Positive Approach

• Assumptions:

  • The acknowledgement of Free Will
  • Authenticity of Goodness and Excelence
  • Focus on the Good Life
• Assumption 1: Acknowledgement of Free Will

  Humans are in charge of their own emotions and have the free will to change how they direct their emotions. The assumption is that as humans, we are self-directing and adaptive, and that a good life can be experienced if we use our strengths and virtues to enhance our lives.
• Evidence that Supports assumption 1

  Diener and Sleigman (2002): Choosing to spend time with family and friends can lead to positive outcomes and you being happier

  Langer and Rodin (1976): Control led to better health and longer lives in care home reisdents.
• Assumption 2: Authenticity of Goodness and Excellence

  This assumption states that feelings of happiness and goodness are as natural as feelings of anxiety and stress, and therefore psychologists need to assign these positive states of mind equal attention

  Usually psychology's approach to mental illness is to "fix" it instead they should focus more on developing positive traits such as kindness, generosity and humour which can make a life more fulfilling
• Signature Strengths


  Seligman (2002) believes that we have inherent traits, which he calls ‘signature strengths’, such as kindness, generosity and humour. We need to nurture these traits in order to transform our lives
• Assumption 3: Focus on the Good Life


  One of the primary focuses of positive psychology is on the good life, i.e. those factors that contribute most predominantly to a well-lived life. Seligman (2003) distinguishes between three desirable lives:

  • The pleasant life – happiness comes from pursuing positive emotions in relation to the past, present and future.

  • The good life – happiness comes from pursuing activities that positively absorb and engage us.

  • The meaningful life – happiness comes from a deep sense of fulfi llment by living for a purpose much greater than oneself
• Elements that help live the Good Life

  • Positive connection to others
  • Positive individual traits
  • Develop Life regulation qualities - behaviour we need to regulate to achieve goals
• Components of Mindfulness

  • Gaining Control of Thoughts
  • Mediation and Mindful Breathing
  • Informal Practises of mindfulness
• Gaining control of thoughts


  Being mindful trains us to focus on our present thoughts, emotions and feelings

  Mindfulness teaches us to focus on the present, to become aware of all incoming thoughts and feelings and also to accept them. The goal of focusing on the present is to gain greater awareness of unhelpful or negative thoughts that often dominate us in order to gain control over them and spend less time dealing with them.
• Meditation and Mindful Breathing

  Formal training by way of sitting meditation physically removes an individual from their daily interactions with life, so that it is easier to focus the mind.

  It is learnt though paying attention to their body sensations, to their thoughts and emotions which prevents the intrusion of unhelpful, negative thoughts as well as personal practise.

  Meditation helps people reprocess their internal experiences and helps them to accept that thoughts are not permanent – In this way, an individual learns not to react in an automatic way to their thoughts
• Informal Practise of Mindfulness


  Once learned, mindfulness can be practiced throughout our daily life, amid other activities such as driving, cleaning or having a shower

  Informal mindfulness practices can be incorporated into daily life to give us a break from our normal thought processes.
• Application in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) - Evaluation ( + effectiveness)


  MBCT has been used to help prevent patients who suffer recurrent depression from relapse. Teasdale et al. (2000) evaluated the effectiveness of MBCT among 145 recurrently depressed patients.

  MBCT reduces the recurrence rate over 12 months by 40-50% compared to usual care
• Integration with other therapies (+ evaluation)

  The techniques of mindfulness practice are becoming increasingly incorporated into other therapies, such as psychoanalysis and cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT)
• Example of Mindfulness being integrated into other therapies


  For example, mindfulness based CBT (MiCBT) is a four stage therapeutic approach which incorporates mindfulness with CBT. While traditional CBT attempts to modify people’s unrealistic thoughts and beliefs, MCBT helps to change the process of thinking, not just the content of our thoughts. Thus mindfulness is demonstrated to be an effective technique.
• Mindfulness doesn't work (- effectiveness)

  Although mindfulness seems to help with depression, some psychologist might not agree as some of the methodology behind the studies hasn't been as in depth as they could've been.

  Many of the studies are small, piolet studies and are carried out on people who are on the mild end of the spectrum - not always generalisable but further research could be done with it as we don't know the long term effects of it
• Adapted for a variety of settings (+ effectiveness)

  Mindfulness has been adapted for a variety of settings such as workplace, prisons, schools etc - adaptable enough to be applied to all aspects of life

  A Mindfulness scheme was set up in schools in 2007 which was a 9 week course designed for students whether it was dealing with exam stress to bullying - now being taught in 12 different countries

  Schemes such as this had positive outcomes as it reduced anxiety and distress as well as improving behaviour and concentration