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Positive Mental Health: Thriving and Flourishing. Cicilia Evi GradDiplSc ., M. Psi . Across the life span. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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POSITIVE MENTAL HEALTH:THRIVING AND FLOURISHINGCicilia Evi GradDiplSc., M. Psi
Across the life span Adult development is a continuous
process of anticipating the future, appraising and reappraising goals, adjusting to current realities, and regulating expectations so as to maintain a sense of well-being in the face of challenging circumstances Not merely reactions to events Include active participations in shaping
one’s own development
Resilience: Healthy adjustment to difficult childhood
Poor family environment problematic adults? Chronic poverty, parental neglect, parental
psychopathology, abuse and living in a midst of war
Resilience is a pattern of positive adaptation in the face of significant adversity or risk (Masten & Reed, 2002)
How do they cope: Find a nurturing surrogate parent/teacher to fill the
role of disturbed parent detachment Good social and communication skills, at least one
close friend desire to help others and provide some nurturance for others
Creative outlets, activities or hobbies give them sense of pride and mastery when hard times hit
Believe that somehow life will work out well fairly optimistic, internal locus of control, positive self-concept
Religious belief
Protective buffers For boys a household with good structures and
rules, a male role model and encouragement of emotional expressiveness
Girls homes that emphasized risk taking and independence, reliable support from an older female particularly a steadily employed mother
Resilient children do not react passively to the loss and neglect, but participate in creating/finding environments and people who will be supportive and reinforce their competency
Generativity: Nurturing and Guiding Others
Erik Erikson stage 7 “The responsibility for each generation
of adults to bear, nurture and guide those people who will succeed them as adults, as well as to develop and maintain those societal institutions and natural resources without which successive generations will not be able to survive”
High generativity is associated with greater well-being Related to many traits that are central to
the concept of the good life in positive psychology moral reasoning, more education, emphatic concern, less egocentric behaviors in midlife
Commitment script life narrative on how people interpret or perceive their life events as meaningful does not mean they have less life stresses!
Flourishing and Thriving as We Age Selective optimization with
compensation optimal adjustment to aging is accomplished by accepting that certain capacities decline with age and by finding ways to compensate for those necessary losses choose activities that give a sense of satisfaction
Socio-emotional selectivity the development of a positive self-concept or the regulation of emotional remain throughout the life span Positive self-concept important in adolescence,
less important with age Emotional regulation less important in
adolescence, more important with age, because they will make social choices based on emotional rewards
Social selection is not the same with social withdrawal
Age was not related to the frequency of positive experiences
Extended periods of positive emotionality were more likely to be found in older people
Older people also experience more complex and moving emotion than young people they have learned how to recognize more nuances of emotional experience and how to regulate their emotions in more adaptive ways
Wisdom Erikson (1950) defines wisdom as the
result of a successful resolution of the last stage of psychosocial development – involving acceptance of life as it had been lived and accepting the reality of approaching death
“Involved disinvolvement” commitment to the process of life with a calm detachment from any requirement that life turn a specific way
Wisdom is not a storehouse of information/opinion Wisdom implies knowledge that is social,
interpersonal and psychological – also knowledge that average people will find it hard to understand
Wisdom is “exceptional breadth and depth of knowledge about the conditions of life and human affairs” (Kramer, 2000)
Wise person is the one to go to when we wrestling with the most difficult questions in life, able to transform negative life experiences as life-affirming experiences
Two forms of wisdom (Helson & Wink, 1987): Practical wisdom includes exceptional
abilities such as: interpersonal skills, clarity of thinking, greater tolerance, and generativity
Transcendental wisdom has a spiritual or philosophical quality, includes the limits of knowledge, the rich complexity of the human experience and a sense of transcending the personal and individual aspects of human experience
Predictors of Wisdom 35% personality intelligence creativity,
cognitive, style, social intelligence 26% Life experience general life
experience, specific professional experience
21% Personality traits openness to experience, personal growth, psychological-mindedness
15% Intelligence No relation to Age!
Positive Mental Health Grouped as:
Innate Potentials innate drive to search for positive mental health
Assume positive mental health as a product of developing specific personality traits or character
As innate potentials Alfred Adler social interest, a feeling of
an intimate relationship with humanity, empathy with the human condition and a sense of altruism If a client is showing more social interest,
the therapy works! Jung optimal mental health was
characterized by a balance between elements of the personality, an openness to messages from a deeper level of the unconscious, and a growing sense of spirituality
Carl Rogers: Self-actualizing tendency innate need to
develop our potentials, that will also be both socially responsible and personally fulfilling supported by unconditional love, empathic understanding and genuineness
Fully functioning person someone who achieves the ideal, the fullest potentials characterized by: (1) openness to experience, (2) existential living and (3) trust in organismic experiences (4) a sense of freedom and (5) enhanced creativity
Abraham Maslow Self-actualization refers to the process of
living up to one’s potentials not a state, but an ongoing process of development – not possible in young and developing people because people need some life experiences first!
Hierarchy of needs Deficiency needs (D-needs) physiological;
safety; belongingness and love; self-esteem Being needs (B-needs) self-actualization
Security VS growth a willingness of a self-actualized person to risk the security of the known and comfortable for the potential growth that can come from embracing a new challenge they acknowledge, accept and may embrace the tensions created by B-needs
Jonah Complex when people reject personal growth changes because they fear that other people in their lives will not accept those changes
As Character Development Authenticity: Finding one’s true self
The combination of behaviors ability to recognize and take responsibility for one’s own psychological experiences; and the ability to act in ways that are consistent with those experiences
Know Thyself real motives, true emotions, actual beliefs
“True self” is actualized through activities that promote and foster 3 basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness and competence higher WB
Healthy and Adaptive Defense Mechanism Good mental health is “a way of reacting to
problems and not an absence of them” (Barron, 1963)
Unhealthy/neurotic defense mechanism often used by adolescents and people with severe depressions delusional projection or psychotic denial, passive-aggression, acting out
Normal style repression, intellectualization, reaction-formation, displacement, dissociation
Mature defense mechanism sublimation, altruism, anticipation, humor
Strengths and Virtues Virtues acquired excellences in character
traits, the possessions that contribute to one’s completeness; ideal states that facilitate adaptation to life
Both are important to help a person grows psychologically toward optimal character development
Recognizing strengths and virtues Contribute to fulfillment create better people Valued in their own right Celebrated when present and mourned if lost Taught by parents and social institutions There are parables and morality tales in the
society that teach them People hold and express them in different degrees Malleable or learnable Prompt joyful responses from others when
expressed
Good character Character is higher-order concept that
reflects the possession of several virtues Act consistently over time, consider the
welfare of others and greater good for society
Character is not personality traits, but must be learned and developed over time through experience, training or socialization includes self-regulation, strong self-identity, empathy, good judgments, high ethical standards, self-transcendence
Authentic Happiness Signature strengths positive personality
characteristics that are representative of each person and add to his or her uniqueness as their ‘real self’
Authentic happiness found by identifying and cultivating your most fundamental strengths and using them every day in work, love, play and parenting
Gratifications our emotional responses to activities that allow us to enact our signature strengths and virtues
Six Principles of Authentic Happiness
Everyone benefits Savoring success to deal with present
problems Social intelligence knows which
strengths to use and avoid particular person or situation
Opening doors “When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade”
Strengths in couples Finding meaning
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