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OPTIMUMS IN POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Orlando Center for Positive Psychology

Click the picture below for the positive story of the day.

Welcome to OPTIMUMS IN POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, the home web site for DR. HARRY MILLS AND JOYCE R. MILLS.

Applications of Positive Psychology to staying healthy, to leadership and to Clinical Gerontology.

Click on the image above for Positive Psychology News.

Psychological well-being is a subjective point of view defined as person’s cognitive and affective evaluation of life. The dimensions of well-being include a balance between positive and negative affect. Affect is a psychological term for emotions. Negative affect involves such emotions as anger, fear and depression. On the other hand positive emotions include such things as joy and happiness. How much time in any given day we spend feeling depressed needs to be balanced with time feeling happy. Barbara Frederickson's resesearch suggests we need a 3 to 1 ratio of positives to negatives. If more of our day is filled with positive emotions than with negative we have a sense of subjective well-being. Well-being is also dependent on how well we meet our fundamental human needs. That includes basic needs like food, shelter and safety. There can be no sense of positive well-being if we feel hungry or fear for our safety. However, given that those needs are met higher level needs like autonomy and self-esteem become important to our sense of well-being. It also seems very important to our sense of well-being that we have a purpose.

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Click below to go to Wellscripts

Positive Psychology was born in the late 1990s as an initiative by Martin Seligman as the President of the American Psychological Association. He is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a major contributor to the understanding and treatment of depression. He rightfully chastised his fellow psychologists for a preoccupation with pathology and suggested we need to spend more time and devote research efforts to understanding such things as human happiness, values and positive emotions. The movement he started has taken its own momentum and is, in my opinion, the most important new development in psychology in this new millennium.

Very early in my training I had the good fortune of participating in an NIMH sponsored post-doctoral program held at Tulane School of Public Health which focused on the issue of mental health rather than mental illness. In the last four decades I have watched with growing disdain Clinical Psychologists adopt the notion that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association is all the psychopathology we need. Fortunately other psychologists have continued research that now can serve as a foundation for a more balanced approach.

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We suggest you start with a visit to the STRESS AND WELLBEING SURVEY. The Institute of HeartMath developed a comprehensive survey tool to help people understand more fully how eight dimensions of their life (work, relationships, finances, social support, etc.) impact on both their levels of stress and well being. Taking the survey will help you pinpoint how you rank in each of the eight dimensions and how these factors influence your stress and well being.

The survey is 72 questions in length and only requires about 7-10 minutes to complete. Once you complete the survey, you will be given a colorful visual "report card" that will show how you're performing in each of the eight dimensions and then provide you with a set of personal recommendations (based on your scores) with links to tools and empowerment materials to help you improve your well being and transform your stress to higher levels of energy and creativity. You will have to log in the HeartMath site to take the self-assessment but it will be worth it.

Click on the image below to go to Mindful.org which will explore mindfulness as a way to live a better life: