History really is bunk

I'm reading Authentic Happiness by Martin Selgiman at the mo. He's a scientist who is interested in positive emotions, and I am struck by this paragraph in which he sums up the evidence for the influence of childhood trauma on adults:

"The major traumas of childhood [such as the death of a parent] may have some influence on adult personality, but only a barely detectable one. Bad childhood events, in short, do not mandate adult troubles. There is no justification in these studies for blaming your adult depression, anxiety, bad marriage, drug use, sexual problems, unemployment, aggression against your children, alcoholism, or anger on what happened to you as a child" - Authentic Happiness, p.67.

Wow! What he emphasises is that how we think about our childhood is a much stronger determinant of adult unhappiness than what actually happened.

I feel a rave coming on...