in the wellness context often tend to focus on measures of subjective well-being – that is, ‘a person’s cognitive and affective evaluations of his or her life’. ⁸ Seligman’s own theory goes beyond this to include measures of objective well-being that he sees as contributing to life satisfaction: namely, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment. I will return to Seligman’s theory below. First, however, I want to draw out some limitations of an account of wellness that focuses solely on subjective well-being.

A definition of wellness that focuses on feelings of life satisfaction or positive affect is a positive, rather than negative, definition. This means it is somewhat less susceptible than a negative definition to the kind of critique advanced by Parker. It is, nonetheless, still a thin account of wellness, because it defines wellness without explaining what is necessary to achieve it. An account of wellness as subjective well-being, unless supplemented by a theory of objective well-being, does not help us understand what kinds of conditions tend to yield a satisfying or happy life. It therefore offers limited guidance in suggesting reforms and programs to actively improve a sense of well-being or satisfaction among law students and practitioners.

A further problem with defining wellness as subjective well-being derives from the fact that positive affect is not necessarily indicative of objective welfare. This is true in two senses. First, it is possible for a person to experience feelings of positive affect even when their objective welfare is compromised or under threat. This is because people can develop psychological coping mechanisms – including resilience and mindfulness but also, more problematically, cognitive dissonance and false consciousness – that enable them to find peace and satisfaction even under stressful or unhealthy conditions. However, to the extent that this is possible, it leaves a definition of wellness as subjective well-being open to a Parker-style critique that it is just papering over the deeper issues in legal education and practice.

A possible response to this criticism would be that people are generally unlikely to enjoy stable and consistent states of subjective well-being under toxic working conditions. A focus on long term and sustainable subjective well-being is therefore a more reliable measure of wellness than a more short-term account. This is undoubtedly true, but it raises a deeper issue. We have seen that people can experience positive affect where their objective well-being is compromised. However, it is also true that people may sometimes experience negative affect where their objective well-being remains intact. More fundamentally, it may be that some degree of negative affect is necessary and even conducive to objective well-being. ⁹

An obvious way that negative affect is conducive to objective well-being is where a person undergoes short-term pain for a longer-term gain to their welfare. This applies in principle to numerous life decisions, such as undergoing an operation, going to the gym, working late at night or ending an unhealthy relationship. These examples are not, in themselves, a threat to subjective accounts of wellness, because they can be explained as trading off short-term enjoyment in order to achieve longer-term life satisfaction and happiness. The short-term pain involved in such choices is, on this view, merely a necessary evil.

However, what if pain or suffering is not merely a necessary evil but, at least in some circumstances, an integral aspect of well-being itself? This suggestion might seem odd, but it is a key component of a number of major world religions. Christianity, for example, places a central focus on the redemptive power of suffering. ¹⁰ Buddhism, likewise, presents the overcoming of suffering as an essential step on the path to enlightenment. ¹¹ The goal of human existence, on both these views, consists in a state of freedom from suffering, but this state is not achievable without first undergoing profound vulnerability and pain. Suffering, then, is not merely a short-term evil, but a fundamental component of a flourishing human life.

It seems, then, that an account of wellness should have some way of accommodating the notion that pain and suffering can be a valuable component of life’s journey. Subjective well-being theories, however, struggle to do this, because they equate well-being with feelings of satisfaction or positive affect. They therefore offer no way of contextualising existentially valuable experiences of pain and suffering by reference to more fundamental dimensions of well-being. This explanatory deficit stems from the thin nature of such theories. What is needed, it seems, is a thicker account of wellness for law that refers to the objective components of human flourishing, as well as recognising the relevance of subjective experiences.

Wellness and human flourishing

I mentioned previously that Seligman’s theory of positive psychology supplements markers of subjective well-being with components of objective well-being, such as engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment. Seligman, however, does not say a great deal about what constitutes each of these components. He remains more interested, as a psychologist, in diagnosing the problems with current personal and social practices and offering techniques as to how well-being can be improved. I therefore propose to draw on my own recent philosophical work on the nature of the good life to flesh out this picture. ¹²

The notion of human flourishing captures the idea that there are certain forms of life that are inherently good for humans by virtue of our nature. These forms of life are those that enable us to live fulfilling lives given the facts of our biological make-up and social conditions. There are a wide range of theories of human flourishing, but I have argued in detail elsewhere for a theory that focuses on the role of fundamental human values. ¹³ There is, on this view, a plurality of basic goods that humans characteristically value and pursue in their lives. Human flourishing involves participating in these goods in a balanced and integrated way. A flourishing life will tend to feature consistent and stable feelings of positive affect, but its flourishing character is not defined by these subjective experiences. Rather, the feelings of contentment that the subject experiences are explained by the fact that their life is going well.

I have argued that the basic values humans pursue in their lives can be placed into nine broad categories. ¹⁴ The good of life captures the value of bringing about, nurturing and protecting the possibility of human flourishing. The good of health reflects the value of physical and mental well-being. The good of pleasure captures the value of experiencing positive affect. The good of friendship reflects the importance of social connectedness and a mutually supportive community. The good of play embodies the value of structured forms of achievement and recreation. The good of appreciation captures the value of aesthetic experience and the sense of wonder or delight it invokes in us. The good of understanding expresses the human quest to know about our nature and environment. The good of meaning reflects the role of commitments, projects and relationships in giving our lives a sense of purpose. And, finally, the good of reasonableness involves connecting our actions with our deeper goals or values. ¹⁵

My proposal, then, is that wellness can be understood as involving balanced and integrated participation in these nine basic forms of value. This view of wellness is both positive and thick. It is positive because it defines wellness as the presence of certain desirable conditions, rather than the absence of undesirable ones. It is thick, because it both defines wellness and offers a deeper explanation of what is necessary in order to achieve it, by considering the components of objective well-being. Furthermore, the theory I have outlined enables a nuanced distinction to be drawn between existentially valuable states of pain and suffering and those that are gratuitous or harmful to well-being. This is because it allows us to ask whether or not the pain and suffering in question is ultimately in service of some deeper human value.

Balance and integration

I want to conclude by saying a few words about the role of balance and integration in human flourishing and what these ideas mean for legal education and practice. The notion of balance captures the idea that there is more than one dimension of human well-being. A life that is devoted to one aspect of well-being to the exclusion of all others is unbalanced and is unlikely to bring a sense of satisfaction and contentment. Rather, people should seek to integrate a range of different values into their life plans. This does not mean all the values must be given equal weight, but rather that the pluriform nature of human flourishing should be acknowledged. The exact form this balance takes will differ from person to person.

The notion of integration, on the other hand, reflects the idea that the components of a person’s life plan should form a coherent and integrated whole. A person may pursue a range of different forms of value in their life, but they should nonetheless be able to coherently integrate these different values to form an overall picture of the things that give their life meaning. This means that, ideally, there should not be any deep inconsistencies or tensions between the values or commitments they pursue in different facets of their life. The various goods they pursue, while distinct and valuable in their own right, should nonetheless be mutually supporting. This enables them to view their life – and human life generally – as a unified and consistent whole.

A fundamental challenge for the notion of wellness for law is the way that legal education and practice undermines both of these notions. The competitive and elitist nature of many law schools means that students feel they have to focus all their energies on their studies to the exclusion of other interests. Students therefore commonly feel they are losing sight of those things that give their lives meaning. Furthermore, students often feel a sense of dissonance between the priorities and values that they absorb in law school and their broader values and commitments. They find it difficult to connect their new-found knowledge of legal institutions with their wider sense of what makes their life valuable and fulfilling.

The unbalanced and dissonant nature of the law school experience is only exacerbated for many students when they enter legal practice. Commercial legal practice, in particular, often requires long hours devoted to tasks and objectives that junior practitioners struggle to balance and connect with their broader life plans. The level of commitment needed to advance up the hierarchy often comes at the cost of connections to family, friends and recreation. It erodes the space needed for sustained reflection on life’s meaning and purpose. It also encourages lawyers to compartmentalise their work life from other aspects of their existence. Rather than seeing their lives as an integrated whole, where all the parts are mutually supporting, they may seem to be divided into two separate spheres that exist in perpetual tension with one another.

What would law schools and firms need to do in order to promote greater balance and integration in the lives of students and lawyers? They would need, first, to draw out the connections between legal practice and broader social values. This is the political dimension of wellness for law that Parker rightly emphasises. Second, and perhaps more importantly, they would need to send the message to students and lawyers that the law is not all that matters. Space needs to be made in one’s life for health, pleasure, friendship, recreation, appreciation and meaning. These other components of life should not be eroded by a student’s devotion to her studies or a lawyer’s devotion to her firm. The law, in other words, is not the only thing that matters; in the context of one’s overall search for meaning, it may not even be that important.

Law schools, of course, may be hesitant to send this message wholeheartedly to their students, because they fear it will hurt their reputation and their students’ employment prospects. Law firms, in turn, may be equally reluctant, because they fear it will hurt the bottom line. There is also a sense in which those who have achieved some level of success in the current toxic environment – often at great existential and psychological cost – are reluctant to undercut their achievements by holding others to a more humane standard. The quest for wellness therefore poses a radical challenge to the prevailing culture of legal education and practice.

Conclusion

I have argued in this article that the challenge wellness for law poses to legal culture can only be fully drawn out if wellness is properly understood. This requires a positive and thick account of the notion grounded in human values. Negative and thin definitions of wellness are widespread in the literature, partly due to the influence of positive psychology. However, these definitions give the misleading impression that wellness can be secured purely by eliminating psychological distress or increasing positive affect. They therefore risk understating (and, at worst, actively masking) the structural and existential nature of the threats that legal education and practice may pose to the well-being of students and practitioners.

This article has outlined an alternative understanding of wellness that situates the concept within a broader theory of human flourishing. Wellness, I have suggested, consists in participating in the various dimensions of human flourishing in a balanced and integrated way. I have offered an account of basic human values, developed in detail elsewhere, that illustrates human flourishing’s pluriform nature. The plurality of basic forms of flourishing, alongside the notions of balance and integration, affords a more nuanced understanding of wellness for law, as well as the deep challenges this notion poses for law schools and employers.