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Positive Psychology

  
 
Unconditional Love
11:48 / 01.04.07
I am developing a set of training based on positive mental health, i want to present values rather than a set of techniques to people, something that examines what values promote and provide good mental health, so it is not just applicable to service users but also service providers and everyday people.

I have chosen this as my basis after some research, because it focuses on wellness rather than illness, i believe a too exclusive focus on illness is part of the problem of why many people do not recover from mental health issues or rather find it difficult to self manage, obviously it is not that simple but i believe positive psychology is perhaps more helpful than anything else i have taken on board before.

Positive Psychology

Quotes below are taken from the link.

The organization of these virtues and strengths is as follows:

1. Wisdom and Knowledge: creativity, curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning, perspective
2. Courage: bravery, persistence, integrity, vitality
3. Humanity: love, kindness, social intelligence
4. Justice: citizenship, fairness, leadership
5. Temperance: forgiveness and mercy, humility and modesty, prudence, self-regulation
6. Transcendence: appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality

Practical applications of positive psychology include helping individuals and organizations correctly identify their strengths and use them to increase and sustain their respective levels of well-being. Therapists, counselors, coaches, and various other psychological professionals can use the new methods and techniques to build and broaden the lives of individuals who are not necessarily suffering from mental illness or disorder.

There is a suggestion in the introductory portion of the CSV that these six virtues are so consistently identifiable across cultures and throughout history that they may, in theory, be universal in nature. Notwithstanding numerous cautions and caveats, this suggestion of universality hints that in addition to trying to broaden the scope of psychological research to include mental wellness, the leaders of the positive psychology movement are challenging moral relativism and suggesting that virtue has both a biological and a cultural basis.

The above paragraph i particularly find intresting as it does suggest that there are some cultural vales that are considered norms by a majority of human cultures, alot of them often taught in a religous context, i wonder how the transmission of them outside of a religous context changes how they are recieved, if they are in anyway at all, my own personal challenge is going to be to try and absorb these concepts outside of a religous/magical framework (although some of them are included in my practice) as i find it difficult to absorb value without symbolic/ritual/technique.

Though i think it will be easier as i will have to clearly and concisely express this to a group of strangers. What do you make of this young form of psychology,1998, first scientific investigation of positive values on behaviour and wellness?
 
 
Papess
15:09 / 02.04.07
...challenging moral relativism and suggesting that virtue has both a biological and a cultural basis.


I don't know what to make of it, wolfangel. but I find this fascinating. It seems like such a healthier approach to mental wellness. Too often in modern healing arts there is an attention on the dis-ease that is nearly tantamount to coddling it.

This thread nearly escaped me.
 
 
The Ghost of Tom Winter
06:15 / 03.04.07
I think you would find the documentary "Inventing Reality" very interesting.

It was part of a set of documentaries called Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World. The only link I found close enough was this from New York Times. I watched it in one of my anthropology classes and found it incredible. It has three parts to it; the first is about a Huichol shaman and a modern doctor from the same village who seek to find a cure to the illness that's come upon their village. The doctor and shaman work together instead of trying to out do each other and eventually find a cure to the problem. Basically the shaman goes on a pilgrimage to please the spirits and when the shaman and doctor get back to the village the local hospital has found and diagnosed the cure.
The second is about a doctor who seems to be doing just what you described above.
The last was about Australian indigenous group, I forgot the point of that one though.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
16:13 / 07.04.07
The above paragraph i particularly find intresting as it does suggest that there are some cultural vales that are considered norms by a majority of human cultures, alot of them often taught in a religous context, i wonder how the transmission of them outside of a religous context changes how they are recieved

I think that modern western societies disassociate themselves from the consequences of their cultural values, and that this is particularly the case in regards to religion. For instance, I was raised with the value that human life is sacred and that murder is wrong, with the consequence being that if I was caught than I would go to prison, and that if there was an afterlife than I would most likely be punished for my crime; whilst I was made aware of these consequences, they also seem distant and 'iffy'.

I've found that the realisation that who and what I am on a day to day basis is the direct result of my values, first taught as cultural but then picked and choosed from to form personal, is a much greater motivational tool; when coupled with the realisation that certain versions of who and what I am are more desirable than others, the desired effect leads to the desired cause.

For me, personal judgement is a much greater tool for self realisation than society or religion.
 
  
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