Promoting Healthy Personality Development & Well-being

     "the absence of symptoms of mental disorders does not assure the presence of positive emotions, life satisfaction or other indicators of well-being. ... An adequate model of well-being will require a better understanding of the role of self-transcendence. In contrast to defensiveness and effortful control, an outlook of unity is expressed in activities such as fluidity in athletic performance, improvisation in musical composition, trustful perception of social support, and generosity in charitable donations, which each activate the most recently evolved parts of the brain, particularly prefrontal poles. Activation of the anterior prefrontal cortex produces feelings of satisfaction even when anticipating adversity or when making meaningful personal sacrifices. ...

     Much more work is needed to develop empirical measures that are able to reliably distinguish the different processes that promote healthy personality development and well-being. We need to better understand the crucial role of self-transcendence along with other dimensions of personality in the development of health and happiness. The great deficiency of emerging classifications of mental disorders is that they embody little or no understanding of the science of well-being."

       Cloninger CR. Healthy personality development and well-being. World Psychiatry 2012; 11(2): 103-4.
 
     "The goal of meditation at its deepest level has been liberation from the egoic self; developing a sense of harmony with the universe; and the ability to increase one's compassion, sensitivity, and service to others. These goals may include, but go beyond, personal self-regulation or self-exploration."

       Shapiro DH. Examining the content and context of meditation; A challenge for psychology in the areas of stress management, psychotherapy, and religion/values. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 1994; 34(4): 101-135. 

 

Psychological Health & Sense of Control - an Expanded Understanding

     “… one component of psychological health historically has been defined as the individual’s ability to have a positive sense of instrumental control, efficacy, and competence.
     (Shapiro conceptualized) four different modes of control: positive assertive, positive yielding, negative assertive (overcontrol), and negative yielding (too little control). Psychological health involves reducing the negative modes (overcontrol & too little control) and increasing & developing the two positive modes of control (positive assertive & positive yielding). Results have shown that a sense of control from both positive modes can affect both physical and emotional well-being; that meditation increases the yielding, accepting mode of control; and that the longer a person has meditated, the more this mode increases. Independently, Rothbaum and Weisz were developing the concepts of primary control (change the environment) and secondary control (change the self to fit the environment).
     Both of these models have applicability to stress management and psychotherapy. They offer a version of the R. Niebuhr (Serenity) prayer by suggesting that individuals can learn not only the dominant mode of instrumental control prevalent in Western psychology, courage to change what can be changed, but also the sense of control through yielding and acceptance that can come from meditation (as well as other techniques) – to accept what cannot be changed. Further, the self-exploration of meditation, alone, or in combination with Western therapy, can be helpful in ‘gaining the wisdom to know the difference.’ Finally, depending on the context and belief system about the nature of the universe, meditation can facilitate positive yielding & accepting, either within secular assumptions about the nature of the universe and/or from religious assumptions in which one lets go, surrenders, and trusts control to a benevolent Other, or the essential ‘isness’ of the universe.”

       Shapiro DH. Examining the content and context of meditation; A challenge for psychology in the areas of stress management, psychotherapy, and religion/values. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 1994; 34(4): 101-135.

Nguyen Anh   www.dpreview.com