Edited By Dr Piers Worth
Positive Psychology Across The Lifespan
An Existential Perspective
Positive Psychology Across the Lifespan An Existential Perspective Edited by Piers Worth, chartered psychologist, accredited psychotherapist and visiting Professor of Positive Psychology at Bucks New University.
Positive Psychology Across the Life Span provides an insight into how we are affected by the different stages of adult development and gives us the opportunity to change through choice rather than leaving change to chance.
The book will be essential reading for students and practitioners of positive psychology, as well as other mental health professionals and individuals interested in exploring the subject for reasons of personal development.
The Authors
Piers is Visiting Professor in Psychology at Buckinghamshire New University, a Chartered Psychologist and Accredited Psychotherapist. Piers’ PhD research focused on how creativity changes as we age, and how it may support positive ageing. His research and writing focus are on subjects and applications that may broaden the base of positive psychology.
Andrew is an experienced Coaching Supervisor, International Coach Trainer, Psychotherapist and Master Coach (ICF Certified) with three decades of experience working as a Change Specialist in Global Businesses. And a Visiting Teaching Fellow on the MSC in Applied Positive Psychology at Buckinghamshire New University.
Diane is a part-time doctoral researcher at the Centre for Positive Psychology, Buckinghamshire New University and a graduate of BNU’s MSc Applied Positive Psychology. Her research focuses on the experience of being creative at work and how leaders might facilitate creativity. Diane is a non-executive director and coach.
Lee is a MAPP graduate, transformational coach, and psychology lecturer at Buckinghamshire New University where he is developing a new master’s programme in ecology, spirituality, and psychology. Lee cares deeply about our wild and sacred spaces as an eco-mindfulness practitioner and ‘earth protector’.
Lesley is a MAPP graduate, positive psychology practitioner, trainer, author, and clinical hypnotherapist. Her focus is helping to create positive change through the application of science-based processes. She is an enthusiast of the power of positive emotions to facilitate physical and emotional healing and has run a free community laughter group for the last ten years.
The Dream
The book was inspired by a dream Pier’s Worth experienced. Andrew’s photograph crystallized some of the ideas explained in the book
The Bridge
The photograph used as the book cover was taken by Andrew Machon on his “Lightseeker” expedition to the Arctic Circle. He gives us some background to it here
Visionaries and leading researchers in
areas of ‘Existential Positive Psychology’
In these brief summaries we want to familiarise you with leading ‘thinkers’ in the fields found within or overlapping with Existential Positive Psychology and offer you internet links to their work. The descriptions below are deliberately simple to leave you to explore and find out what you are drawn to. Their sites offer you a mix of freely available writing, and others where you might need to seek access, e.g. via requesting an inter-library loan of the journal article, or purchase it.
Dr Wong has for decades been a leading researcher, writer, practitioner and teacher in the areas of meaning in life. He set out to extend and build on the work of Viktor Frankl developing our understanding of meaning. Paul has edited and written major texts in the field of meaning, e.g. two volumes of ‘The Human Quest for Meaning’. He founded the International Network for Personal Meaning.
His website contains a large range of his writings on many subjects and is strongly recommended for your exploration. Paul established and leads international conferences on Meaning that have bi-annually for many years.
Those of you who are reading the ‘Lifespan’ text will realise that Paul originated the concept of ‘Existential Positive Psychology’ in 2004 and has developed that in writing for over a decade. Core within his proposal for EPP is a model of our experiences and growth, contained within the text which will form a direction in which `EPP’ will develop.”
Michael Steger is the Founder and Director of the Center for Meaning and Purpose, and a Professor of Psychology at Colorado State University. His research offers clarification and development of key concepts and application of meaning and purpose in a manner that supports the work of others interested in these subjects. He is a witty and charismatic speaker.
Dr Lomas has emerged as one of the most innovative and prolific writers and researchers in areas of well-being and emotions, and their expression in language cross-culturally. His creative and innovative research methods have supported an exciting range of writing, books and journal articles, on many new topics. His creativity and his published output are moving and exciting to relate to.
Professor Fredrickson has been a pioneer for over twenty years in exploring the nature and range of positive emotions, and what they contribute to our ways of thinking and behaving, and our physical and mental health. Prior to her leading work, the psychological focus on emotions was on negative states. Professor Fredrickson has broadened that landscape into an extraordinary focus on the experiences and gains of positive emotions.
Professor McAdams has an innovative and creative path or research and writing that suggests our identity over time is found in story, one that is constantly updated and adjusted. Over the last 20+ years, he has written textbooks and research-based articles on the nature of identity that represent new directions in psychological thinking, and that are clear, moving, and exciting. He is unquestionably one of the leading psychologists of his generation.
Professor Ryff’s research has a strong multidisciplinary focus on how psychological well-being is influenced by social context, structural influences such as age, gender, socio-economic status, race and ethnicity, and biological factors. Professor Ryff describes positive ageing as an Integrated Biopsychosocial Process.
Professor Ryff proposed a theory of psychological well-being (PWB) in 1989, something that at the time had been substantially overlooked in the work up till that point. Her theory has been researched in approximately 750 publications over 30 years. Her work on PWB is strongly represented in the research of the ‘MIDUS’ study – ‘Mid-Life in the United States’, a study which she leads that has been active for over 30 years.
Research publications on an extensive range of subjects can be here
Professor Lyubomirsky is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California (Riverside). She has published extensively, particularly on the subject of ‘happiness’, and is a renowned speaker internationally. Professor Lyubomirsky writes in an open, direct manner on the subject, development and dynamics of ‘happiness’ changing views on both how we may access happiness, and what are some of the social ‘myths’ about its nature.
Itai Ivtzan is a Professor of Psychology at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, teaching and researching on the MA in Clinical Mental Health Counselling – Mindfulness- Based. He has written and published extensively on the nature of positive psychology, particularly connected to mindfulness. He is an energetic and charismatic speaker on these subjects, and offers study course through the ‘School of Positive Transformation’.
Bob Emmons is a psychologist and professor at the University of California, Davis. His research is in the field of personality psychology, emotion psychology, and psychology of religion. He is widely known for his research and teaching on gratitude and the potential for it to be a transformative experience in our lives.
Examples of his publications and subjects he focuses on can be found here