Positive Psychology And The Impact Of Mindfulness On Wellbeing

The field of positive psychology is a relatively new area of study and its research is in its infancy. According to Alex Linley, Joseph, Harrington, and Wood (2006), positive psychology in a nutshell, is the creation of a common language, which translates the study of positive traits and outcomes. It is also a domain of psychological strengths with a common metaphysical heritage, which relates and interacts with each other (Alex Linley, Joseph, Harrington, & Wood, 2006). One way to use positive psychology into practise is through mindfulness. The objectives of this essay are to describe in more detail what positive psychology is and its heritage and the impact of mindfulness on wellbeing. Furthermore, research methods used in the studies will
Therefore, positive psychology places great emphasis on the strengths, characters, beneficial conditions and development of well-being and positive functioning (Rusk & Waters, 2013). According to Gable and Haidt (2005), the history of positive psychology has been around for quite some time now. Positive psychology came into prominence around the second half of the 20th century where psychology was more focused on the negative aspects of our lives. Character strengths, being virtuous and maintaining a high level of happiness and civics were mostly neglected while negative aspects like depression and violence took center stage (Gable & Haidt, 2005). According to Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000), the events after World War II played a big role in positive psychology. Historically, before the war, psychologists were more interested in curing mental ailments. However, after the war, two events driven by economical reasons changed the face of psychology. Firstly, the Veterans Administration (now Veteran Affairs) was founded in 1946 that allowed psychologist to make a living treating mental ailments. Secondly, the National Institute of Mental Health founded in 1947 enabled academics to get an endowment if pathology was
Mindfulness is an important facet of the third wave behaviour therapies and these therapies are a group of cognitive behaviour interventions that promote the change of function rather than behaviour, and cognition (Ost, 2008; Cash & Whittingham, 2010). One way of practising mindfulness is through mindfulness meditation, which will enhance the qualities of attention and awareness (Kabat-Zinn, 2003). A recent study (Kyuken et al., 2013) was conducted to investigate the effects of mindfulness of students during school programmes. The method used was the Mindfulness in Schools programme intervention (MiSP), which was being taught in a 9-week programme. Various study measures have been used such as the Warwick– Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) to measure well being of students, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) to assess the stress of students in the past month and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CED-D) to assess the severity of depressive symptoms. After the 9-week programme, the participants were tested and there was a strong decrease in depression scores. For the participants in MiSP group only, a follow up mindfulness practice for 3 months was conducted using five questions to sustain mindfulness. After the 3 months, there was evidence that shows increase well being, lower stress and depression levels compared to the