Module-1: Readings-1(b): Positive Psychology, Positive Mental Health, and Well-being
Topics Covered in Module-1: Reading-1(b):
Listen to Psychologist: Shawn Achor (Video lecture)
What is the Science of Happiness? The Science of Happiness, the scientific study of "what makes happy people happy," was arguably launched by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi in the late 1980's. Czikszentmihalyi pioneered the "experience sampling method" to discover what he called the "psychology of optimal experience," and specifically, the experience of Flow.
How is Positive Psychology related to the Science of Happiness? Positive Psychology could be regarded as a subset within the broader field we call the Science of Happiness, which extends to the natural as well as the social sciences. For example, Positive Psychology is largely focused on the study of positive emotions and "signature strengths," yet the Science of Happiness extends, for example, to such areas as the impact of exercise on psychological well-being, or the effect of social media on happiness.
What is well-being? In his book Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being, Dr. Seligman shares his updated theory of well-being. Read an excerpt from the book and learn about the new goal of positive psychology: to increase not just human happiness, but human flourishing.
"Well-being: is a construct; and well-being, not happiness, is the "ultimate goal" of positive psychology. Well-being has five measurable elements (PERMA) that count toward it:
No one element defines well-being, but each contributes to it. Some aspects of these five elements are measured subjectively by self-report, but other aspects are measured objectively. Strengths and virtues—kindness, social intelligence, humor, courage, integrity, and the like (there are twenty-four of them) underpin all five elements of well-being (More about this in Module-2). Just know that deploying your highest strengths leads to more positive emotion, to more meaning, to more accomplishment, and to better relationships.The goal of positive psychology in well-being theory, is to increase the amount of flourishing in your own life and on the planet.
Professor Martin Seligman discusses his formula for wellbeing: PERMA (Video lecutre)
Optional viewing: Dr. Seligman recent talk (Video lecture)
With this background, let's dive into some more depth into the idea of about Mental Health.
A positive approach to healthcare: Dr. Corey Keyes at TEDxAtlanta (Video lecture by Keyes')
Video: Mental health (Lecture by Dr.Keyes)
The WHO emphasizes the need to promote positive mental well-being by defining a good mental health as—“… a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community” (WHO, 2004, p. 12). Furthermore, the Keyes’ mental health continuum model (Keyes, 2002, 2007) is exemplified in the WHO’s perspective on mental health—as a complete state that represents not only absence of disease, but also consists of the presence of positive states of human capacities and functioning categorized along a continuum by levels of flourishing, moderate, and languishing (Keyes, 2002, 2007, 2013).
The two continua model of mental illness and health holds that both are related, but distinct dimensions: one continuum indicates the presence or absence of mental health, the other the presence or absence of mental illness. Keyes (2005) categorized individuals into those with and those without mental illness and into those with languishing, moderate, and flourishing mental health. Mental health is therefore best viewed as a complete state, i.e., not merely the absence of mental illness but also the presence of mental health.
Read Dr.Pris's recent journal article publication in conjunction with Keyes' model on mental health.
Selvaraj, P. R. & Bhat, C. S. (2018). Predicting the mental health of college students with psychological capital. Journal of Mental Health. DOI: 10.1080/09638237.2018.1469738
Optional Viewing: Selvaraj, P. R. (2015). Using Positive Psychological Capital to Predict Mental Health in College Students: Implications for Counseling and Higher Education (Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University).
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2. How would you apply the concept of PERMA in your own life? List your learning from Seligman's lecture on PERMA.
3. According to Corey Keyes, how is "mental illness" different from "mental health"? From Dr.Keyes's TedTalk, highlight findings on depression and other aspects connected to college students.
4. From Corey Keyes' perspective, give examples of individual's characteristics who function in flourishing, languishing, and moderately mentally healthy.
5. What 2 significant implications for promoting mental health of HSU's students can you derive from Dr.Pris's research article?
- Field of Positive Psychology & the Science of Happiness
- The Well-being Theory- PERMA Model
- Positive Mental Health
Positive Psychology and the Science of Happiness: What's the difference?
What is Positive Psychology?Positive Psychology is the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive. The field is founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play. It is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living – and maintains that what is good in life is as genuine as what is bad. Although positive psychology focuses on what goes right in life, it doesn’t ignore what goes wrong. As Drs. Peterson and Seligman wrote in Character Strengths and Virtues, “There is a temptation to regard positive psychology as focusing on the stress-free individual, but this is a mistake… In accentuating the positive, we cannot ignore the negative. Conditions of adversity, whether external or internal, must be part of what we address in discussing character strengths.”Listen to Psychologist: Shawn Achor (Video lecture)
What is the Science of Happiness? The Science of Happiness, the scientific study of "what makes happy people happy," was arguably launched by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi in the late 1980's. Czikszentmihalyi pioneered the "experience sampling method" to discover what he called the "psychology of optimal experience," and specifically, the experience of Flow.
How is Positive Psychology related to the Science of Happiness? Positive Psychology could be regarded as a subset within the broader field we call the Science of Happiness, which extends to the natural as well as the social sciences. For example, Positive Psychology is largely focused on the study of positive emotions and "signature strengths," yet the Science of Happiness extends, for example, to such areas as the impact of exercise on psychological well-being, or the effect of social media on happiness.
The Well-being Theory- PERMA Model
Let's explore further into the Positive Psychology Theory:What is well-being? In his book Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being, Dr. Seligman shares his updated theory of well-being. Read an excerpt from the book and learn about the new goal of positive psychology: to increase not just human happiness, but human flourishing.
"Well-being: is a construct; and well-being, not happiness, is the "ultimate goal" of positive psychology. Well-being has five measurable elements (PERMA) that count toward it:
- Positive emotion (Of which happiness and life satisfaction are all aspects)
- Engagement
- Relationships
- Meaning and purpose
- Accomplishment
No one element defines well-being, but each contributes to it. Some aspects of these five elements are measured subjectively by self-report, but other aspects are measured objectively. Strengths and virtues—kindness, social intelligence, humor, courage, integrity, and the like (there are twenty-four of them) underpin all five elements of well-being (More about this in Module-2). Just know that deploying your highest strengths leads to more positive emotion, to more meaning, to more accomplishment, and to better relationships.The goal of positive psychology in well-being theory, is to increase the amount of flourishing in your own life and on the planet.Professor Martin Seligman discusses his formula for wellbeing: PERMA (Video lecutre)
Optional viewing: Dr. Seligman recent talk (Video lecture)
With this background, let's dive into some more depth into the idea of about Mental Health.
Positive Mental Health
In studying human behavior, there has been a tradition of focusing on deficits and problems, rather than strengths and resources. To emphasize a holistic perspective and a wellness approach, the field of positive psychology redirects attention to individual strengths and assets to ensure optimal functioning. Through positive psychology, Dr. Corey Keyes is shifting the emphasis in our healthcare system from fixing what is wrong with people to developing what is right.A positive approach to healthcare: Dr. Corey Keyes at TEDxAtlanta (Video lecture by Keyes')
Video: Mental health (Lecture by Dr.Keyes)
The WHO emphasizes the need to promote positive mental well-being by defining a good mental health as—“… a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community” (WHO, 2004, p. 12). Furthermore, the Keyes’ mental health continuum model (Keyes, 2002, 2007) is exemplified in the WHO’s perspective on mental health—as a complete state that represents not only absence of disease, but also consists of the presence of positive states of human capacities and functioning categorized along a continuum by levels of flourishing, moderate, and languishing (Keyes, 2002, 2007, 2013).
The two continua model of mental illness and health holds that both are related, but distinct dimensions: one continuum indicates the presence or absence of mental health, the other the presence or absence of mental illness. Keyes (2005) categorized individuals into those with and those without mental illness and into those with languishing, moderate, and flourishing mental health. Mental health is therefore best viewed as a complete state, i.e., not merely the absence of mental illness but also the presence of mental health.
Read Dr.Pris's recent journal article publication in conjunction with Keyes' model on mental health.
Selvaraj, P. R. & Bhat, C. S. (2018). Predicting the mental health of college students with psychological capital. Journal of Mental Health. DOI: 10.1080/09638237.2018.1469738
Optional Viewing: Selvaraj, P. R. (2015). Using Positive Psychological Capital to Predict Mental Health in College Students: Implications for Counseling and Higher Education (Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University).
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Let's Discuss- Reflection Questions
[Address these questions in a "COMMENT" using the Rubric on the Assignments page in Canvas]
1. From Dr.Achor's talk, what could you learn about the difference of traditional view of psychology and the new field of positive psychology?2. How would you apply the concept of PERMA in your own life? List your learning from Seligman's lecture on PERMA.
3. According to Corey Keyes, how is "mental illness" different from "mental health"? From Dr.Keyes's TedTalk, highlight findings on depression and other aspects connected to college students.
4. From Corey Keyes' perspective, give examples of individual's characteristics who function in flourishing, languishing, and moderately mentally healthy.
5. What 2 significant implications for promoting mental health of HSU's students can you derive from Dr.Pris's research article?
1) Traditional views of psychology focus on the mental illness perception of the brain and working on how to fix something that is already broken. It focuses on methods such as medication, therapies, and exposures to help overcome or fix an issue or imbalance in the brain. Positive psychology focuses on sort of a preventative care side of psychology. It focuses on the mental health of a person such as the happiness and how to achieve and maintain happiness rather than only focusing on the problem when it is very negative.
ReplyDelete2) PERMA in my life can sort of be used as a checklist in the way that I can use this acronym daily to see how I am doing in terms of reaching Positive mental health. For example I can use it in a checklist such as: How positive is my outlook on life, am I satisfied, or what am I not satisfied with currently; How involved and engaged am I with my community, friends, family, and work; How is my relationship with family, friends, co-workers, and significant other in relation to other previous measures; Do I feel like my life has a meaning and a purpose to it; am I achieving this purpose, do I feel like i'm accomplishing tasks given to me. Dr. Seligman's acronym if extremely effective and important to the realm of positive psychology, because it gives us a way to measure our mental health in a way and have a reminder of what to do if we don't have a sense of satisfaction.
3) Mental Illness is what we use to refer to the problems and negative attributes within the brain. We have a whole book full of several hundred disorders we consider to be mental illness or problems with the brain. Positive psychology, however, brings a new term to us "mental health" which refers to the overall well-being, satisfaction, or state of our mental stability and brain. This brings a more positive, or atleast neutral understanding of the brain rather than the negative connotation the word mental illness brings.
4) People who are flourishing have positive answers and perceptions of the people, community, and world around them. They feel very engaged within their communities and often have a high sense of achievement. They feel good about a life in which they are functioning well within. Moderately mentally healthy people fall into the neutral realm and don't see positive or negative most of the time. They often are not very engaged or involved with the community and groups of people around them. They sometimes have a sense of accomplishment but not as often as the flourishing group. Languishing people have a negative outlook on life and often are very disengaged from the community and all people. They often feel very low rates of achievement and often feel like they are a burden to those around them.
5) 1. promoting mental health to the HSU students would be helpful in the fact that focusing on positive rather than the negative we tend to always focus on will overall promote a healthier environment. 2. "The “flourishing” state is believed to be where there are optimal levels of subjective well-being and psychological and social functioning" helping the HSU students reach this level of mental health will help the students become more successful which will overall help them, the school, and society.
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ReplyDelete1. What I learned about the traditional view of psychology is that people tend to view and show the negatives rather than the positives. We want to find out what’s wrong with a person rather than finding the good. The new field of positive psychology is that if our brain gets use to the positives such as creating a more positive environment as well as outcomes instead of viewing the negatives that the traditional view of psychology does, our well-being will be a lot better.
ReplyDelete2. In PERMA, I see a formula of better achievements. If I look at what is positive in my life then it will become easier to see the happiness that I have in my life. What exactly have I engage in? Is it positive or is it negative? I would have to engage more into what is positive in my life and my surroundings, and also engaging in good healthy RELATIONSHIPS that MEAN a lot to me, and then once I do that I can find myself accomplishing things. When looking at PERMA I see jobs. I see a person who doesn’t care much about the job and finds it boring, so they go to work and waits till the clock strikes 5 so they can go home. They do that particular job because the pay is amazing. Why do we do that? Money; Finding happiness and doing what we love should be priceless. No one should be miserable in a job that means nothing to them and that they don’t see themselves accomplishing any goals. I need to find something that makes me happy not so much as wealthy. My happiness and well-being is more important than those dollar signs, people tend to live healthier lives if there are happy and have life satisfaction.
3. Mental Illness is looked negatively upon. If a person presents to not act “normal” in society they would call that a mental illness. Mental health is the positive side of it. Dr. Corey states that the absence of flourishing is as bad as the presence of mental illness. His talk was to enlighten the fact that there are a lot of bad things in society besides mental illness, the absence of mental health is. If we were to get rid of mental illness as far as finding a cure, the world would still struggle with finding out what is mentally healthy.
4. When looking at flourishing, languishing, and moderately mental health is on a scale ranging as great to poor. First, flourishing, which I see is being the rich in happiness and good overall well-being. I will say this listening to Dr. Corey I feel that a person that has a mental illness can still flourish. People who flourish see the good and positive things around them. Their overall well-being is good. People who are languishing do not see anything positive and quite frankly these are the people who have fell into a state of being that nothing in life is satisfying and they don’t even try to look for it.
They have cut off all social encounters with things. They find themselves thinking that all they do is hurt society instead of making it better. Moderate well-being are the people in the middle who aren’t flourishing, and are not languishing. These people have some social relationships but not enough to flourish. They have not quite made it there, but they are content with being where they are.
Delete5. I would first say being able to measure our mental health. If every student measured their mental health they will know what area needs help instead of wondering. In Dr Pris’s research the study showed correlations between three components that are involved in mental health. “Particularly, the psychological well-being cluster, in addition to having a very strong correlation with the mental health had a slightly stronger relationship with Overall-life. Additionally, Overall-life Efficacy was found to have the strongest association with mental health compared to other PsyCap dimensions,” and that takes me to my number two. Number two would be enhancing our psychological, social, and emotional well-being; doing that will promote mental health. Surveying students would bring it in the light to some students. College is draining enough and if some students were in acknowledging of “It doesn’t have to be that way” they would flourish mentally, and they would have a better overall well-being.
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ReplyDelete1. The traditional view of Psychology focused more on fixing your problems, your issues that you have in order to make you “normal” again. Dr. Archor’s mentioned that psychologist try to fix the outliers, the “weirdos”. For the new field of positive psychology many people think of it as getting happy, smiling, beaming with light and feeling successful but it isn’t. Dr. Archor gives an example like this, “that If we study what is merely average we will remain merely average.” The way he puts it is great and easy to follow along with. Positive psychology focuses on not only just moving people up to be average, but to move the entire average up in the workplace, school etc. He say that “its not reality that shapes us but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality…And if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness but we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time.” Most people think that working harder, means becoming successful, which then leads to happiness, which is where we are wrong. He says that we need to reverse the formulas of success and focus and raise somebody level of positivity in the present it can lead to happiness advantage. Positive psychology would help our society in many ways, if we could learn from this video and engage our brains in the way it is telling us to I truly believe we would be living in a different society. I liked the examples he used on how such as 3 things your grateful for, journaling, exercising, etc. all of those things can really open up your eyes and mind to how ungrateful we tend to be and it helps us realize that we are truly blessed with what we have, and have accomplished.
ReplyDeletewe have, and have accomplished.
2. Applying PERMA to my life would change it no doubt especially on how I look at things in life. Most days I just go through the motions and never really just take the time to really take everything in and see what is going on around me. By applying positive emotions such as pleasure, warmth, comfort, and the like of things, it could bring me peace and relaxation especially when things get hectic. If I was applying PERMA to my life I would use it as a “okay how have done today?” type of discussion with myself. Have I had a positive attitude today, am I doing a good job at looking at the positive things in life? How am I engaging with others, nature etc? How are my relationships? Are they positive and uplifting? Am I living my life with meaning and purpose? Am I persevering? And lastly am I doing everything to accomplish my calling? If I applied these things everyday in my life I think that my life would be different as would my attitude and the way I look at life.
Delete3. I really liked how he said “mental illness and our approach is insane.” I agree, when people hear mental illness they immidialaty think that person is a psychopath and crazy. Oh that person has depression stay away from them. Our view of mental illness is very twisted, which is sad because those people struggling with those disorders need our help and we do the complete opposite. Mental heath also known by him as flourishing is the positive more bright side of it, it refers to the well-being and state of our mental stability.
Delete4. From Corey Keyes' perspective, give examples of individual's characteristics who function in flourishing, languishing, and moderately mentally healthy. An example to flourish means that every day or almost everyday in the last month you felt one of the three emotional well-beings: happiness, satisfaction, interest in life also combined with six or more of the positive functioning. He really believes that those struggling with a mental illness still can flourish. Languishing means emptiness, that they do not see any positive outcomes, and if they remain that way they will never reach what it means to flourish.
Delete5. Promoting mental health at HSU would be very helpful to those who feel like they aren’t able to speak up about their issues. If it were focused on the positive psychology side instead of all the negatives we are use to hearing about I think that could impact students lives immensely. I think that after learning about the flourishing aspect from the Dr. Corey’s video and after reading Dr. Pris’s research article, students would gain so much more if they were being provided the needs to flourish. One way by doing that would be to make known that we have people to help you do the best to your abilities and people to help you succeed because HSU’s main goal is to see their students flourish.
Delete1) Traditional views of psychology are more focused on how the brains of people work and metal health issues. Such as if the person is not like the rest of the people around them they try to find the negative in them and try to treat them with medication and therapy and different technic. The see people as broken and not like normal because they are different. On the other hand, positive psychology focuses on the people that are different and use them and study them in different ways. Dr. Aschor’s states that “they don’t want to delete the different people off of their graphs but use them not just to move them above the average line but on how they can move the entire average up” using these individuals would help a lot of others.
ReplyDelete2) PERMA in my life would be amazing because it would show how my wellbeing is going because positive psychology is not about happiness but about the wellbeing of a person. This can help me be a better person in life and help me be better in life and everything I do it will show me how to be and do more of what makes me a better person. I can engage in in positive things and in positive relationships that will help me be better as a person and my wellbeing. My accomplishments will also show me how my wellbeing is and not my happiness. I leaners from Seligman’s lecture that PERMA that relationships in a person’s life are a huge factor to their wellbeing and how they are shaped as a person.
3) Mental illness is seen as a negative factor in today’s society. In our society people than do not meet the standard of being normal are considered mentally ill because something has to be wrong with them if they are not normal. Positive psychology brings the concept of mental health into the picture, it shows the positives and the wellbeing of a person and their lives.
4) People who are consider flourishing are individuals who have characteristics of being more positive to people around them and not really focused on the negative in life but more of the positive. The love who they are and their accomplishments, these individuals are also very engaged in different aspects in their life’s. These individuals also have a sense of meaning and belong no matter where they are. A languishing person is one who are disconnected from their community and don’t really have a sense of belong in the world they see the negative in everything even if the situation is a positive one. They have little sense of accomplish to almost none. The moderately mental health people are more of the people in the middle of it all they are not flourishing because they are somewhat connected to people and have relations ships and fell accomplishment and are engaged but not enough to flourish and not too little to be considered a languishing person
5) 1: I believe that if we introduce students to the perspective of positive psychology we can show them to see the positives in life and not the negatives and help students flourish and be in the flourish state by connecting them to the community and helping them engage in different things. If students are all in the flourishing state it will help them and individuals and also their mental health in life. 2: HSU students should take a survey before starting collage to get a feel of how individuals are and what state of mental health they are in and give them a survey at the end of the year to see if they improved as a person and there wellbeing or stayed the same.
1. The traditional view of psychology focused more on the negative parts of the mind. It studied the issues and focused on the question, “What’s wrong?” Positive psychology focuses more the flipside of traditional psychology. It looks at strengths and finds positive memories and characteristics in a client’s life. As Shawn Achor said in his TED Talk, it’s not the reality that shapes us, but rather, it’s the lens in which we view the world that shapes our reality. If we can change the lens, we can change our levels of happiness and outcomes in life. In social work, we are taught to use the strengths perspective when working with clients. The strengths perspective is essentially a method of positive psychology. In helping the client to identify their strengths in the midst of their struggles, we can help to change that lens in which they view reality, and that can indeed make a difference in the way they begin to view their situation.
ReplyDelete2. From Seligman’s lecture, I learned about the 5 variables of well-being: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment (PERMA). Interestingly, twenty years ago, people did not believe that well-being could be measured. Now, however, positive psychologists know that well-being can be measured using the variables of well-being. I would use PERMA in my own life as an analysis of my well-being and where I’m at in life. I think that it would be beneficial for me to sit down at the end of each day and go through each aspect of PERMA to look at where I am and what I could change or do to improve my well-being. Things I would examine are my current feelings about the past, present, and future, how strong certain relationships are and if they’re uplifting me or dragging me down, and what I feel my purpose in life is and how I am doing on living a meaningful life overall.
3. According to Corey Keyes, mental illness is perceived negatively by society. His belief on mental illness is that “our approach to mental illness is insane” because we treat it much like we do other illnesses. We wait for someone to break and then we try to fix the problem, but usually, only the symptoms are treated. Nothing is done to treat the mental illness as a whole. Mental health, or flourishing, takes a more positive approach. Positive psychologists look at the psychological, social, and emotional well-being when considering mental health. In terms of college students, studies have found that the majority of college students are not diagnosed with depression. However, the majority of college students are not flourishing either. One thing that Keyes said during his TED Talk was, “The absence of mental illness is often as bad as the presence of mental illness.” College students who are not depressed can still definitely be susceptible to languishing. College is hard. The course load can be stressful, and many college students have to work their way through school to pay tuition and/or simply be able to afford groceries and other daily necessities. Stress levels are high, and many college students do not get enough exercise or rest at night. That doesn’t even take into consideration personal struggles outside of school. It is no wonder that studies show that so many college students are not flourishing.
4. People who are flourishing typically experience more positive emotions and feel good about life throughout their week. They also are more likely to be comfortable with who they are, experience growth as a person, express their own opinions and beliefs confidently, and be able to make sense of the world around them. People who are flourishing are typically seen as “thriving.” Meanwhile, people who are languishing are simply “surviving.” Languishing is the opposite of flourishing while moderates are “neither flourishing nor languishing.”
5. It is both important and beneficial for students at HSU to understand the concept of flourishing and how it affects them. As studies have shown, many college students are not flourishing. One thing that HSU does do is have its incoming students take the Clifton Strengthsfinder test during Stampede week. This is a good thing, but I do think that they could do more with it. Instead of just having the students find out what their strengths are, they could help them to understand their strengths and find ways to utilize them in their everyday life. It can be beneficial to a person to know what their strengths are, but it is even more beneficial to know how to use them. Another thing that HSU could do to improve the well-being of their students is to have students take a test or survey that would measure their well-being. If students could see where they may be lacking in their well-being, it would become easier for them to see things that they could do or changes that they could make to move from languishing or moderate to flourishing.
Delete1. Based on Dr. Achor’s talk, the traditional view of psychology largely focuses on the larger picture of things, the average rate at which humans do certain things. However, the new field of positive psychology thrives on looking at the “outliers”, because as Dr. Achor explains, if we are able to look at the outliers and study them we could find a way to move the entire average of people’s happiness up, not just find a way to make that outliers “normal”. Additionally, the traditional view of psychology has a very skewed perception of what wellness really means. Dr. Achor referenced a story from his life where he was asked to speak at a school’s “wellness week”, and after talking about how each day had a new theme, from depression to eating disorders, he told them, “I’d be happy to speak at your school, but just so you know that’s not a wellness week, that’s a sickness week”; they had focused solely on the negative things that can happen but did not talk about the positive. Therefore, traditional psychology seems to have the view that wellness means being educated specifically on the diseases, disorders, and problems that may occur instead of actively engaging in the positive things we can do to improve our wellness. Furthermore, it seems that the difference here supports the idea that happiness truly does need to come first, if we are able to change the way we view the world in a positive way, we will subsequently become more successful in all that we do.
ReplyDelete2. In Seligman’s lecture, he noted that all of the components of PERMA are teachable and buildable. I feel that I could apply PERMA in my own life through a daily journal. Since all of these are areas that we can actively build upon and strengthen, being able to actively sit down and reflect on and write down how I can improve in each of these areas as well as what I am doing currently to nurture each of these areas will help me consistently and consciously build on these concepts and help me increase my own well-being.
Delete3. Mental illness is something that is diagnosable, treatable, and present symptoms of being mentally poor- such as sadness and sleeping all day from the sadness. Whereas mental health, or “flourishing” as Dr. Keyes calls it, is something that is defined by the symptoms of happiness; feeling one of the 3 aspects of emotional well-being combined with 6 or more aspects of positive functioning. Furthermore, it is important to note that the absence of illness DOES NOT mean health. For instance, as Dr. Keyes explained, they can test people and gather data on whether or not they meet the criteria for depression and when 14% of teens showed depression and 86% did not, people would assume in the real world that 86% of teens would be mentally healthy. However, that is completely false. They may not have any mental illnesses, but that does not mean they are flourishing in their life. Dr. Keyes references findings done on college students and noted that risks for suicidal attempts and plans increased as their mental illness increased and their mental heath deteriorated. He stated that the majority of college students are free of mental illness, but as noted earlier, the absence of illness does not mean health. Flourishing is an extremely important factor to actually being happy. Furthermore, he goes on to state that at least 6% of college students who HAVE a mental illness are flourishing- compared to 75% of college students who are without a mental illness. “Mental illness is a serious problem, but so is anything less than flourishing. The absence of mental health is just as bad as the presence of mental illness”.
Delete4. According to Dr. Keyes, someone who is flourishing, as I mentioned in question 3, is feeling one of the 3 aspects of emotional well-being combined with 6 or more aspects of positive functioning. Emotional well-being consists of happiness, satisfaction, and interest in life. Positive functioning consists of psychological well-being; self-acceptance, positive relations with others, personal growth, purpose in life, environmental mastery, and autonomy, and consists of social well-being; social acceptance, social integration, and social contribution. Languishing is defined by Dr. Keyes as emptiness- people languishing do not see the light, they see no positive in their life and they can fall into a mindset that keeps them consistently stuck in this emptiness.
Delete5. First off, after reading the research article, I highly believe that by showing students that there is a distinct difference in what it means to have a mental illness, be mentally healthy, and to flourish, would help them understand the positive side of the word “mental health”. Furthermore, I feel that by highlighting and explaining these difference, students can lay a foundation for themselves to begin flourishing. Secondly, by promoting mental health we can, as the article talks about, create programs that include tests to measure their mental health, and then begin teaching them how to understand and bring out their strengths so that they have every opportunity to figure out how they can individually flourish. By doing this, I truly feel that the mental health of a majority of students would be significantly improved by teaching them how to actively nurture their mental heath on a daily basis. I believe that knowing how to flourish and how to maintain a healthy mind is something that every single person should be actively taught so they can practice it every single day.
Delete1. In Dr. Achor's video about traditional psychology versus positive psychology, I learned about one major difference. In traditional psychology, the main focus of the psychologist is to get a sad or mentally ill person from bad to normal. However in positive psychology the aim is to get someone from normal or ad to flourishing. One think I learned was that our external world does not predict our happiness. This idea hadn't been present to me because I have always felt happier when the things around me are positive, but I now realize that I am in control of my well-being things like my surroundings are not in control of hoe I should be. Another thing that really hit home for me was the idea to treat stress as a challenge instead of as a threat, I know that in my life things become easier when I choose to do this instead of harping on the negative.
ReplyDelete2. I really enjoyed Dr. Seligman's well-being model (PERMA) which stands for positive emotions, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. I would apply PERMA in my life by keeping a journal on each of the five topics. In the first one on positive emotions, I would write down the positive emotions that I would be feeling and how these emotions effected me and those around me. For engagement, I would write about how I engaged in a relationship or in the community and all the good that comes out of it. For relationships, I would write about how much the relationship means to me and how they have positively effected my life. For meaning I would talk about what I can do for others and how it can effect them and myself to find my purpose. For accomplishments, I would write about how the good things I have done and how they effect myself and others around me. After all of this, I would reflect on the journals to help myself when I feel down.
3. I learned a couple things from Dr. Keyes' video on the difference between mental illness and mental health. Before this video, I had always kind of grouped the two together. However after the video, I see that mental illness is something that is wrong with you but mental health is something that you have control over. For instance say there is a college student who struggles with generalized anxiety disorder, they would need specialized help for coping and maybe medication as well because it is a mental illness. However, with a student who is just feeling extra stressed because they have a huge exam, they could do something like treating the stress as a challenge and give themselves better mental health.
4. An example of someone who is flourishing is someone who feels good about life in which they are functioning well. They are generally positive and happy. Someone who is languishing is someone who is surviving, trudging through life, and not really engaged. They may be stressed out and sad, not presenting happiness and positivity. Someone who is moderately mentally has good days and bad days, they are happy and sometimes sad. Sometimes they feel good and other times they don't. They really are in between flourishing and languishing.\
5. Two significant things that I think would prompt better mental health for HSU students are a weekly hour in which students get together to have fun and relax from the stresses of school, and also a daily study break during finals week. For the weekly time, people could play board games or just talk and release the stress that builds up over the week and turn that pent up energy into positive energy. For the finals week, have something like the pancake study break or the puppy hour every day which could help those who are languishing become moderately mentally healthy, and those who are moderately mentally healthy become flourishing.
1. I learned that most of the traditional views of psychology revolve around the negatives of psychology. He mentions how psychologist try to take the mental illness you are suffering from and fix it to make you normal. Where in positive psychology it focuses on the people who are above normal and tries to get everyone to that place. In positive psychology it doesn’t stop at the people who have now reached the average it tries to go beyond that.
ReplyDelete2. In my own life I would like to be able to apply the concept of having better relationships than I already have in my life. I think that I could have an even more fulfilling and happy life if I could have even better relationships. The things that I learned about PERMA is that this is about “engagement, flow, and one with the music”. PERMA is a way to measure flow and engagement. It also gives some answers on how you can get more out school, work place, different relationships, and things you care.
3. According to Dr. Keyes’s he says that mental illness talks about the illnesses you can get. It isn’t positive it is things like depression, eating disorders, and PTSD. Whereas mental health is something that has to do with someone who is flourishing. He talks about how mental health is shows the presence in someone’s life of happiness.
With college students he talks about a study that mentions that 75 percent of college students are free of mental illness. Also, 6 percent of college students are flourishing with a mental disorder. On the study it shows that as college students with good mental health decreases their suicidal rate increases. The people with poor mental health had many college students with thoughts of suicide but the students with moderate mental health were close to the same or at least 3/4s of the same amount. So, having the absence of mental illness and having the presence of mental illness does not make you more or less susceptible to depression.
4. People who are flourishing is having self- acceptance, having warm and trusting relationships with other human beings. It is also, being challenged to be a better human being, having meaning to your life, being able to manage the parts of your life, and having confidence to express yourself. It also has social aspects of being accepted, having good relationships, and having growing relationships that challenge you. In the Mental Illness and Mental Health: The Two Continua Model Across the Lifespan article he mentions that languishing is a state of individuals with low levels of psychological and social well-being. All the things I mentioned about flourishing they are basically the opposite or not even close to being on the level that flourishing is on. These people usually don’t have a positive outlook on their self and they may not have a good social life. The people who are moderately mentally healthy are not flourishing nor are they in a languishing. They are considered to be in the middle. These people aren’t at a good mental health, but they aren’t at poor mental health either. Another thing that is mentioned that is pretty important from the article is, “This definition parallels the definition of depression in the DSM-IV, which includes both feelings of anhedonia (feeling sad or loss of interest and pleasure) and reported problems in functioning (such as problems in appetite, sleeping, or fatigue).”
5. The first significant implication I noticed that would help promote mental health to HSU’s students is having programs that focus on telling them about their strengths and having focuses on optimism and hope. Also, being able to focus on the goals of what students have and be able to reflect on their state of being. The second significant implication to promote mental health is to help students address the stressors that students face so they can find way to get through them.
1. After watching Dr. Achor’s talk, I learned that the difference between the traditional view of psychology and positive psychology is that the traditional view mainly focuses on fixing the ones who are considered “broken.” Dr. Achor states that when in any statistic, the people who are below average are the “weirdos” who psychologists love because they can “return them to normal.” Whereas positive psychology's main focus is on things like re-focusing happiness, the benefits of being happy rather than neutral or negative, and studying what makes people exceptional. Although, the traditional view of psychology is still very much an interest for me, I think positive psychology would be a field for me to dive into and possibly study.
ReplyDelete2. I would apply PERMA in my own life just by trying to test it in relation to my life everyday. This reminds me of doing these little half sheets in Dr. Rosenblad’s recreational therapy class. We would fill out the sheet according to how we were feeling each time we came into her class, so for PERMA I would do something similar. This would help me just see overall how I am doing in positive emotion or life satisfaction, my personal engagement in activities and such, how well my relationships are doing, reassessing meaning and purpose to me, and looking back on my accomplishments and of course setting goals for new ones. The main things I learned from the Seligman's lecture on PERMA was that we can accurately measure well-being through PERMA and the types of tests that are associated. Another thing is that PERMA are buildable aspects.
3. After watching the Keyes lecture on a positive approach to healthcare, mental illness differs from mental health by mental health referring to someone’s overall health in multiple aspects like emotional well-being and social well-being. The term “mental illness” has a negative connotation because of how we treat mental health issues in our society. Looking back on some pf the things I’ve learned since being a psychology major in college, is that we treated people with mental illnesses very terribly, and we have evolved from that but not in the best way. I think Keyes’ states several times that we park an ambulance on the bottom of the hill and wait and I think that really translates to what believe I’m trying to say. Keyes has found that college students are more at risk for suicidal plans more than before. College kids who have mental disorders can still flourish.
4. From Keyes’ perspective, some examples of an individual's characteristics who functions in flourishing, languishing, and moderately mentally healthy include people who in flourishing are people that feel overall happiness in those various different aspects like social, psychological, and emotional well-being. They are very engaged within different parts of their life. People who are languishing are people who are not happy and not engaged. People who are moderately mentally healthy are people who are people that are “in between,” the are engaged but they are not doing enough as people who are flourishing.
5. The two significant implications for promoting mental health of HSU's students I derive from Dr. Pris's research are creating spaces for students to openly talk about their mental health “...by providing proactive, simple, practical, cost-effective, and short-term interventions…” I think we do this by having the psychology center for students. “Many university campuses have embraced positive, strength-based interventions as a way to enhance the college experience for students and to focus on student thriving rather psychological diagnoses…” We also have strengths week at HSU and focusing on our particular strengths has proven to be helpful.
1) In this TED Talk, Achor discusses how psychology normally categorizes, lists, and focuses on all the problems and negative aspects people may have. However positive psychology simply focuses on the good parts of a person’s life. I liked his part on present positivity focus and how it can benefit a person and many ways. This is otherwise known as a positivity advantage.
ReplyDelete2) Well I feel the first block “positive emotion” seems to be simply how positive are you in general. I like to think I can be pretty upbeat, at least that I attempt to be. At the least I would not want to make other upset. I have already been using some “engagement” in my life. Every month I give myself a new challenge of music to learn to play and sing. That’s not all however, I do different levels of pieces. One that is very hard, another that is workable with some practice in a day, and one I can do anytime having learned it before. I try to practice at least 1 or 2 a day. Relationships are the 3rd building block in PERMA and I feel I derive a lot from this one. I always try to keep in touch with my closest friends and family. I even call most of my family throughout the week just to check and in and see how they are doing. Relationships have always been a very important thing in my life ever since I can remember. The next part is “meaning” which I could definitely improve on in my life. I am really not a member of any organization. I feel right now I don’t have time in my life to give a whole lot back. Which may sound selfish, but I feel it is okay to want to focus on yourself for a time, so you can be your best person for others. I feel there are different kinds of accomplishment big and small throughout every day life. Such as the other day I was running late for work, but I was so excited because I was only 1 minute late. Or a big accomplishment such as being able to pay all my bills for the month. I feel all of these things can occur in a person’s life daily and I agree that they are all important factors in a person’s well-being.
3) In the talk, mental illness is focused more on problems with the person. Whereas mental health expresses more about the person’s mindset and outlook and ability in everyday life. Depression is something that seems to be mechanically diagnosed according to Keyes. He claims it is something everyone in the room knows how to diagnose and you must only meet 2 criteria for it. He explains that flourishing, just like depression, is something that is in our DNA and it is heritable. Most college students appear to free of mental illness. However, many students are depressed and flourishing at the same time. Each characteristic comes and goes.
4) Flourishing is interpreted as having one of 3 factors described in the video basically describing and asking how good someone is feeling, like being interested or satisfied with life. Then there is 11 more questions asking how a person is doing in their daily lives and how well they handle different things that come their way. Languishing is described as a hollowness in a person’s life and is really a counter to flourishing.
5) It seems college students are actually more worried about the rising diagnoses of mental illnesses. It would be so much better if we could help them to focus on the better and more positive things that are doing in their life. Rather than worrying about something negative. An overall characteristic that really should be looked at should be the students’ mental health. Students should be shown ways to improve on areas they are struggling whether it be socially or just in daily life. I feel a boost in mental well-being could really help every student at HSU.
1. The traditional view of psychology focuses on the negatives. It focuses on the "weirdos" or the outliers and eventually drawing them back down to the average. In the traditional view of psychology therapy focuses on finding what is wrong with someone and diving into multiple ares of their life to find a multitude of other things wrong with them. Essentially, before focusing on how to help someone, traditional psychology first focuses on digging up the past. Dr. Achor talked about a conversation he had with a school official who has a "wellness week" that focuses on depression, suicide, eating disorders, etc, and he points out that that is not a wellness week; that is a sickness week. That is what traditional psychology does. It points out all of the things that could be wrong with you and tells you how toward on it. Positive psychology on the other hand, just as it sounds, it forces on the positive. Dr. Achor gave a great example of a story of his sister falling off of a bunk bed and landing on all fours and before she began to cry he said "don't cry, you landing on all fours, you're a unicorn", this is a prime example of kids practicing positive psychology in their play time. Positive psychology shows us how to draw positive out of a situation, and when we do that we realize that our lives really aren't that bad. We are so focused on success and thinking that will make us happy and giving ourselves bigger and bigger goals, and it ends up making our perceived happiness unattainable. Dr. Achor proposes that we shift that model, and we focus on happiness first, then we naturally be successful.
ReplyDelete2. PERMA is more than just measuring your happiness, it’s about improving your well-being. Happiness is a part of your wellbeing, but it doesn’t encompass it. PERMA stands for positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. I think it is super important to apply PERMA to my own life. Having positive emotions is not only huge to your happiness but also your well-being. If all you have is negative emotions, then you obviously will not be a very healthy person, so that is huge. I could apply this area to my life by finding something positive in any situation, and just having a healthy mindset on things. Engagement to me is just be present in what is going on around you, specifically with your family and friends. So, every day I can just make sure I am involved with the people that I love. Having healthy and positive relationships is a two-sided thing, but again on my end I can make sure I am getting the most out of my relationships, and just being present in other people’s lives, and serving them; not just making it all about myself. I think meaning and accomplishment go hand in hand. If you don’t feel like something has meaning to you then you probably won’t be super successful, and you probably won’t accomplish much. For me it is important for me to fill my life with things that are important to me and that I am passionate about. I want to feel like my career gives me meaning, and if I don’t feel that way I won’t thrive.
Delete3. Corey Keys distinguishes mental health from mental illness. We tend to mix the two things up, and think they are the same thing, but they are not. Keys points out that mental illness is what people are diagnosed with and there are hundreds of diagnoses in the DSM that include things such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, schizophrenia, anorexia, and bipolar. Mental illness has a very negative view, and Keys also points out that we tend to not help someone until they completely crash, or fall off the cliff. Keys coins mental health as “flourishing” because people get mental illness and mental health so mixed up. He found that only a small percentage of people are flourishing, and the rest are not, but that does not mean that all of the people that are not flourishing have a mental illness. An interesting finding that Keys had is that if not addressed correctly, depression will be a leading cause of problems in many countries, second to heart disease by the year of 2030.
Delete4. Flourishing people have a positive view of life. Flourishing people feel happiness, satisfaction, and interest in life most of the time. These people are likely to be engaged in their communities, workplace, families, and friends. Moderately mentally healthy people, just as they sound fall somewhere in the middle. They don’t necessarily have positive or negative emotions. They are pretty neutral. They are not engaged in their lives like flourishing people are. Languishing people are pretty empty. They are not engaged in their lives, and they have very negative views about pretty much everything. If these people don’t get ahold of themselves it may be difficult for them to ever flourish.
5. Promoting mental health could be very helpful to HSU students. I think it would be helpful to create a conversation about the positive, and not just the negative. I think it could be helpful to help students understand the difference in mental health a mental illness. Promoting mental health can help give students hope about whatever situation they are in. Another thing is that it is no doubt that students experience a ton of stress, so it is important to help students understand those things so they can work through them. If students don’t work through the stressors in a healthy way it can result in poor mental health.
1. In the traditional field of psychology, the goal is to get people to get to a base line of being normal. Positive psychology states that if you study what is average, the individual will remain average. For the traditional psychology section, they primarily focus on what the majority is like. Whereas for positive psychology, they focus on what the positive outliers are like and they want to move the average happiness level higher.
ReplyDelete2. The PERMA theory of well-being model is one of the attempts to try to answer what human flourishing is and how to enable it. PERMA itself has five bullet points to enable the flourishing and each stand for a letter in PERMA. Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment, thus making the acronym, PERMA. The goal of this theory is to increase the amount of flourishing in one’s own life and on the planet. In my life, I would apply relationships, meaning, and accomplishment because those are some of the qualities that I have for myself that lead to my well-being. Knowing that there is meaning in the things I am doing would give me a sense of accomplishment in whatever I would be doing and having a purpose. Having meaningful relationships in my life would also contribute to my own flourishing by being able to have another person to confide in and trust. From Seligman’s lecture over PERMA, I learned that every person will use the five building blocks differently because everyone will have a different view on what is a positive good life. Each person will have a path to find what a flourishing life for them will be whether it includes all five of the PERMA well-being methods or just a couple of them.
3. Mental health is a syndrome with symptoms of positive feelings and positive functioning in life. The complete state of mental health consists of the “absence of mental illness” with the presence of mental health symptoms. The term mental health comes from positive psychology which is a broader understanding of the overall well-being and state of the mental stability in one’s brain. Another way that is looked upon by the phrase mental illness, is related to as insane because people categorize mental illnesses with the concept of being insane which is not the correct terminology.
4. According to Keyes’ mental health continuum model, the perspective on mental health is as a complete to not only represent the absence of disease, but also consist of a presence of the positive states of human capacities and functioning categorized along a continuum by the levels of flourishing, moderate, and languishing. He uses a 14 questionnaire that is asked to the individuals, and to be considered flourishing, the individual needs to at least have one out of the three questions answered to be feeling good either every day or almost every day. Then at least six out of the remaining eleven functioning well close to everyday. To flourish is to feel good about life and what is functioning well.
5. Through the strong support from previous studies over psychology capital and mental health, it is shown that there are positive effects of the psychology capital on the psychological health. The psychology capital has assets such as hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism and can be crucial to health outcomes through its process. Promoting mental health at a college campus would be to reassure that from the research article, college students would most likely enjoy positive mental health due to the claim of the higher the optimism, efficacy, and hope levels. College can be such a stressful time in which students can feel depressed or have other mental health problems that addressing the variability in mental health is real. Also, another implication that can promote mental health would be the flourishing factors.
1. Positive psychology offers something that we can benefit from, it offers the change to help find the inner strengths of a person while focusing on proactive steps to use their own abilities in order to thrive in society. Traditional psychology defines a client’s problem and then finds ways to treat the problem using a variety of different techniques. Most techniques look at past, present, and future behaviors of the client and also focuses more on any traumatic event that may have happened and how that or those events impacted the functioning of the individual.
ReplyDelete2. I would personally use PERMA in my life to evaluate my overall well-being and to see where exactly I am in life and where I hope to be. I think realistically it would be nice to sit down twice a week and go through and list each part of PERMA and then compare my well-being from the beginning of the week to the end of the week. Then go through and examine each part and see the areas that I can improve and see the areas that do not need to be changed. I would examine how I am feeling at that point in time, how engaged I am with my surroundings, the condition of my relationships are they good ones or toxic ones. I would also examine what is my purpose at this point in time and how or what am I doing to accomplish this purpose in my life. In Seligman’s lecture, I learned about different variable that are a part of well-being: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. In his lecture he noted that all these components are measurable and teachable. Therefore, I feel for me it would be beneficial to compare myself at the beginning of the week to the end of the week.
3. After watching Dr. Keyes’ video on a positive approach to healthcare, I got a better understanding about the difference between mental illness and mental health. I always thought they were the same but come to find out they are different. Mental illness is when someone suffers from a disorder like depression or PTSD, something that effects a person’s quality of life. Dr. Keyes refers mental health as flourishing. Mental health something that you can control it is more positive.
4. An example of someone who is flourishing is someone that is thriving and feels good about their life. Someone who is languishing in life is someone who is not happy and not engaged in life. People who are moderately mentally healthy are people who are “in between” they are engaged in life but they are not doing enough in their life like people that are flourishing.
5. One way I think would help promote mental health for HSU student would be to measure every students’ mental health at the beginning of each semester. This will help students know what they need to work on. Another would be to provide students with a survey to help them find their strengths and weaknesses but also sit down and help them under how to use those strengths in the career path that they chose.