How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one, but it takes six months and the bulb has to want to change!
Humour has a potentially valuable place in therapy; a large number of papers argue for the benefits of it in a therapeutic setting. There is also a lot [...]
Archive for the ‘Positive Psychology’ Category
The evolution of optimism
Monday, March 1st, 2010There is a lot of information out there about the benefits of optimism in numerous areas of life. The research shows that optimists aren’t necessarily blind to the world, seeing it with rose-tinted glasses, which is a common criticism of books and programs aimed at developing optimism in people. In fact, optimism seems [...]
Can we develop psychological resilience through physical activity?
Monday, February 22nd, 2010Psychological ‘resilience’ refers to the differences between people in how they respond to and cope with difficult or stressful experiences. People who are highly resilient would be less affected, recover more quickly, and/or might actually find such events to be growth experiences. For people low in resilience, the opposite would be true.
Now here’s [...]
Flowers = Happiness? The emotional impact of plants
Friday, February 19th, 2010In positive psychology, most theories of positive emotion have focused on discovering their relative costs and benefits to humans. These theories, to a greater and lesser degree, see positive emotions as being evolved adaptations to our environment. Greater mood brings wider though-action repertoires, allowing us to build our resources (1), they regulate our [...]
Emotional Information
Thursday, January 21st, 2010In the previous article on emotional intelligence we saw how an intelligence is based on the ability to think in abstract ways, and to learn and adapt to an environment. Maybe you’d previously heard about how we have multiple intelligences; IQ, social intelligence, practical intelligence, emotional intelligence, and so on.
What distinguishes these [...]
Positive affirmations don’t work!
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010…all of the time. Forgive the title, I’m experimenting with controversial post titles. More on that another day.
Today the topic is self-help again, and if you’ve read this blog regularly, you’ll know that I take a skeptical attitude towards the self-help industry. A quick inspection of the self-help section of a bookstore [...]
A guide to emotional intelligence
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010You have probably heard the term ‘Emotional Intelligence’ before, probably along with bold claims like “emotional intelligence matters twice as much as IQ” (1), or 80% of success is accounted for my emotional intelligence. But leaving the hype aside for a moment, what exactly is emotional intelligence, and is there any truth to these [...]
How to manage your weaknesses
Saturday, December 26th, 2009There’s a big focus on weaknesses in the world these days. It seems like people want to balance themselves out by developing their weaknesses – to become rounded. Previously, I’ve argued that it’s best not to be rounded, that we’re better off focusing on our strengths. But if we do this, we [...]
Five things everybody needs to know about materialism
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009“The things you own, end up owning you”
- Tyler Durden (Fight Club)
I’ve seen Fight Club about 58 times. It’s my favourite film. I love it so much I even had the above quote engraved onto the back of my iPod.
In the film, Brad Pitt’s character Tyler Durden is a pretty heavy anti-consumerist. [...]
Positive Psychology Resources
Thursday, October 29th, 2009If, like me, you’re studying positive psychology, or if you’re keeping up with the field for personal or professional reasons, you will find the following links useful. They are great for finding new information and opinions, and especially for getting hard-to-find journal articles in PDF:
Positive Psychology Search
- The Google of positive psychology
Positive Psychology News Daily
- [...]
