Capturing calm

[Star Tribune, November 20, 2010] Several years ago Dr. Henry Emmons spotted a bumper sticker while driving his teenage son to a soccer game.

"Surely," it read, "joy is the condition of life."

At the time, Emmons, a psychiatrist at Allina's Penny George Institute for Health and Healing, was preparing a talk on depression. But the quote -- from Henry David Thoreau -- got him thinking.

In psychiatry, "we focus almost entirely on what's wrong," said Emmons. "I began thinking about joy." And about how he might help patients in the midst of life's setbacks get it back.

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