Edited By Dr Piers Worth
Positive Psychology Across The Lifespan
An Existential Perspective
Positive Psychology Across the Lifespan An Existential Perspective Edited by Piers Worth, chartered psychologist, accredited psychotherapist and visiting Professor of Positive Psychology at Bucks New University.
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 book will be essential reading for students and practitioners of positive psychology, as well as other mental health professionals and individuals interested in exploring the subject for reasons of personal development.
The Authors
Dr Piers Worth
Piers is Visiting Professor in Psychology at Buckinghamshire New University, a Chartered Psychologist and Accredited Psychotherapist. Piers’ PhD research focused on how creativity changes as we age, and how it may support positive ageing. His research and writing focus are on subjects and applications that may broaden the base of positive psychology.
Dr Andrew Machon
Andrew is an experienced Coaching Supervisor, International Coach Trainer, Psychotherapist and Master Coach (ICF Certified) with three decades of experience working as a Change Specialist in Global Businesses. And a Visiting Teaching Fellow on the MSC in Applied Positive Psychology at Buckinghamshire New University.
Diane Herbert
Diane is a part-time doctoral researcher at the Centre for Positive Psychology, Buckinghamshire New University and a graduate of BNU’s MSc Applied Positive Psychology. Her research focuses on the experience of being creative at work and how leaders might facilitate creativity. Diane is a non-executive director and coach.
Lee Newitt
Lee is a MAPP graduate, transformational coach, and psychology lecturer at Buckinghamshire New University where he is developing a new master’s programme in ecology, spirituality, and psychology. Lee cares deeply about our wild and sacred spaces as an eco-mindfulness practitioner and ‘earth protector’.
Lesley Lyle
Lesley is a MAPP graduate, positive psychology practitioner, trainer, author, and clinical hypnotherapist. Her focus is helping to create positive change through the application of science-based processes. She is an enthusiast of the power of positive emotions to facilitate physical and emotional healing and has run a free community laughter group for the last ten years.
Inspiration
The Dream
How the book was inspired by a dream
The Cover
The book cover features an image of the Aurora Borealis taken by Andrew Machon.
Visionaries
In these brief summaries we want to familiarise you with leading ‘thinkers’ in the fields found within or overlapping with Existential Positive Psychology and offer you internet links to their work. The descriptions below are deliberately simple to leave you to explore and find out what you are drawn to. Their sites offer you a mix of freely available writing, and others where you might need to seek access, e.g. via requesting an inter-library loan of the journal article, or purchase it.
Paul Wong
Dr Wong has for decades been a leading researcher, writer, practitioner and teacher in the areas of meaning in life. He set out to extend and build on the work of Viktor Frankl developing our understanding of meaning. Paul has edited and written major texts in the field of meaning, e.g. two volumes of ‘The Human Quest for Meaning’. He founded the International Network for Personal Meaning.
His website contains a large range of his writings on many subjects and is strongly recommended for your exploration. Paul established and leads international conferences on Meaning that have bi-annually for many years.
Those of you who are reading the ‘Lifespan’ text will realise that Paul originated the concept of ‘Existential Positive Psychology’ in 2004 and has developed that in writing for over a decade. Core within his proposal for EPP is a model of our experiences and growth, contained within the text which will form a direction in which `EPP’ will develop.”
Michael Steger
Michael Steger is the Founder and Director of the Center for Meaning and Purpose, and a Professor of Psychology at Colorado State University. His research offers clarification and development of key concepts and application of meaning and purpose in a manner that supports the work of others interested in these subjects. He is a witty and charismatic speaker.
Tim Lomas
Dr Lomas has emerged as one of the most innovative and prolific writers and researchers in areas of well-being and emotions, and their expression in language cross-culturally. His creative and innovative research methods have supported an exciting range of writing, books and journal articles, on many new topics. His creativity and his published output are moving and exciting to relate to.
Barbara Fredrickson
Professor Fredrickson has been a pioneer for over twenty years in exploring the nature and range of positive emotions, and what they contribute to our ways of thinking and behaving, and our physical and mental health. Prior to her leading work, the psychological focus on emotions was on negative states. Professor Fredrickson has broadened that landscape into an extraordinary focus on the experiences and gains of positive emotions.
Dan McAdams
Professor McAdams has an innovative and creative path or research and writing that suggests our identity over time is found in story, one that is constantly updated and adjusted. Over the last 20+ years, he has written textbooks and research-based articles on the nature of identity that represent new directions in psychological thinking, and that are clear, moving, and exciting. He is unquestionably one of the leading psychologists of his generation.
Carol Ryff
Professor Ryff’s research has a strong multidisciplinary focus on how psychological well-being is influenced by social context, structural influences such as age, gender, socio-economic status, race and ethnicity, and biological factors. Professor Ryff describes positive ageing as an Integrated Biopsychosocial Process.
Professor Ryff proposed a theory of psychological well-being (PWB) in 1989, something that at the time had been substantially overlooked in the work up till that point. Her theory has been researched in approximately 750 publications over 30 years. Her work on PWB is strongly represented in the research of the ‘MIDUS’ study – ‘Mid-Life in the United States’, a study which she leads that has been active for over 30 years.
Research publications on an extensive range of subjects can be here
Sonja Lyubomirsky
Professor Lyubomirsky is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California (Riverside). She has published extensively, particularly on the subject of ‘happiness’, and is a renowned speaker internationally. Professor Lyubomirsky writes in an open, direct manner on the subject, development and dynamics of ‘happiness’ changing views on both how we may access happiness, and what are some of the social ‘myths’ about its nature.
Itai Ivtzan
Itai Ivtzan is a Professor of Psychology at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, teaching and researching on the MA in Clinical Mental Health Counselling – Mindfulness- Based. He has written and published extensively on the nature of positive psychology, particularly connected to mindfulness. He is an energetic and charismatic speaker on these subjects, and offers study course through the ‘School of Positive Transformation’.
Bob Emmons
Bob Emmons is a psychologist and professor at the University of California, Davis. His research is in the field of personality psychology, emotion psychology, and psychology of religion. He is widely known for his research and teaching on gratitude and the potential for it to be a transformative experience in our lives.
Examples of his publications and subjects he focuses on can be found here
Self-Actualisation
In Chapter 4 of the book, we explore the symbolic nature of the life journey. Using Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ as a template for this symbolic journey, it was possible to map the psychospiritual transformation of Dante against the stages of the ‘Hero’s Journey’ revealing more of the interior quality to the process of Self-actualisation. Existential Positive Psychology offers a broader more encompassing perspective to understanding human nature that includes important sources such as philosophical, mythological, spiritual and artistic wisdom.
We offer as a first step, the insight of exploring timeless artwork for symbolic meaning pertaining to existence.
Interventions
In chapter 9 of the book, we introduced the concept of existential positive psychology interventions (EPPIs) as a method to promote positive outcomes such as developing a sense of ‘being’, exploring and discovering personal meaning in life and opening us up to new information and behaviour. Based on established Positive Psychology, Existential or Humanistic Psychology, the intention would also be to promote positive outcomes whether they are experienced during, immediately following, or sometime after participation. Importantly, there would be a consideration for how EPPIs might be adjusted to serve different age groups.
We offer this as a ‘first step’ to be explored and added to by other writers and researchers.
Nature Based Existential Positive Psychology Interventions
One aspect of existentialism concerns having a relationship with something bigger than oneself. For some this may be manifested in religious beliefs and practices yet there are other ways to experience this kind of connection. For instance, being in nature offers limitless opportunities to explore and appreciate the world around us. The natural world is ever changing and evolving but can often be ignored and overlooked in our busy lives. From the vastness of the sky and the ocean to the minute details of a flower or insect, all have the potential of evoking positive emotions such as awe, gratitude, interest, joy, and or serenity.
Research has shown many therapeutic benefits of being in nature. For example, the traditional practice of forest bathing (shinrin-yoku), which involves being amongst trees and breathing deeply has been found to have a significant influence on cortisol levels and reduce stress (Antonelli et al., 2019). Walking in nature has been found to be beneficial to clients undergoing psychotherapy by assisting individuals in exploring their own inner world and relating it to nature in a supportive environment (Lumber et al., 2017). Results from a large scale nature campaign to improve wellbeing (Richardson et al., 2016) found that those who participated sustained an increase to their happiness, health, and a connection to nature and pro-nature behaviour.
There are many ways to engage with nature that do not require access to parkland or areas of outstanding beauty. Feeding the birds, gardening, rambling and simply being outside have all been found to be beneficial to health and wellbeing (Maller, 2006)
Antonelli M, Barbieri G, Donelli D. Effects of forest bathing (shinrin-yoku) on levels of cortisol as a stress biomarker: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Int J Biometeorol. 2019 Aug;63(8):1117-1134. doi: 10.1007/s00484-019-01717-x. Epub 2019 Apr 18. PMID: 31001682
Lumber R, Richardson M, Sheffield D (2017) Beyond knowing nature: Contact, emotion, compassion, meaning, and beauty are pathways to nature connection. PLoS ONE 12(5): e0177186
Cecily Maller, Mardie Townsend, Anita Pryor, Peter Brown, Lawrence St Leger, Healthy nature healthy people: ‘contact with nature’ as an upstream health promotion intervention for populations, Health Promotion International, Volume 21, Issue 1, March 2006, Pages 45–54
Richardson M, Cormack A, McRobert L, Underhill R (2016) 30 Days Wild: Development and Evaluation of a Large-Scale Nature Engagement Campaign to Improve Well-Being. PLoS ONE 11(2): e0149777
This is a recording of the live online event on the official book launch day, hosted by Buckinghamshire New University.
Dr. Piers Worth talks about his role as the book editor and the other chapter contributors before taking questions from some of the event attendees. Matthew Smith, Associate Professor at Buckinghamshire New University is the presenter.
Ask Piers
We are offering you the opportunity to ask Piers Worth, as editor of the book, questions about its content and the potential unfolding nature of ‘existential positive psychology’. He will do his best to respond as quickly as possible.