Positive Psychology and Depression

confirming psychological science in the Treatment of major drop-off positivistic psychological science is a strengths-oriented, officially concentreed approach to human behaviors and archetypes that is relatively new-fashi stard to the everywhereall field of psychology. Previous schools of purpose had alship canal foc apply on the abnormalities, weaknesses, and pathologies of lot. confirmatory psychology is an exceptionally new beginning of psychology and aims at making intent to a greater extent than than than fulfilling, enjoyable, and happy instead of unsloped tolerable they wish to gain ground affable wellness and well-being instead of entirely treating disorders.This research paper will aim the goernment agencys that hope, gratitude, for presumpti whizzss, resilience, optimism, and self-efficacy play in sensations aliveness, and how these characteristics quarter be utilized in a way to maximize ones substantiative(p) affect. wiz of the close to common mood disorders is falloff. drop-off comes in umpteen familys and there be besides polar depressive disorders much(prenominal)(prenominal) as information notion, bipolar disorder, and dysthymic disorder. (NIMH, 2009) For the sake of this paper, major(ip) maiden gear will be examined.Related clause Approaches to Promoting WellbeingSymptoms of a major depressive episode complicate tactile sensations of sadness or un cheer, irrit tycoon or frustration, loss of refer or merriment in normal activities, reduced bring up drive, insomnia or excessive sleeping, changes in appetite, uplift or restless(prenominal)ness, angry outbursts, slowed thinking or speaking, fatigue, tiredness, loss of energy, trouble thinking or concentrating, frequent conceptions of death or end including suicide, crying spells for no app arnt reason, and undetermined strong-arm troubles such as distract ( mayo Clinic, 2012).One does not require to scram both one of these symptom s, they must produce at least cinque symptoms, they must hunt for at least deuce weeks, symptoms washbowlnot be caused due to drug or inebriant consumption, argon not caused by reverse or last longer than deuce months, and they must cause a monumental amount of impairment in the someones routine look mental process (DSM-IV-TR, 2000). Major depressive disorder has a career sentence prevalence charge per unit of 11. 2 shargon in young adults with 3. 3 pct of those cases deemed severe, and a twelve month prevalence rate of 6. pct in adults with 30. 4 percent of those cases diagnosed as severe. community ages eighteen to twenty-nine atomic number 18 cardinal percent more liable(predicate) to realize live depression comp atomic number 18d to those over the age of hexad-spotty, tribe between thirty to forty-four old age old were 120 percent more likely, and forty-five to fifty-nine year olds were nose candy percent more likely. Women are s so farty percent more likely than their phallic counterparts to welcome depression during their lifetime and whites are forty percent more likely than b leave outs to experience depression.Compared to 2 percent or less for just about another(prenominal) disorders, major depression is quite common. (NIMH, 2009) ordained psychology intercessions in cases of major depression focus on increasing tyrannical emotions, irrefutable experiences, subjective well-being, and near enfoldings. This differs from tralatitious interventions by not focusing on the depressive, damaging symptoms and instead trying to focus on the proficient aspects of ones life. Positive psychologists do not ignore the item that mental illnesses are abnormal and the event that things do go wrong in sights lives.Instead, they want to add a walk-to(prenominal) look at the exhaustively things that excrete in quite a littles lives and what makes and keeps state content or happy. In one excogitate, conducted by Seligman e t al, demonstrable psychotherapy rehearses delivered by dint of the internet were shown to dislodge the symptoms of depression for a minimum of six months whereas traditional treatments lasted less than one week. In subjects injury from severe depression, reduction in mild-to-moderate depressive symptoms was observed.It was overly observed that subjects who had been suffering from major depressive disorder and underwent demonstrable psychotherapy had a high reduction in symptoms than those who underwent traditional treatments and those who underwent traditional treatments combined with medications. The hypothesis of this canvas stated that depression can be case-hardened military unitively not merely by reducing its ostracise symptoms, besides alike by directly and primarily be expection compulsive emotions, character strengths, and moment. It is practicable that directly building these rosy re origins may similarly buffer against their approaching reoccurr ence. (Seligman et, al. , 2006) Logically, major depression would be well treated when using a affirmatory psychology oriented approach. good deal who suffer from depression experience anhedonia an in office to experience delight in activities which it is usually produced. They lack controlling affect, show a lack of engagement in gistful activities, lack of savor of purpose, and lack of timbering of meaning. These populate no longer bring out all interest in things such as sex, food, soldering with friends, favorite past times, and work. (Brynie, 2009) A take on by Barnaby D.Dunn, published in July of 2012 to a fault lay down that bulk suffering from depression withal do not experience prospect or recognize irrefutable emotions the way those unaffected do. (Dunn, 2012) The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines anticipation as 1 b. the act of tone forrader especially pleasurable expectation. 2 a mental emplacement that influences a later response. (Merriam-Webster, 2012) From this, it is understood that multitude suffering from depression, and accordingly anhedonia, not provided look out on out on the pleasure unremarkably experient during enjoyable activities, they likewise do not even look forward to either of these pleasurable activities.It is as if they do not see the possibility of an experience producing confirmative outcomes. Positive psychology, on the other hand, is primarily focused on creating and building-upon positive emotions, abeting people find meaning in their every twenty-four hour period lives, and promoting an overall growth in mental health. Positive psychology has its roots in self-efficacy, optimism, and hope. Self-efficacy is the belief that you have the skills and self-control necessary to achieve the goals you redress for yourself.This is a learned way of thinking, predicted by previous successes, observing others with high levels of self-efficacy, the ability to imagine oneself achieving a successful outc ome, communicatory persuasion by other potent and trustworthy souls, and ability to control minus emotions. Optimism is a persons movement to look at a location from the best come-at-able point of view, or too expect the best come-at-able outcome in any given situation (Merriam-Webster, 2012). Optimism can be predicted by a childhood environment which provided safety, coherence, warrant attachments, and there is also a inherited component to optimism.Television, however, is one of the main culprits in promoting pessimism the oppo send of optimism. The final main building block of positive psychology is hope. fancy is the combination of the belief that one can r all(prenominal) his or her goals and has the ability to find alternate routes to these goals should they be presented with grimness. (Snyder, 2011) Key step and aspects of combating major depression with positive psychology were outlined by Seligman, Rashid, and Parks in their 2006 article.Since depression is as sociated with a lack of positive realizations in ones life, leaf nodes were asked to take go to do them recognize their pinch strengths, ways to utilize these tactual sensation strengths, good things that keep to them every day, things and people in their lives that they are thankful for, and also to deviation others and themselves for past transgressions. To wait on clients recognize their signature strengths as well as service of process them to see the way they view themselves, clients were instructed to publish stories describing what they believe to be their character strengths.The client and therapist discuss how apathy and the absence seizure of positive emotions do nothing and maintain the cycle of depressive episodes. Next, clients were instructed to take the VIA-IS strengths finding questionnaire and therefore use those dissolvents in an fitting stating how they could best utilize their strengths to improve their everyday lives. afterwardwards, clients w ere to recall past situations in which they have successfully used their identified strengths to their reward. Pleasure, engagement, and meaning as pathways to happiness are discussed during the clients session and their role in overcoming depression is outlined. each(prenominal) of these steps inspection and repair carry on to the realization of the client that they have strengths that are unique to themselves, they have control over situations that happen to them, and they are not helpless. (Seligman, 2006) The conterminous set of steps focuses mainly on engagement. Clients were asked to keep Blessings Journals in which they recorded at least triad good things which happened to them individually day. They are also encouraged to frame most three bad things that have happened to them and to go into depth slightly their emotions ring these events and how the events influenced their depression.The therapist will inform the client of the ways in which retaining negative feeli ngs such as anger and bitterness can compound the solutions of depression and embarrass recovery. Clients were encouraged to talk about negative experiences and vent about these experiences rather than chew over on them. Clients were thence to pull through at least one forgiveness letter. They cite an incident with a wrong-insideng, the emotions experienced along with the event, and they also promise to forgive to transgressor even if it was himself or herself. Seligman et al, 2006) Forgiveness is a acquittance from a negative attachment to the source that has transgressed against a person. There is less zest to invalidate the person or render revenge, and an outgrowth in positive feelings or carry throughs towards the individual. There is a rea leanic appraisal of the harm done, an ack todayledgement of the perpetrators responsibility, a cancelation of debt between the victim and perpetrator, and then a self-removal from the category of victim.Forgiveness is grievous in a persons life because it helps to break the cycle of violence when one person is harmed and seeks revenge and then the initial transgressor seeks revenge as well which initiates and maintains state cycle of violence. When a person displays a willingness to forgive others, it is not only beneficial to that person, but also to all of the people surrounding said incident. It produces positive feelings as well as an inclination to also be forgiving in future situations. This is a form of positive role modeling between peers. Snyder, 2011) some other substantial step is expressing gratitude. Clients are encouraged to express their gratitude to someone they never properly or fully thanked each in person, through a letter, or via telephone conversation. (Miller, 2008) One way gratitude is experienced is when another individual acts in a way that is costly to himself or herself, provides value to the recipient, and was done intentionally. Another way gratitude can be experienced is whe n someone survives a catastrophic event, a threat to his or her health, or a dangerous situation.Gratitude is a highly value character trait in many cultures due to its beneficial nature and trend to attach a persons moveency to perform altruistic tasks. Those who are high in gratitude are generally less concerned with material goods, more spiritual, more satisfied with life, and more empathetic. (Snyder, 2011) apply the concept of primary prevention, psychologists can help their clients to prevent depressive symptoms from occurring in the first place, or lessen the severity of depressive symptoms during the next depressive episode.Some positive psychology interventions in Seligman, Rashid, and Parks 2006 study that dealt with primary prevention were being more physically active, kindlyizing with more people or more often with people who were already friends, engaging in pregnant work such as volunteering and share the less fortunate, bonding more with love ones and forming deeper connections, rejecting expectations of oneself and others, and making ones own happiness a priority.In the self analogous(prenominal) study, Seligman and his fellow researchers randomly assigned six hundred volunteers to one of six intervention activities online. Five of these activities were from a more positive psychology focused list of exercises, and one was a placebo. The placebo exercise required participants to compile gobble up their earliest memories every night for a week which had only shipboard effects on that group. The volunteers assigned to groups 1, 2, and 4 showed pointedly lower depressive symptoms and ofttimes higher(prenominal) levels of happiness when compared to the lacebo and two other control-like groups. The volunteers in the successful group also had result which lasted at least six months whereas the people in the other groups had either no results, or results that were only fleeting. (Seligman et al, 2006) Group 1 was required to take the V IA-IS strengths questionnaire and then considers ways in which they could utilize their results to help them in their everyday lives. Group 2 had to write down at least three good things that had happened to them that day and why they imagination these things had happened to them.Group 4 had to conduct a gratitude visit, much like the one previously mentioned, in which they composed a letter of thank to someone who had positively impacted their life in some way, shape, or form but they had never fully thanked and then read said letter either in person or over the phone. The two control-like groups assignments were to take a strengths mental test questionnaire alone, or to write an essay about themselves in a moment when they were at their best. Seligman et al, 2006) These last findings show that the positive psychology activities used in the Seligman et al study can also be used as a form of secondhand prevention. Secondary prevention addresses a problem after it has already appe ared just as these online participants were already showing signs of extreme depression. After participating in the three blessings per day exercise their depression scores went down showing that this exercise not only could help prevent depressive episode as previously shown, it could also lessen a depressive episode that had already begun.As a byproduct from this study a website, www. reflectivehappiness. com was created. This was a social website community centered on positive psychology. New exercises and interventions were posted each month, a book club was formed, a newssheet was published and sent out, and a raillery board dedicated to positive psychology. During the first month of operations, it was found that fifty of the sites subscribers who took pretests for the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, scored in the range that would qualify as extremely discourage.After completing the exercise involving written textbook three blessings each day for two weeks, the average score for this group of people dropped from 33. 9, to 16. 9. This showed that ninety-four percent of these people were less down(p) and fell from the extremely depressed range to the mildly to moderately depressed range. This website is no longer functioning the same way, it has moved to a mobile engagement which only works on iPhones and now runs under the URL www. happiness. com. Another important part of positive psychology and the ability of a person to remain positive, optimistic, and aspirer is resiliency.Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity and to successfully adapt to the demands of stressful situations (Tugade et al, 2004). People who are seen as resilient are more likely to be exposit as self-efficacious, confident, and determined and can also be expected to generate a more positive self-talk, boost their self-image, and promote self-agency (Mak et al, 2011). All of these characteristics are those of someone with a very positive ca ndidate on life as well as a positive view of themselves.These people show a much lower susceptibility to mental disorders and behavioral problems such as depression, anxiety, violence, and inwardness abuse (Lillehoj et al, 2004). People who are more resilient also show more optimism and a higher level of hope when thinking about the future. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions suggests that positive emotions fatten up what an individual feels like doing at any given time. (Snyder, 2011) This is referred to by Fredrickson as a broadening of ones thought- execution repertoire.Emotions such as joy, interest, contentment, pride, and love all have the ability to expand you potential action options. Joy can create more creative, playful behaviors while interest creates the appetite to explore, expand, and experience new things. One of the most important in positive psychology is pride. Pride creates the desire to share good news and envision oneself doing even larger and better things. The opposite happens in any life threatening situation your thought-action choices foreshorten to provide a smaller list of options to try to conduct a speedy, potentially life-saving choice. Frederickson, 2001) This research proves that when a person is feeling depressed and are lacking the positive emotions described above, they do not have an spread out thought-action repertoire and therefore do not see all of the possible paths to their goals which, in turn, leads to feelings of hopelessness and a lack of self-efficacy. Other health benefits of promoting positive emotions are increase laughter, decreased heart disease, change magnitude longevity, positive emotional disclosure, and overall increased psychological health.Laughter has been proven to be a cyclical cause and effect of positive emotions which in turn improves immune dodge functioning, and help maintain a durable positive emotional state. Elderly people who had been hospitalized for an incident inv olving heart disease and unploughed up a positive attitude had a much lower readmission rate than those who displayed a negative outlook. Also, people who tend to be more positive passim their lives, participate in emotional disclosure, and upholding an optimistic and hopeful outlook have a propensity to live longer than those who did not.Positive emotions and an expanded thought-action repertoire not only help people emotionally avoid depression, they also help people to be more physically active and thus further avoid depressive symptoms. The reasons why exercise helps to amend depressive symptoms is not completely understood, but it is believed to happen on a a couple of(prenominal) different levels. First of all, exercise is thought to release beneficial neurotransmitters and endorphins which are essentially feel good chemicals for your brain and body. These chemicals are thought to activate the opioid receptors in the brain creating feelings of happiness and optimism.Anothe r way exercise is thought to help create positive emotions in those who exercise is by lowering certain chemicals released by the immune system which can also prolong depressive feelings. Finally, exercise increases body temperature which is thought to have a calming effect on individuals. The more direct, less scientific ways that exercise can help people avoid depression are by acting as a distraction from everyday life and taking a persons sound judgment off of things, increasing social interactions and therefore increasing positive interactions, and improving physical appearance and thus increasing confidence. Mayo Clinic, 2011) A study also found that speed walking for thirty five legal proceeding per day for five eld each week, or sixty minutes per day three times each week had a significant effect on decreasing depression. (Harvard health check School, 2009) All in all, having a positive outlook on life can be beneficial to ones life in countless ways. The study of posit ive psychology helps people to take steps towards developing better skills to take advantage of their ability to think positively, act positively, and avoid or decrease their depression.Through a few very simple steps, such as gratitude letters, blessings journal keeping, and skills and strengths assessments, one can increase their sense of self efficacy, increase resilience, increase their sense of hope, and by doing this decrease major depressive symptoms. Works Cited American Psychiatric Association. (2000). diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed. , text rev. ). Washington, DC Author. Anticipation. 2012. In Merriam-Webster. com. Retrieved November 26, 2012, from http//www. merriam-webster. com/dictionary/anticipationBrynie, F. (2009). Depression and Anhedonia. Brain Sense. December 2009. Dunn, B. D. (2012). Helping blue Clients Reconnect to Positive Emotion Experience authentic Insights and Future Directions. 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