The Therapist's Notebook on Positive Psychology

Activities, Exercises, and Handouts

Bill O'Hanlon, Bob Bertolino

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136680687
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

How can psychotherapists apply the wealth of recent research in Positive Psychology to their clinical work to help their clients change in positive directions?

Bill O'Hanlon, who originated Solution-Oriented Therapy in the early 1980s, and Bob Bertolino, an experienced clinician, build the bridge between positive psychology and psychotherapy in this book that allows readers to focus on the mental, behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual health of their clients. Following the highly readable and user-friendly approach of the Therapist Notebooks, this book contains 75 activities, exercises, and handouts throughout seven chapters that therapists can implement both in sessions and as activities outside the therapeutic milieu.

Among the many attractive features included are:

• exercises that follow a standard format for ease of use and implementation
• research findings that underscore the importance of focusing on strengths and well-being
• overviews and suggestions for use that flank each exercise and contextualize them.

Readers appreciate the breadth of research and literature covered, the interactive exercises that both clients and clinicians can use, and devices presented to help translate research into practice, such as the P.O.S.I.T.I.V.E. Framework and The Happiness Hypothesis. For mental health practitioners who are interested in building resilience and strength, both within their clients and within themselves, this book is indispensable.

– 1 –

The P.O.S.I.T.I.V.E. Framework

From Research to Practice

Happiness: What We Know So Far from the Research

We begin here by highlighting a few points that underscore the activities and exercises in Chapter 1:

Most of us are bad at predicting what will make us happy.

We tend to overestimate the positive impact of having more money, more material objects, and good things happening to us will increase our happiness. We tend to overestimate the negative impact of having bad things happen to us.

Most of us are pretty happy.

And we tend to have stable happiness levels through life (this is often called our happiness set point), although most of us get a little happier as life goes on (and there is often a slight dip in happiness levels at mid-life). There are some things that can increase or decrease our general happiness levels for short or prolonged periods. Stress, anxiety, and depression can bring down the levels of happiness. We discuss this research throughout this book while relating it to clinical work.

Subjective well-being is a little different from happiness. It involves:

Satisfaction with life conditions

Experience frequent positive emotions

Experience infrequent negative emotions (Diener, 1984)

A certain percentage of our happiness/subjective well-being (some estimate 40%) can be changed by things we do and shifts in attention and attitude. Jonathan Haidt (2006) provides a nice formula in his book, The Happiness Hypothesis: H = S + C + V, where H is your general happiness level, S is your happiness set point, C is your life conditions, and V is your voluntary activities. This last is the territory we cover in this book—the things you and your clients can do to affect happiness levels and one’s sense of well-being.

And perhaps we should give you a definition of happiness before diving in. There are many, of course, and no correct definitive on which all can agree, but for clarity and simplicity, we quite like this one:

Pleasure/Positive Emotions + Engagement + Meaning = Happiness

But mostly, of course, aside from definitions and formulas, most of us know when we are happy or satisfied quite well without any help from the scientists or theorists.

In this chapter we introduce the overall framework that we will use to organize the disparate material from Positive Psychology and allied areas of research. We provide at least one activity or exercise to use based on the particular area of focus or research finding.

While there have been some articles and even a book or two on psychotherapy approaches that derive from the findings in Positive Psychology, these were for the most part either unsatisfying to us because they didn’t provide much practical guidance or specifics, or they were written by theorists or researchers.

Our primary guideline for translating this research is practicality and a realistic understanding of clinical work. Also, we don’t expect you, the reader, to use every one of these exercises or activities. The book is divided into “bite-sized” pieces, making it easy to dip into one or the other of them and try them at random. Of course, if you prefer, you could read them through or try them out more systematically, but this is not necessary to get the value out of this volume.

If you have a background in more traditional approaches, this new emphasis may take some time to incorporate or shift into. It may take even more time for it to feel natural. That’s okay. Our goal is not to make whatever you are currently doing obsolete (or wrong), but rather to supplement and expand your repertoire and viewpoint.

Approach these activities and exercises with openness, and you should be fine. Now, on to the first chapter and exercises.

References

Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542–575.

Haidt, J. (2006). The happiness hypothesis. New York: Basic.

Clean Your Well-Being with S.O.A.P.

Overview

There is a lot of material in this book. We don’t want you to get overwhelmed. To start things out and keep them simple, we offer a brief overview of the four key areas that have been shown in Positive Psychology research to have a significant impact on people’s sense of well-being and happiness. We have organized the book with the mnemonic P.O.S.I.T.I.V.E., but for now let’s make things even more memorable with the shorter mnemonic S.O.A.P.

S.O.A.P. stands for

1. S. = Social connections, probably the most neglected in our busy and isolated modern lives; if you have a rich social life (not busy, necessarily, just rich) and positive social connections, you will likely be happier.
2. O. = Optimism; if you approach life and troubles with a more optimistic explanatory style and attitude, you are more likely to be happy. Luckily, this is learnable.
3. A. = Appreciation/gratitude; if you can wake up to the wonders of the world and the blessings you have, you will likely find yourself being more satisfied in your life.
4. P. = Purpose/meaning; if you have the sense that your life is about something more than satisfying your personal needs and wants and you feel it has a bigger meaning and purpose, again, you are more likely to be satisfied.

Suggestions for Use

This exercise is primarily for you the therapist, although you are welcome to invite your clients to do it as well. It is designed to “get you into” the field of Positive Psychology, and give you an overview of where we are going in this book and some of the key concepts and activities that can make a difference in your clients’ lives that derive from that field.

Exercise

To complete this exercise, please complete the following steps

1. In the space below, list your significant social connections. This includes:
   Friends_________________________________________
   Romantic relationships__________________________
   Friendly co-workers_____________________________
   Pets____________________________________________
   Family members__________________________________
   Neighbors_______________________________________
   Groups in which you have good connections with one or more members:
   Church congregations___________________________
   Choirs/musical groups__________________________
   Book groups____________________________________
   Sports teams___________________________________
   Military units______________
   Work groups____________________________________
   Professional organizations_____________________
   Live or web-based interest groups______________
   Self-help/support groups_______________________
   Your extended family___________________________
   [Fill in any other groups in your life that haven’t been covered in this list]
2. Now, next to each entity on the list in Step 1, make a note of how often you get together with these social connections. You might also comment on the value you get from each of them.
   • Do you have a sense that overall the connections on your list make your life richer and happier?_______________________________________
   • Is there any area of your social life that you feel you have neglected and would like to rehabilitate or put more effort into and attention on?______________________
     _________________________________________
   • Is there any part of your social life that is unsatisfying and you would like to change to make it better?_____________________________________
3. Let’s now assess your sense of optimism.
   • When you face troubles or problems, do you tend to be bleak in your outlook? Hopeful?
   • When there is trouble, do you tend to think things will be better before long, or that this is just another in a long line of troubles?
   • Do you get down on yourself and think there is something wrong with you when you are stressed or face difficulties?
   • Do you tend to see problems as passing things or evidence of more deep-seated and pervasive issues?

We will discuss the optimism/pessimism spectrum in a later chapter, but for now just notice your tendencies. The good news is that if you tend to be pessimistic, this automatic response has been shown to be changeable, and that change can have an impact on your sense of happiness and well-being.

1. 4. Assess your habits of gratitude and appreciation.
   • Do you find yourself regularly feeling grateful?________________________________
   • Do you frequently express your gratitude to others?______________________________
   • Do you often “stop to smell the roses,” or do you often get caught in the day-to-day and get too busy to notice the everyday wonders and pleasures of life?_________________________________________
2. 5. Do you have a sense that you have found and are living a life with purpose and meaning?
   • Do you have a sense that the work you do is part of why you are alive?__________
     _________________________________________
   • Do you have a sense that you are part of something bigger?_________
     _______________________________
   • Do you know the reason you are alive?___________
     _______________________________
   • Are you fulfilling your purpose?__________________
     _________________________________________

Okay, that was our quick walk-through and introduction to so...