Positive psychology used to cope with economy woes

Positive psychology used to cope with
economy woes
(June 2009 Issue)

By Pamela Berard

Positive psychology is one tool being used to help people maintain a healthy perspective during this turbulent economy.

Carol Kauffman, Ph.D., a clinical staff associate at McLean Hospital and assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School, has utilized positive psychology with clients.

"Most of the people that I am working with have not lost jobs themselves," Kauffman says. "They have lost money in their savings, but it's more like waiting for the other shoe to drop. So they are living in a place of fear and worry."

Kauffman says positive psychology is not a replacement - but rather a complement - for therapy and intervention as usual.

"In traditional psychology you might help people with their anxiety about finances. You would work with them on regulating their anxiety, working on their cognitive distortions," Kauffman says. Positive psychology would employ the complementary slant of increasing courage.

"There's a difference in working with distortions versus helping people really think about their current challenge in a different way," Kauffman says. "For example, I've been working with people in helping them reflect on what their deeper values are. People are managing a lot of stress, but how also can we help them really see what their strengths and values are, and how they can use that to navigate their turbulent waters."

University of Rhode Island Associate Professor Nansook Park, Ph.D., NCSP, says positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life worth living.

"Positive psychology is interested in building good life as well as repairing problems in our life. Positive psychology is an extension and complement of problem-focused psychology, rather than replacing business usual psychology," she says.

Park worked on the Values in Action (VIA) Project, is on the steering committee for the International Positive Psychology Association, is a member of the Annenberg/Sunnylands Commission on Positive Youth Development and a Research Fellow at the Positive Psychology Center.

Park says caution is required when using positive psychology to help people deal with economic realities. "Losing jobs and homes are real problems, not simply in one's mind. Simply having wishful thinking will not bring solutions."

She says positive psychology techniques such as focusing on what is right in life and strength-focused approaches can be helpful when applied carefully in conjunction with other valid existing intervention strategies. "Positive reframing of the situation, being optimistic, focusing on strengths and what goes right in life can function as motivator for people to set goals, take actions to pursue solutions, to be resilient and to persevere through difficult times."

Kauffman initially works with traditional interventions and will then integrate positive psychology. If, for example, a person is worried about being fired, Kauffman might employ the nightly technique of counting blessings.

"You stand back on your day and try to think of three good things that happened to you that day and instead of telling you to stop thinking of the bad things, what positive psychology would say is to try to think more about the good things. Try to harvest what positive experiences you have had and then to appreciate what did you do to make those good things happen," Kauffman says. "On one hand, it helps you soak in the good things that have happened to you, but it also increases your sense of optimism and empowerment."

Research shows that if someone does that every day for a week, it decreases depression scores and increases well-being scores, Kauffman says. "It seems too simple to be true, but the reality is that what you pay attention to matters."

Park says other strategies informed by positive psychology include savoring (taking the time to have fun, celebrate with others and savor each day); and downward social comparison, in which a person in a stressful situation would think about how things could have been worse or think about others who are in even more stressful situations.

Kauffman may ask a client to look back at a former crisis that turned into a positive opportunity, so that they may embrace any opportunity in their current circumstance. Kauffman said some of her clients are making a positive out of a bad situation by engaging in more philanthropy or coaching others.