Positive Psychology Arts Activities

This book contains a wealth of practical arts activities, which creatively and playfully bring positive psychology concepts - such as flow, character strengths, goals and self-awareness - to life. With straightforward, step-by-step instructions, each chapter includes an overview of a positive psychology concept, followed by associated arts activities, and case examples illustrating the activities' uses in therapy and supervision. Also included are post-activity guiding questions to promote a dialogue between therapist and client, and suggestions for adapting the activities for clients to utilize outside the therapy room. Blending the strengths-based focus of positive psychology with the healing, transformative practice of the arts, this book is for all practitioners wanting to cultivate the mental health, flourishing and wellbeing of their clients using a creative approach.

Positive Art Therapy Theory and Practice outlines a clear, systematic approach for combining positive psychology with art therapy’s capacity to mobilize client strengths; induce engagement, flow and positive emotions; transform perceptions; build healing relationships and empowering narratives; and illuminate life purpose and meaning. Woven throughout are clinical illustrations, state-of-the-art research, discussion questions, and reflections on how therapists can apply this approach to their work with clients, and their personal and professional development. The book also includes a comprehensive list of more than 80 positive art therapy directives, a robust glossary, and lists of strengths and values. Written in an inviting and amusing style, this manual is both entertaining and practical—an invaluable tool for any practitioner looking to apply the most current theory and research on positive psychology and art therapy to their clinical practice.

Positive Psychology: A Workbook for Personal Growth and Well-Being offers students a wealth of different activities to make concepts in positive psychology come alive. Based on scientific, psychological research that supports learning, activities include self-reflection and interviews with the reader’s family and friends. The workbook can be used with William C. Compton and Edward Hoffman’s Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness and Flourishing, Third Edition or as a supplement to other core texts.

Use the neuroscience of emotional learning to transform your teaching. How can the latest breakthroughs in the neuroscience of emotional learning transform the classroom? How can teachers use the principles and practices of positive psychology to ensure optimal 21st-century learning experiences for all children? Patty O’Grady answers those questions. Positive Psychology in the Elementary School Classroom presents the basics of positive psychology to educators and provides interactive resources to enrich teachers’ proficiency when using positive psychology in the classroom. O’Grady underlines the importance of teaching the whole child: encouraging social awareness and positive relationships, fostering self-motivation, and emphasizing social and emotional learning. Through the use of positive psychology in the classroom, children can learn to be more emotionally aware of their own and others’ feelings, use their strengths to engage academically and socially, pursue meaningful lives, and accomplish their personal goals. The book begins with Martin Seligman’s positive psychology principles, and continues into an overview of affective learning, including its philosophical and psychological roots, from finding the “golden mean” of emotional regulation to finding a child’s potencies and “golden self.” O’Grady connects the core concepts of educational neuroscience to the principles of positive psychology, explaining how feelings permeate the brain, affecting children’s thoughts and actions; how insular neurons make us feel empathy and help us learn by observation; and how the frontal cortex is the hall monitor of the brain. The book is full of practical examples and interactive resources that invite every educator to create a positive psychology classroom, where children can flourish and reach their full potential.

Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness and Flourishing offers students an up-to-date and contemporary introduction to the field of positive psychology. Topically organized, authors William C. Compton and Edward Hoffman examine how Positive Psychology relates to stressors and health, within such traditional research areas as developmental, clinical, personality, motivational, social, and behavioral psychology. Updates to the Fourth Edition include new material on the spread of positive psychology around the world and expanded coverage on character strengths, emotional intelligence, leisure, and the biology of positive emotions. Included with this title: LMS Cartridge: Import this title’s instructor resources into your school’s learning management system (LMS) and save time. Don’t use an LMS? You can still access all of the same online resources for this title via the password-protected Instructor Resource Site. Learn more.

New activities for teaching positive psychology, with new topics and expert-informed resources for instructors and coaches.