Place Dissatisfaction and the Spatial Cost of Unemployment

Place Dissatisfaction and the Spatial Cost of Unemployment | The Flourishing Journal The Flourishing Journal Work & Place Global Flourishing Study  ·  Employment & Place Satisfaction Place Dissatisfaction and theSpatial Cost of Unemployment The unemployed are the least place-satisfied group on earth — ranking below immigrants, the divorced, and the young. They have not moved. Their city has not changed. Something else has. Global Flourishing Study data across 22 countries illuminate what unemployment actually costs, and why income replacement is only part of the answer. Victor Counted The Flourishing Journal May 2026 9 min read 65% Unemployed satisfied with their city #34 Lowest of all demographic groups studied 84% Employed…

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The Most City-Satisfied People on Earth Are Over 80

The Most City-Satisfied People on Earth Are Over 80 | The Flourishing Journal The Flourishing Journal Place & City Global Flourishing Study  ·  Place Satisfaction The Most City-Satisfied People on EarthAre Over 80 Across 22 countries and tens of thousands of respondents, the Global Flourishing Study surfaces a result that overturns almost everything we assume about age, cities, and the quality of urban life. Victor Counted The Flourishing Journal Research Report 93% Adults 80+ satisfied with their city 75% Adults 18–24 satisfied with their city 18pt Gap between oldest and youngest adults The Global Flourishing Study did not set out to say anything particular about the elderly. It set out…

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We Got the Order Wrong: How Christianity Traded Relationship for Religion

We Got the Order Wrong | The Flourishing Journal For generations, we have handed children doctrines before we gave them a living God to hold onto. The consequences are written in the data — and in the faces of those quietly walking away. VC Victor Counted, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology · Regent University · Faculty Affiliate, Harvard Human Flourishing Program Walk into almost any evangelical church on any given Sunday, and you will see it at the end of the service — the altar call. The music softens. The lights dim slightly. A voice says something like, "If you want to give your life to Jesus tonight, repeat this…

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Your Earliest Relationships May Have Shaped How You Experience God

Psychology · Faith · Human Flourishing Your Earliest Relationships May Have Shaped How You Experience God By Victor Counted, Ph.D. Professor, Author, and Psychologist There is a question most people never think to ask about their faith. It is not a theological question, but a psychological one: where did your felt experience of God come from? Not the doctrine you were taught or the catechism you memorized, but the actual texture of your relationship with God—whether He feels close or distant, welcoming or demanding, safe or unpredictable. For much of the history of psychology, that question was either dismissed or spiritualized. However, a growing body of research at the intersection…

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Bonding with God Book is Finally Here

Bonding with God Is Here | The Flourishing Journal The Flourishing Journal Bonding with GodIs Finally Here A word from the author on a book years in the making Victor Counted  ·  April 2026  ·  4 min read What if the way you relate to God is not a fixed fate, but a living story — one that can grow, heal, and flourish? Today is a day I have been quietly working toward for a long time. Bonding with God: Attachment Theory and the Psychology of Faith is now officially published and available through Baker Academic. This book began as a question — one that I kept returning to in…

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Executive Functioning and Human Flourishing

The Question That Changes Everything | The Flourishing Journal The Question ThatChanges Everything For decades, science has asked what is wrong with the way we think. What happens when it finally starts asking what it takes to truly thrive? VC Victor Counted, Ph.D. Professor · Author · Psychological Scientist March 2026 8 min read There is a question most of us have asked ourselves at some point — quietly, privately, usually in the aftermath of something we did not handle well. A conversation that went sideways. A goal abandoned halfway through. A promise to ourselves we could not keep. The question surfaces in the gap between who we intend to…

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Healing Our Relationships Through Bonding with God

What If God Is the Safest Attachment Figure You've Never Let In? | Victor Counted Faith & Psychology What If God Is the Safest Attachment Figure You've Never Let In? How bonding with God can rewire the wounds that keep your relationships broken Victor Counted, Ph.D. Professor & Psychological Scientist · Regent University Most of us arrive at our adult relationships carrying invisible luggage — wounds from early experiences that shaped what we expect from the people we love most. We expect to be abandoned. We fear we will be betrayed. We quietly believe, somewhere beneath conscious thought, that we are simply not enough. These are not personality quirks. They…

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What are the psychological mechanisms of human flourishing?

The Four Pathways of Human Flourishing | Victor Counted Flourishing Science The Four Pathways of Human Flourishing Victor Counted, Ph.D. Psychological Scientist & Professor What does it mean to truly flourish? And more precisely — what are the internal pathways through which flourishing actually happens in a human life? These are not merely philosophical questions. They sit at the heart of a growing scientific conversation that is reshaping how psychologists, clinicians, and scholars understand human thriving. Tyler VanderWeele of Harvard's Human Flourishing Program has made a compelling case that flourishing is cultivated through four primary pathways: work and vocation, religious or spiritual community, family relationships, and education. These domains represent…

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