Mental Wellbeing And Psychology

Mental Wellbeing and Psychology unpacks the philosophical and psychological need to understand ourselves through an exploration of historical archives and artistic creativity. This focuses on some practical, evidence-based approaches to developing mental wellbeing. The book uses phenomenological psychology to explore the materials developed by the Stiwdio Arts group and offers an understanding of one’s experiences of their world, recognising that these are embodied and perceived within a temporal and relational place. It offers examples for developing mental health and wellbeing interventions for charities, private care and the NHS. It provides an evidence base for the use of creativity and historical resources in mental health care. This book will be of great interest for academics, researchers and post-graduate students in the field of mental wellbeing, nursing and mentalhealth nursing, occupational therapy and social work.

How can we improve our sense of wellbeing? What explains the current wellbeing boom? What does wellbeing mean to you? The Psychology of Wellbeing offers readers tools to navigate their own wellbeing and understand what makes a ‘good life’. Using self-reflection and storytelling, it explores how trust affects psychological and emotional wellbeing, considers how stress and inequality impact our psychological wellbeing, and how trends such as positive psychology influence our understanding of happiness. In a world where the ‘wellness economy’ is big business, The Psychology of Wellbeing shows how we can question and make sense of information sources, and sheds light on the wellness, self-care and self-help industry.

This book brings together current research on recovery and wellbeing, to inform mental health systems and wider community development.

The foundation necessary for any civilization to exist in peace and prosperity hinges on its citizenry's mental health and their ability to think and act rationally and ethically. Sadly, current culture is marked by irrationality, divisiveness, and a movement toward polarization and constant conflict. Reversing this destructive trend will depend on a significant change in value structure at both societal and individual levels. Fundamental to this essential change is knowledge about the nature of mental health and the skills of responsible and effective interpersonal relating. In The Psychology of Mental Health: The Pursuit of Psychological Quality, Dr. C. Franklin Truan tackles these issues by offering pragmatic common sense substance and direction for both laymen and helping professionals. He presents the nature and development of individual mental health, with special emphasis on the critical role early childhood social environment plays in fostering healthy psychological development. Additionally, Dr. Truan presents rational principles, characteristics, and competencies necessary for the acquisition and preservation of mental health and the experience of psychological quality. Dr. Truan explores how cultural beliefs and practices contribute to both mental health and mental illness. He exposes erroneous and harmful practices in the psychological field and calls on psychology professionals to hold themselves accountable for being mentally healthy and competent and to assume a more responsible leadership role by challenging societal beliefs and practices that contribute to mental illness. Finally, Dr. Truan states that psychology must prioritize preventive education as a primary deterrent to the proliferation of mental illness and the only effective avenue toward the experience of psychological quality in one's life.

Is depression simply the result of chemical imbalances, or Schizophrenia a wholly biological disorder? What role do the broader circumstances of an individual's social, cultural and heuristic world play in the wider scheme of their psychological wellbeing? In this ground-breaking and highly innovative text, Cromby et al deliver an introduction to the the biopsychosocial paradigm for understanding and treating psychological distress, taking into consideration the wider contexts that engender the onset of mental illness and critiquing the limitations in the sole use of the biomedical model in psychological practice. Rather than biologically determined or clinically measurable, readers are encouraged to consider mental illness as a subjective experience that is expressed according to the individual experiences of the sufferer rather than the rigidity of diagnostic categories. Similarly, approaches to recovery expand beyond psychiatric medication to consider the fundamental function of methods such as psychotherapy, community psychology and service-user movements in the recovery process. Offering a holistic account of the experience of psychological distress, this text draws upon not only statistical evidence but places an integral emphasis on the service-user experience; anecdotal accounts of which feature throughout in order to provide readers with the perspective of the mental health sufferer. Taking an integrative approach to the psychology of mental health, the authors draw from a wealth of experience, examples and approaches to present this student-friendly and engaging text. This is core reading for anyone serious about understanding mental health issues and is suitable for undergraduate students taking introductory courses in psychology and abnormal psychology.

The third, thoroughly revised and enhanced edition of this bestselling book analyses and discusses the most up-to-date research on the psychology of quality of life. The book is divided into six parts. The introductory part lays the philosophical and academic foundation of much of the research on wellbeing and positive mental health, showing the beneficial effects of happy people at work, health, and to society at large. Part 2 (effects of objective reality) describes how sociocultural factors, income factors, other demographic factors, and biological and health conditions affect wellbeing and positive mental health. Part 3 focuses on subjective reality and discusses how individuals process information from their objective environment, and how they manipulate this information that affects wellbeing and positive mental health. Part 4 focuses on the psychology of quality of life specific to life domains, while Part 5 reviews the research on special populations: children, women, the elderly, but also the disabled, drug addicts, prostitutes, emergency personnel, immigrants, teachers, and caregivers. The final part of the book focuses on theories and models of wellbeing and positive mental health that integrate and unify disparate concepts and programs of research. The book addresses the importance of the psychology of quality of life in the context of public policy and calls for a broadening of the approach in happiness research to incorporate other aspects of quality of life at the group, community, and societal levels. It is of topical interest to academics, students and researchers of quality of life, well-being research, happiness studies, psychotherapy, and social policy.

The book provides a new theory of well-being designed to integrate many disparate concepts of well-being, such as subjective well-being, personal happiness, mental well-being, emotional well-being, psychological well-being, hedonic well-being, social well-being, life satisfaction, domain satisfaction, and eudaimonia. It lays the foundation for a new a theory of mental well-being based on a hierarchical perspective of positive mental health and guided by the concept of positive balance. Written by a well-known expert in the field, this book addresses the issue of positive balance related to physiological, emotional, cognitive, meta-cognitive, developmental and social-ecological levels of an individual and analyses the factors at each level that contribute to an individual’s positive mental health experience. It discusses in detail the effects of neurochemicals such as dopamine, serotonin, or cortisol; positive and negative affect; satisfaction in salient and multiple life domains vis-à-vis dissatisfaction in life domains; positive versus negative evaluations about one’s life using certain standards of comparison; positive psychological traits of personal growth and intrinsic motivation, etc. vis-à-vis negative traits like pessimism and impulsiveness; and perceived social resources like social contribution and social actualization vis-à-vis perceived constraints like exclusion and ostracism. This original work is of interest to students, researchers and practitioners of quality of life and wellbeing studies, positive psychology, developmental psychology and mental health..

Traditionally, coaching psychologists have worked with people who aren't experiencing significant mental distress or have diagnosed mental illness. This book describes an innovative and challenging project of bringing coaching psychology to the lived experience of individuals with a diagnosed mental illness, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). The authors present a case for why coaching psychology needs to be constructively challenged to broaden its base and be more inclusive and of service to people experiencing BPD in particular. The book describes a coaching interaction involving coaching psychologists and a number of individuals with BPD who had completed a behavioural skills programme (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy; DBT). It explores the epistemological and practice tensions involving the dominance of clinical recovery (elimination of symptoms) in mental health services and personal or psychological recovery (originating in the narratives of people with a diagnosis of mental illness who yearn to live a life worth living). This book, written amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, makes a compelling case for coaching psychologists to engage with the philosophy and practice implications of personal recovery, at both professional and personal levels. It will be vital reading for those engaged in coaching psychology and for the education, training and continuous professional development of coaches and coaching psychologists.