Capstone title and abstract
Integral Nurturing - Dialogue to a Paradigm Shift:
Applied Positive Psychology as the Needed Language Tool in Clinical Populations
Abstract:The US has the highest rate of mental illness in the world, with over one-quarter of our population each year diagnosed with a DSM-defined mental illness and a total lifetime risk to more than half of our population. Of the two approaches to understanding living systems and disease, the linear, reductionist, rational analysis or biomedical model was the dominant model in the 20th century. The second model is non-linear, holistic, intuitive, synthesis of the whole state of being – biological, psychological, and social. This biopsychosocial model views living organisms as part of a hierarchical complexity of systems. Positive psychology has traditionally focused on improving well-being of the non-clinical population, those already in the healthy adaptive range. Sheldon has suggested an integrated multi-level perspective to reach optimal well-being. Positive psychology provides the language and tools to facilitate communication between levels of systems and between the two models of living systems and disease. This observational paper looks at three approaches using language and tools of positive psychology applied to clinical populations. While each approach (i.e., positive psychotherapy, cognitive enhancement therapy, and the Finnish Open Dialogue Approach) shows significant benefits compared to natural culture social support only and the usual and customary approaches of the biomedical model, the Finnish Open Dialogue approach is a biopsychosocial model that appears to be the most successful for recovery. An integral method of the non-clinical and the clinical populations nurturing each other, using positive psychology language and tools, is a useful long-term goal for applied positive psychology.
Key words: positive psychology, biopsychosocial model, Finnish Open Dialogue, Cognitive Enhancement Therapy (CET), positive psychotherapy
