Hart Rona - Positive Psychology

This book provides an accessible and balanced introduction to positive psychology scholarship and its applications, incorporating an overview of the development of positive psychology. Positive Psychology: The Basics delineates positive psychologys journey as a discipline, takes stock of its achievements and provides an updated overview of its core topics, exploring the theory, research and interventions in each.

Launched as a rebellious discipline just over two decades ago, positive psychology challenged the emphasis of applied psychology on disease and dysfunction and offered a new, more balanced perspective on human life. From its foundations in the late 20th century to recent second-wave theories around the importance of recognizing negative emotions, this compact overview covers the key ideas and principles, from research around emotional wellbeing, optimism and change, to posttraumatic growth and positive relationships. The first jargon-free introduction to the subject, Hart introduces the reader to a range of issues, including self-regulation and flow, character strengths and virtues and positive relationships, concluding with a chapter on how interventions can affect happiness and wellbeing.

Positive Psychology: The Basics is an essential resource for students, practitioners, academics and anyone who is interested in understanding the essence of a life well lived.

Dr Rona Hart is a senior lecturer in Applied Positive Psychology, and the former Programme Leader of the immensely popular MSc in Applied Positive Psychology Programme and the MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology Programme at the School of Psychology, University of East London, UK.

The Basics

The Basics is a highly successful series of accessible guidebooks which provide an overview of the fundamental principles of a subject area in a jargon-free and undaunting format.

Intended for students approaching a subject for the first time, the books both introduce the essentials of a subject and provide an ideal springboard for further study. With over 50 titles spanning subjects from artificial intelligence (AI) to womens studies, The Basics are an ideal starting point for students seeking to understand a subject area.

Each text comes with recommendations for further study and gradually introduces the complexities and nuances within a subject.

First published 2021

by Routledge

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and by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2021 Rona Hart

The right of Rona Hart to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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ISBN: 978-1-138-55193-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-55195-4 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-14785-7 (ebk)

Consider a scientific scholarship that is as invested in promoting happiness, wellbeing, strength and resilience as much as it is concerned in alleviating stress and distress. A science that explores what makes a good life, and disseminates concepts, research findings and interventions that can help us flourish and grow. This is what positive psychology is about.

Launched as a rebellious discipline just over two decades ago, positive psychology challenged the emphasis of applied psychology on disease and dysfunction and offered a new, more balanced perspective on human life. Since its establishment it has seen remarkable progress, and has laid down solid theoretical and empirical foundations for its concepts and its applied work.

This books delineates positive psychologys journey as a discipline, takes stock of its achievements and provides an updated overview of its core topics, exploring the theory, research and interventions in each.

delineates the background that has led to the establishment of positive psychology, and defines what it contains and where its focus lies. It also provides an overview of its development in the past two decades and discusses its future trajectory and the key debates and critique that emerged over the years around its concepts.

opens with a distinction between hedonia and eudaimonia, and then reviews the leading models of wellbeing and the recent research on them.