One of the most exciting aspects of positive psychology is its scope for application – not only is it appropriate in therapy, counselling and coaching, it’s relevant in fields as diverse as architecture, design, art, economics, politics, business, linguistics, religion, education, philosophy …..It seems that the more you look for it, the more you’ll […]

I know it’s a little perverse to begin an article about Pos Psych with a distressing event, but as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, ‘”Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy”.
The untimely death this week of the Australian actor Heath Ledger, star of the film Brokeback Mountain, has shocked many; he […]

Last weekend my UEL MAPP class was fortunate enough to have presentations from several external speakers, amongst them Alex Linley, founder of the UK’s Centre of Applied Positive Psychology, Peter Flade from the Gallup Organization, and Debbie Whitaker, Head of Sustainability at the global bank, Standard Chartered.
Strengths Focus 
Our focus for the two days was applying […]

As someone who is passionately interested in how technology changes lives, I was intrigued by Gerald P. Koocher’s article “Twenty-First Century Challenges for Psychology.”
Koocher, former President of the American Psychological Association, argues that foreseeable technological changes will have such an impact on how psychology services are delivered that we need to rethink our professional ethics. […]

Money does not buy happiness…
There’s been a great deal of media coverage recently about whether or not money can make you happy, much of it inconsistent or unclear. This article in the UK’s Telegraph on March 22, entitled “Money does not buy happiness” quotes research presented at the recent Royal Economic Society’s 2008 annual […]

It’s definitely the time of year to reflect on the nature of gift-giving and what positive psychology has to teach us about it. In broader terms, giving (especially in the form of volunteering or acts of kindness) is often considered to be synonymous with altruism, i.e. the unselfish concern for the needs and interests of […]

In their recent paper, Capitalizing on one’s advantages: Role of core self-evaluations, Judge and Hurst (2007) take a different perspective. The focus of their research is on what distinguishes those who seize upon and exploit advantages, rather than on those who succeed in the face of misfortune, tragedy or oppression. It seems a legitimate research topic, given that most of us in the developed world live in such “benign conditions”.

So what makes some of us take advantage of, and flourish, given favourable circumstances, and others not? […]

As the mother of a soon-to-be six year old, I’ve become increasingly interested in all aspects of child development: how to foster children’s well-being and self-efficacy in ways that enable them to develop into well-balanced adults for example, and how resilience as a life-skill can be promoted.
I look back on my own childhood with many […]

Make the most of your regrets: never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.Thoreau (1817-1862)
This semester at the UEL MAPP program, I’m working in a small team on a consultancy project with the aim of applying Positive Psychology […]

At the beginning of this century, Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) described Positive Psychology as the “science of positive subjective experience, positive individual traits and positive institutions.” Since then a vast quantity of research has been carried out on the nature of well-being and the many and various psychological traits such as optimism and resilience exhibited by happy people. […]