Posts tagged with 'positive psychology'
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 …
Psychotherapy & positive psychology: why psychotherapists should pay attention
4th March 2011
Early next month I'm scheduled to run a workshop on "Psychotherapy & positive psychology". Most of the participants will be 3rd year counselling psychology students, with a few practising psychotherapists in the mix as well. I haven't run a workshop on this subject before. It's a fascinating area that I …
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 …
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 …
30th wedding anniversary ceilidh: celebration, social networks & gratitude
31st October 2010
Yesterday, Catero and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary with a ceilidh. This is Auld Lang Syne at the end of the party. I'm the loudmouth (on one glass of wine), with dear Catero on my left (to the right in the picture). Laura, precious stepdaughter, is three places to …
Manchester BABCP conference: disagreeing with Jamie Pennebaker - writing can be used with positive experiences too (ninth post)
24th August 2010
Yesterday I wrote a post "Disagreeing with Jamie Pennebaker - writing can help past, present & future concerns". I ended it with the words "In tomorrow's post I'll argue that therapeutic writing (although not so much expressive writing) is also potentially beneficial when the focus is on positive experiences as …
Manchester BABCP conference: disagreeing with Jamie Pennebaker - writing can help past, present & future concerns (eighth post)
23rd August 2010
I've already written a couple of appreciative posts about Jamie Pennebaker's fascinating talk at the BABCP Manchester conference - one on "Expressive writing & emotional suppression" and another on "Expressive writing & timing issues". I'm now going to write a couple of posts disagreeing with points Jamie appeared to make …
Manchester BABCP conference: positive psychology and depression (third post)
23rd July 2010
The second day of the annual BABCP conference in Manchester started bright and early. I wrote a bit in my room - I've already written a couple of posts about the first day of the conference - before heading down for an early breakfast. Breakfast was good - much better …
European positive psychology conference in Copenhagen: Barbara Fredrickson 'How positive emotions work, and why' (sixth post)
11th July 2010
I wrote last week on "Barbara Fredrickson 'How positive emotions work, and why' (fifth post)" and the initial two key points she made in her talk - 1.) Positivity opens us, and 2.) Positivity transforms us. Today's post discusses the second half of her talk and her three further key …