Posts tagged with 'wellbeing'
Recent research: articles from late summer journals
3rd September 2014
I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - Endnote - which currently contains over 21,200 abstracts. I also regularly tweet about emerging research, so following me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ (click on the relevant icon …
A day spent "idle & blessed": revisiting an experiment - savouring & "positive state mindfulness"
20th April 2013
Last September I went back to Cambridge for a reunion ... the first time I'd ever been back to school or university for such a thing. It was an experiment in "emotional archaeology" and I wrote a series of blog posts about it. At one stage I experimented with a …
The "Balanced Measure of Psychological Needs" scale: a helpful contribution to self-determination and wellbeing assessment
16th February 2013
I'm a big fan of Self-Determination Theory (S-DT). For me it's one of the best ways into understanding flourishing and wellbeing. I use the ideas all the time in my work and in my life. The fine S-DT website at Rochester University in the States gives vast amounts more information. …
A day spent "idle and blessed": report of an experiment
30th November 2012
In the words of Mary Oliver's beautiful poem "The summer day": Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean - the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of …
Purpose in life: reduces dementia risk, increases life expectancy, treats depression and builds wellbeing
23rd May 2012
I was struck by a paper published this month in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry - "Effect of purpose in life on the relation between Alzheimer disease pathologic changes on cognitive function in advanced age". The authors wrote "In recent years, systematic examination has shown that purpose in life …
New UNICEF report underlines how low wellbeing is in UK children
17th September 2011
The UK branch of UNICEF very recently stated "In 2007, UNICEF's child well-being report put the issue of child well-being firmly on the UK's political agenda. When compared with 20 other OECD countries, including substantially poorer ones, the UK was at the bottom of the league table of child well-being. …
Greater good science center & the wisdom of babies
8th August 2011
Recently I was looking at the idealistic & interesting website "Greater good: the science of a meaningful life". Their mission statement reads "The Greater Good Science Center studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being, and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society. Based at the University …
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 …
International Journal of Wellbeing: a new, free full-text publication
6th February 2011
January saw the publication of the first edition of the new, free full-text International Journal of Wellbeing. It's good news. The opening editorial - "Promoting research on wellbeing" - starts "Welcome to the inaugural issue of the International Journal of Wellbeing (IJW). The IJW is an open access peer-reviewed journal …
Two new, easily usable scales for assessing wellbeing
23rd January 2011
The two scales described are downloadable as "Flourishing scale" Word doc and "Flourishing scale" PDF, and also "SPANE" Word doc and "SPANE" PDF. This post, which provides background advice on using the FS and SPANE, is available to download both as a Word doc and as a PDF. For completeness …