Positive Psychology Across the Lifespan

An Existential Perspective

Piers Worth, Piers Worth

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000542721
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Clinical Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Positive Psychology Across the Life Span provides an insight into how we are affected by the different stages of adult development and gives us the opportunity to change through choice rather than leaving change to chance.

The science of positive psychology offers a wealth of research and evidence-based interventions and shares insights into which habits and behaviours contribute to how to live a flourishing life. This book aims to extend that knowledge by introducing and incorporating key aspects of existential and humanistic psychology and explores positive psychology with a lifespan perspective. It goes beyond theory to look at practical application, with insightful reflective questions. Whilst acknowledging the differences and disagreements between some of the key figures in the subject areas of the book, it seeks to highlight the areas where there is agreement and congruence which have been previously overlooked or ignored.

The book will be essential reading for students and practitioners of positive psychology as well as other mental health professionals.

Chapter 1 Introduction – positive psychology across the lifespan An existential perspective

Piers Worth and Andrew Machon

DOI: 10.4324/9781003132530-1

Learning objectives: at the end of this chapter, you will:

Appreciate the context of this book, and how it extends the perspective and reach of positive psychology as a discipline.

Recognise, define and explore the nature of an Existentially Oriented Positive Psychology including specific examples of what its component parts may be and involve.

Possess an overview of the ‘Third Wave Positive Psychology’ and the way in which it broadens and unites aspects of the discipline.

Be able to use the overview of the book content to navigate your reading in support of your goals.

Introduction

Positive psychology as a discipline has given us the gift of focusing on aspects and characteristics of ‘flourishing’, ‘the good life’, the ‘life worth living’ – valued subjective experiences in the past, present and future for individuals, families and groups (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Through research, PP is offering us the language and practises in a form that we may explore and incorporate them into our lives. Research and practice have been expanding, with a particular crucial contribution coming into and through what is called ‘positive education’ (e.g. Norrish, 2015) and positive psychology interventions (PPIs). Additionally, research and influence have spread into questions of mental health and health generally, providing new insights into the approach and treatment of specific conditions (e.g. Parks et al., 2015; Martin et al., 2015; Rashid & Howes, 2016; Rashid & Seligman, 2019). Wong (2011a), Ivtzan et al. (2016) and Lomas et al. (2020) have made key contributions in expanding the vision and framework of the discipline to encompass the dialectical nature of all of life which moves from the ‘either or’ of positive or negative aspects of life to the ‘both and’ perspective.

This book takes a step beyond the current map into two aspects of a bigger picture. First, the book is organised around an impactful teaching framework used in a module titled The Journey of Change for post-graduate students on an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP). Positive Psychology, as it is now, emphasises ‘content’ of a good and healthy psychological life, emerging from empirical research. Yet, it sometimes lacks a framework of ‘context’ to help students, practitioners and readers understand many aspects of daily life which might influence the experience and implementation in which positive psychology contributions may be needed. This teaching structure of the module orients practitioners, professionals and interested parties to a deeper understanding of the lived context of our lives and positive psychology. The structure of this book reflects the subjects within the taught module and is mirrored in the chapter titles.

Yet, a second vision and intention emerged for the book – taking an existential perspective on Positive Psychology.

When we look more broadly than a specific aspect of life, such as characteristics of the ‘good life’ portrayed by PP, then, we are in the context of our wider ‘existence’ to broader experiences of living and being. When the frame of consideration or context of our work becomes wider, the content we are invited to explore becomes bigger. We are prompted to look inward as well as out and work more deeply. When we adopt an ‘existential’ perspective, the subjects considered and the frameworks explored will include our identity and how this adjusts over time; living authentically; how this influences the characteristics of happiness we experience and, in turn, orientates us to the meaning and purpose in life. In doing so, we extend the reach of positive psychology as a discipline. This book acts as an introduction and ‘primer’ for an existential perspective on Positive Psychology.

Overview of the book chapters

Each of the following chapters will offer:

• – Learning objectives
• – Reflective questions
• – Summary of how chapter content illustrates an existential perspective
• – Ideas for future research to broaden a lifespan knowledge base and contribution
• – Resources for following up on chapter content

Chapter 2: Change in and over time: our journey of development

Author: Piers Worth

This chapter offers an exploration of five theories of human development, summarised separately, but when considered as a whole, they create a single story or overview of how we unfold within our lives. The unfolding has characteristics of time periods, stability and transition and our changing priorities and life focus over time. This content might be described as the ‘what’ of our lives and how we understand the structure, rhythm and periods of change within our lives over time. Chapter 3 moves this perspective on to explore the ‘why’ of how we unfold in and over time.

Chapter 3: Our unfolding journey of growth

Authors: Piers Worth and Andrew Machon

This chapter explores a number of ways in which ‘psychology’ suggests we grow and change over time to become who we truly are, the unfolding journey of our inner growth through time. This chapter will have the quality of a mosaic of ideas in which we may understand more of how we find ourselves at different times in our lives. A recurring theme in these ideas is the concept and experience of ‘self-transcendence’ as a process of how we become more of who we are. It suggests a paradox: in becoming more of who we truly are, we open to our links with others and often seek to be of service and support to others.

Chapter 4: The journey’s hero: birth of an existential self

Author: Lee Newitt

This chapter moves beyond the research-based and theoretical contents of Chapters 2 and 3 to a symbolic, metaphoric and story-oriented perspective. The chapter builds on one included in the ‘Second Wave Positive Psychology’ text (Chapter 8) by using myth to illustrate through story and symbol a model of how we grow, unfold and change through time. The chapter offers a three-part model illustrating how the symbolic or metaphorical change can come about in our lives.

Chapter 5: Our symbolic journey – heroes or heroines?

Author: Diane Herbert

This chapter explores the gendered nature of the Hero’s Journey and questions the extent to which the Hero’s Journey and developmental psychology, more broadly, are reflective of contemporary women’s lived experience. Much has changed for women since 1949 when Campbell wrote The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Contemporary women have more choices and opportunities than their post-war predecessors. However, those choices and opportunities present different challenges or ‘trials’ not least because the organisations in which women work and society more generally continue to be structured along patriarchal lines. With Campbell’s suggestion that the Hero’s Journey is a call to embark on an adventure to become more of who we truly are, there is an assumption that the journey towards authenticity is the same for men and women. The chapter will consider how the hero’s journey may not capture some women’s experience as they seek to reach their full potential and suggest characteristics of what the Heroine’s Journey may represent in this context.

Chapter 6: The relational context of change

Author: Andrew Machon

This chapter, from the perspective of a ‘practitioner–researcher’, illustrates how the source of every aspect of our development is inextricably relational in nature. In taking a look at development from the ‘inside out’, the chapter explores relational markers in the evolution of our consciousness and how these inform the work of the positive psychology practitioner. These include the value of key capacities and qualities, an identification of our innate ‘instruments’ of practice when we deploy ‘self as an instrument’ and the essential roles that we play vital to the work of the positive psychology practitioner.

Chapter 7: An introduction to the trans-theoretical model of change

Author: Piers Worth

Positive Psychology Interventions (PPIs) are processes of change. Yet, the discipline does not offer new entrants or practitioners a wider context of change than the intervention itself. As an example of processes of change, this chapter offers a summary of the Trans-Theoretical Model (TTM) of change. The model has a research history of over 40 years portraying the way and realities in which ‘successful self-changers’ describe their change process. It will be considered in the context of Positive Psychology and what this discipline may enrich and bring to the TTM model.

Chapter 8: Developing insight

Author: Andrew Machon

This chapter illuminates a more subtle, less conflictual way of inner seeing than that of developing insight. The central premise is that we learn to see and expand our vision of reality from the inside out. Our perceptions of reality not only profoundly change in parallel to the evolution of our self-consciousness but, as we illustrate, can also profoundly impact if and how we develop. Throughout the chapter, we explore how we view beginnings and endings to illustrate how our perceptions remarkably change. Essentially, we examine three markedly different ways in which we can perceive reality: the first, seeing reality as duality; the second, seeing the paradoxical nature of reality and the third, a being ‘at one with’ reality. We begin by exploring how the self to which we automatically revert perceives reality as duality and how we can become caught in the conflict we unconsciously create and experience developmental dormancy.

Chapter 9: Existential positive psychology interventions in and over time

Authors: Piers Worth and Lesley Lyle

This chapter explores how positive psychology currently defines ‘interventions’ that may change and develop us as individuals and then propose how this may alter and grow when we explore the ‘existential’ perspective being added to this work and process. The chapter will summarise key areas we may experience i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Foreword to Piers Worth’s Positive Psychology Across the Lifespan textbook
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction – positive psychology across the lifespan: an existential perspective
• 2 Change in and over time: our journey of development – lifespan developmental perspectives of change
• 3 Our unfolding journey of growth
• 4 The journey’s hero: birth of an existential self
• 5 Our symbolic journey – heroes or heroines?
• 6 The relational context of change
• 7 An introduction to the trans-theoretical model of change
• 8 Developing insight
• 9 Existential positive psychology interventions in and over time
• 10 Revisiting positive psychology across the lifespan: an existential perspective
• Index