Today’s guest, Dr. John Norcross, is an internationally recognized authority on behavior change and psychotherapy. Dr. Norcross is the author of more than 400 scholarly publications, and his work has been featured in hundreds of media interviews. In this episode, Dr. Norcross provides insight on setting our New Year's resolutions: the history behind the tradition, how we keep them, and the reasons behind why we let them slip. Tune in to hear Dr. Norcross explain how the pandemic affected our resolutions, the number one resolution people make each year, the statistics on how many succeed, and the research behind how a “slip” can become a success.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• [03:00] There is a historical and psychological tradition to resolutions.
• [05:00] Weight loss is at the top of the list of New Year's resolutions for Americans
• [08:00] The success rate for resolutions is actually higher than many people think. .
• [10:00] Not only Americans have this concept of a New Year's resolution.
• [15:00] There is no difference when people make changes at other times of the year, other than they gain a lot more support from the society due to the timing at the beginning of a year.
• [19:00] Create reminders for resolutions, and limit exposure to high risk situations.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• New Year's resolutions stem back to ancient and medieval times.
• 60% of Americans declare to make a resolution in December but come New Year's day only 35 to 40% actually do so.
• There are ways to successfully stick to your resolutions, like creating reminders, declaring your intentions publicly, and limiting exposure to high risk situations.

BIO:

An internationally recognized authority on behavior change and psychotherapy, Dr. John C. Norcross is Distinguished Professor & Chair of Psychology at the University of Scranton, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University, and a board-certified clinical psychologist. Author of more than 400 scholarly publications, Dr. Norcross has co-written or edited 25 books, most of them in multiple editions. These include the 5-volume APA Handbook of Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy Relationships that Work, and Systems of Psychotherapy: A Transtheoretical Analysis, now in its 9th edition. He also published the acclaimed self-help books, Changeology and Changing for Good (with Prochaska & DiClemente).

Dr. Norcross has been elected president of the American Psychological Association (APA) Society of Clinical Psychology, the APA Division of Psychotherapy, and the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration. He has served on the Board of Directors of the National Register of Health Service Psychologists as well as on APA’s governing Council of Representatives. Dr. Norcross edited the Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session for a decade and has been on the editorial boards of a dozen journals. Dr. Norcross has also served as a clinical and research consultant to a number of organizations, including the National Institutes of Health and pharmaceutical companies. A Fellow of 10 professional associations, he has been honored with APA’s Distinguished Career Contributions to Education & Training Award, the Pennsylvania Professor of the Year from the Carnegie Foundation, and election to the National Academies of Practice. His work has been featured in hundreds of media interviews, and he has appeared dozens of times on national television shows, such as the Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, and CNN.

www.changeologybook.com/

www.scranton.edu/faculty/norcross/index.shtml

https://www.facebook.com/john.c.norcross