Implementing Positive Psychology Interventions in cases of adversity; The benefits of increasing Optimism, Resilience, Meditation, Hope and Social support in alleviating depressive symptoms.
“Depression is more than just sadness. People with depression may experience a lack of interest and pleasure in daily activities, significant weight loss or gain, insomnia or excessive sleeping, lack of energy, inability to concentrate, feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt and recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.” (APA, 2016). Depression isn’t simply feeling down but instead a persistent feeling across a prolonged period of time, that not only affects the daily psychological, physical and cognitive functions of those individuals suffering, …show more content…
Resilience is known as “the capacity to cope effectively in a difficult situation and maintain a healthy disposition in the face of disaster, pain, or adversity” (Rutter, 1990, as cited by Peng et al., 2014). Researchers have associated Resilience with involving internal factors such as self-concept, self-esteem, self-confidence and temperament as well as external factors like family environments, education and role models. Fredrickson, Tugade, Waugh & Larkin (2003) conducted a study on the aftermath of 911 terrorist attacks and found that individuals who were previously reported as being resilient showed more positive emotions, which following a crisis essentially acted as a buffer for resilient people against becoming depressed. This suggests that boosting resilience in patients suffering from depression can potentially increase their positive emotions, and as a result can lessen depressive symptoms. Gerson & Fernandez (2013) looked at increasing adaptive explanatory styles, they developed a Programme for Accelerated Thriving and Health (PATH). The programme consisted of three 60-90 minute meetings, over 3 weeks. The meetings included lectures on explanatory styles such as pessimistic, optimistic and personal control, and were given positives and negatives of each style alongside other relevant information such as the importance of resilience against stress. Along with the lectures participants were also required to discuss in groups. After each session, participants had to take an Attribution Styles Questionnaire to measure their explanatory styles (Peterson et al.,1982), a CD-RISC 10 (Connor and Davidson, 2003) to measure resilience and thriving, as well as the BDI-II (Beck et al., 1996) to measure depressive symptoms. The results following PATH showed participants with improved explanatory styles, increased in resilience and thriving and had a significant decrease in depressive symptoms. The
“Depression is more than just sadness. People with depression may experience a lack of interest and pleasure in daily activities, significant weight loss or gain, insomnia or excessive sleeping, lack of energy, inability to concentrate, feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt and recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.” (APA, 2016). Depression isn’t simply feeling down but instead a persistent feeling across a prolonged period of time, that not only affects the daily psychological, physical and cognitive functions of those individuals suffering, …show more content…
Resilience is known as “the capacity to cope effectively in a difficult situation and maintain a healthy disposition in the face of disaster, pain, or adversity” (Rutter, 1990, as cited by Peng et al., 2014). Researchers have associated Resilience with involving internal factors such as self-concept, self-esteem, self-confidence and temperament as well as external factors like family environments, education and role models. Fredrickson, Tugade, Waugh & Larkin (2003) conducted a study on the aftermath of 911 terrorist attacks and found that individuals who were previously reported as being resilient showed more positive emotions, which following a crisis essentially acted as a buffer for resilient people against becoming depressed. This suggests that boosting resilience in patients suffering from depression can potentially increase their positive emotions, and as a result can lessen depressive symptoms. Gerson & Fernandez (2013) looked at increasing adaptive explanatory styles, they developed a Programme for Accelerated Thriving and Health (PATH). The programme consisted of three 60-90 minute meetings, over 3 weeks. The meetings included lectures on explanatory styles such as pessimistic, optimistic and personal control, and were given positives and negatives of each style alongside other relevant information such as the importance of resilience against stress. Along with the lectures participants were also required to discuss in groups. After each session, participants had to take an Attribution Styles Questionnaire to measure their explanatory styles (Peterson et al.,1982), a CD-RISC 10 (Connor and Davidson, 2003) to measure resilience and thriving, as well as the BDI-II (Beck et al., 1996) to measure depressive symptoms. The results following PATH showed participants with improved explanatory styles, increased in resilience and thriving and had a significant decrease in depressive symptoms. The