Posts tagged with 'meaning'
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 …
Recent research: six studies on positive psychology, goals, relationships, caregiving, mindfulness & nature
27th August 2009
Here are half a dozen studies that one could loosely put under the broad umbrella of positive psychology. Zorba the Greek said "Take what you want and pay for it, says God." and Niemiec et al's study, on the effects of achieving different kinds of goal, supports this statement (for …
Writing - positive pasts & best futures
9th August 2009
If you would like a printable handout of this blog post click here. There is lots of research - approaching two hundred studies - on the physical and mental benefits of writing about emotional upheavals in our lives. Professor Jamie Pennebaker gives further details of this approach on his excellent …
Recent research: six articles on wellbeing – meaning in life, reappraisal, positive emotions, and neighbourliness
23rd July 2009
Here are six research articles (see below for abstracts and links) loosely falling into the overall area of wellbeing. Boyle, Barnes et al report on the association between purpose in life and mortality in older people. They found that greater purpose in life was associated with considerably reduced mortality even …
Reappraising reappraisal
31st May 2009
The research I reported on earlier this month, in blog posts about Oregon University and Stanford University psychology labs, really got me thinking. "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose." Over the last several years, I've moved further and further away from traditional cognitive therapy techniques like cognitive restructuring …
Recent research: six papers relevant to psychotherapy
28th May 2009
Here are six studies relevant to improving psychotherapy outcomes. Brewin et al report on using imagery-based interventions to help people with depressioin. Lydiard et al highlight the importance of sleep-related disturbances as a treatment target in PTSD. McCrady and colleagues show that working with couples rather than just individuals seems …
Stanford psychophysiology lab research on emotion regulation
24th May 2009
Last week I talked about coming across Srivastava and colleagues' paper (Srivastava, Tamir et al. 2009 - see below) on the social costs of emotional suppression. This led me to Srivastava's lab at the University of Oregon. It's then an easy jump to James Gross's Psychophysiology lab at Stanford University …
Peer groups: Cumbria spring group – feeling burnt out & relinking to values
9th May 2009
Something quite deep happened to me, in me, during the group yesterday. Third full day of the group and powerful, deep things were happening in and between a whole series of us. Two couples have contacted particular distress. No doubt many, maybe most, others have been moved strongly in various …
Recent research: five papers on feeling good & improved functioning, on meaning & wellbeing, and on happy memories,
12th February 2009
I seem to be making a habit this month of focusing on a specific journal when posting the weekly report on interesting recent research. Last week it was the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . This week it's the Journal of Positive Psychology . To quote the Journal's website: …
Recent research: four papers from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
5th February 2009
I routinely scan quite a few journals every month. Sometimes it's disappointing and there's nothing in the issue of a particular journal that interests me much. Sometimes a particular journal contains a bunch of stimulating articles. January's edition of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology was a good find. …