Posts tagged with 'self-determination'
Building willpower: it's like strengthening and nourishing a muscle.
9th July 2011
(this post is downloadable as both a Word doc & as a PDF file.) "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you ..." "If" by Rudyard Kipling In yesterday's post on "Self-control ... the importance of training", I talked about …
A research-based book on goal setting & goal achievement: overview
29th May 2011
Heidi Grant Halvorson's recent book "Succeed: how we can reach our goals" is the best overview of research on goal setting & goal achievement that I've seen. Stanford professor Carol Dweck, in her foreword, writes "Heidi Grant Halvorson knows just about everything there is to know about setting goals and …
Psychotherapy & positive psychology: the assessment 'dashboard'
11th March 2011
Last week I wrote on "Psychotherapy & positive psychology: why psychotherapists should pay attention". This week I look at positive psychological assessment. The very widely used DSM system classifies mental disorders on five axes - clinical disorders, personality disorders/retardation, medical conditions, psychosocial/environmental problems, and global functioning. The US DSM and …
The spectrum of mental health: part 2 - moderate & full wellbeing
16th January 2011
(a slightly abbreviated version of this blog post is downloadable as both a Word doc & a PDF file) Mental illness & mental health: In "The spectrum of mental health: part 1", I wrote "As the diagram (below) illustrates, mental health is distributed as a spectrum across the population. The …
Recent research: 2 mindfulness studies, 2 on goal setting, 1 on wellbeing & reduction in risk of mental illness, 1 on compassion
23rd December 2010
So here are half a dozen recent research papers in the general fields of positive psychology and mindfulness (abstracts and links are given further down this post). They're mostly by "big hitters" on big topics. So there is the paper by Willem Kuyken & colleagues entitled "How does mindfulness-based cognitive …
Targeting behavioural activation better both for decreasing depression and increasing wellbeing (second post)
23rd May 2010
In yesterday's post "Targeting behavioural activation better both for decreasing depression and increasing wellbeing (first post)", I suggested that there are at least three (and probably many more) interesting ways that could make behavioural activation (BA) both more targeted and potentially more effective. I wrote about aiming BA particularly to …
Targeting behavioural activation better both for decreasing depression and increasing wellbeing (first post)
22nd May 2010
There are a series of meta-analyses showing that "behavioural activation" (BA) is a good treatment for depression and that it is as effective as best-established approaches like full cognitive behavioural therapy - see, for example, last year's paper by Trevor and colleagues "Behavioral activation treatments for depression in adults: a …
Walking in the Mamores: reflection (third post)
24th April 2010
Yesterday I wrote about climbing three of the Mamores here in the Highlands. For the last couple of years in the Spring (before the midges) I've gone camping and walking in the Scottish hills - last year in Glen Affric and the year before in the Fainnichs. I've written too …
Recent research: two studies on depression, one on sex, & three on positive psychology
24th September 2009
Here are half a dozen research papers that have recently interested me (all details & abstracts to these studies are given further down this blog posting). The first by Fournier et al is about whether to choose antidepressants or psychotherapy to treat depression. They found that marriage, unemployment and having …
Goal renewal boosts wellbeing: third post
30th August 2009
In a series of linked blog posts over the course of this month, I've discussed writing for health and wellbeing, assessment of one's own level of wellbeing, and using a broadened Best Possible Selves exercise. In today's post I take these ideas a step further by linking them to the …