The Big 3 Benefits of Waxing Nostalgic

a post by Lauren Suval for the World of Psychology blog



I tend to define nostalgia as a bittersweet reminiscence as we continue to live in the now and move ahead towards the future. Sometimes, there’s mixed emotions when thinking about the past, and some people avoid the subject matter and the whole “nostalgia song and dance” entirely. I also can recognize that there is a bit of a line to toe — a line of reminiscence versus living in the past and feeling perpetually stuck.

Those who know me know that I’m quite the “nostalgic” individual. Nostalgia may as well be my middle name. I’m the person who likes to conjure up memories of days gone by. Remember the fall of my senior year? Remember that trip to the west village? The Catskill Mountains every winter? And so on and so forth. I even compiled reflections into a book I wrote called the The Art of Nostalgia, a collection of nine personal essays that take the reader down a timeline of memories in the hopes that these personal accounts can relay universal truths. (This collection is on Amazon if anyone is interested — okay, that was not as smooth and subtle as I hoped my plug-in would be.)

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The Benefits of Nostalgia

a post by John DiPrete for the World of Psychology blog



If unpleasant or obsessional, past memories can hurt — but nostalgia is good for you. The benefits of this internal psychological state are touted in various academic studies exploring the art and practice of what could be deemed as “pleasant reminiscing.“

According to experts, personal memories from long ago of family and friends can link us together in shared comforts of tradition, and also lend a gratifying sense of continuity in our lives.

Nostalgia can take on many different forms. Watching an old black-and-white movie can trigger a cultural nostalgia for a lost period in time. Often that longing can predate one’s own date of birth: fondness for a time only your parents may have known and talked about.

The mental journey back through time adds a fourth dimension to the present. If mindfulness is the focal point of the Eternal Now, nostalgia forms a special continuum to the timeless past, expanding our concept of the self. The future may be vague, inchoate and unpredictable; but the past represents a finished whole that cannot be harmed or tampered with.

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Work Identity in Crisis? Rethinking the Problem of Attachment and Loss at Work

an article by Tim Strangleman (University of Kent, Canterbury) published in Sociology Volume 46 Number 3 (June 2012)

Abstract

The identity and meaning people obtain from their work is a central issue in contemporary sociology.

There is a debate between those suggesting that we have witnessed either great rupture or continuity in the way employees engage with their jobs.

This article reframes the question posed, developing a critical theoretical framework for understanding narratives of change derived from a range of theorists using concepts of nostalgia, tradition and generations. This framework is then used to read a set of work/life history interviews and autobiographical material from mainly older male workers in the UK railway industry who lament the erosion of their workplace culture and the sustainable moral order of the past.

The article seeks to move beyond dismissing such accounts as simple nostalgia and instead suggests that these narratives can be understood as valuable organic critiques of industrial and social change emergent from work culture.

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