Download - Bohlmeijer keynote 3 juli
Ernst Bohlmeijer
Department of Psychology, Health & Technology
Flourishing: So What?
Positive psychology and mental health
(care)
ECPP 2014
Questions
1. How many people are able to beflourishing during 9 months?
2. What is the impact of well-beingon psychopathology over time?
3. How should our knowledge aboutwell-being inform mental health care?
4. Can we improve well-being andflourishing in a substantialway, yet?
5. Can we enhance flourishing witha comprehensive positivepsychological intervention?
University of Twente
Personal background
• Mental health care
• Public mental health
• Depression, well-being
• Life-story, reminiscence, acceptance-and commitment
therapy, mindfulness,
positive psychology.
• (E-health)Interventiondevelopment and
evaluation.
Collaboration
Mission statement
FLOURISH
51
Huppert & So (2013)
Huppert & So (2013)
A different well-being
approach based on work by
Ed Diener, Carof Ryff and
Corey Keyes.
Emotional well-being
Psychological well-being
Social well-being
Flourishing
At least 1 item emotional
well-being and at least 6
items psychological well-
being and/or social well-
being often or very often
in the past month.
Longitudinal population study
• MHC-SF & BSI (Brief SymptomInventory)
• LISS panel (CentERdata; Tilburg)
Longitudinal Internet Studies in the Socialsciences
• Representative sample of Dutch adult population
• N = 1,662 (18 to 87 years)
• Four measurements in 9 months
Longitudinal population study
Further evidence for the
two-continua model.
The proposition that well-
being and psychopathology
are two distinct but
related continua
Evidence from research
Flourishing
At any moment about 33% of
the adults were
flourishing.
At any moment about 33% of
the adults were
flourishing.
Flourishing
Does it matter to improve
from moderate mental health
to flourishing three and
six months later?
Mental health promotion
hypothesis (Keyes, 2012)
Impact of mental health on psychopathology (Lamers e.a., in review)
Overall model
• Initial levels of well-beingand psychopathology andchanges of well-beingaccounted for 66% of the variance in psychopathology
• Change in well-beingaccounted for 18% of the variance in psychopathology.
• Change in psychopathologyaccounted for 27% of the variance in well-being.
• Reciprocal impact of well-being and psychopathology.
Interim - conclusions
• About one third of the Dutch population is flourishing at anyone moment.
• About one eigthth of the population is able to stayflourishing during 9 months.
• Well-being and psychopathologyhave a reciprocal impact; changes in well-being explain 18% of variance of psychopathology.
• Promotion from moderate mentalhealth to flourishing appears tohave an impact on the levels of psychopathology 3 and 6 monthslater.
Balanced mental healthcare
Work in progress
Can we improve psychological
well-being?
The effects of interventions on
psychological well-being: a
meta-analysis of randomized
controlled trials.
Outcome measures
Psychological well-being scale
MHC-SF (subscale psychological
well-being)
Preliminary Result
N = 1850
Cohen’s d = 0.40
Results on flourishing
Inclusion criteria
A psychological intervention
(Sin & Lyobomirsky, 2009,
primarily aimed at raising
positive feelings, cognitions
and behavior and should have
been explicitly developed in
line with the theoretical
tradition of positive
psychology.
Conclusions
• Small but significant
effects
• Quality of studies as a
major challenge
• Lack of comprehensive
interventions (exception
of well-being therapy)
This is your life
Design
• Randomized controlled trial
• This is your life (book) as
guided self-help versus
waiting-list.
• Intervention: 12 weeks to
complete the 8 lessons.
• Weekly e-mail
• Feedback to supervised
students master positive
psychology
Design
Inclusion
• Adults with moderate mental
health.
Exclusion
• Flourishing
• Other treatment
• Moderate to high levels of
distress (HADS)
Design
Open recruitment: national
newspapers.
Measurements: Pre (T0), Post
(T1), 3 months FU (T2), 9
months FU (T3; intervention
group only).
Outcome measures: MHC-SF, HADS,
process measures.
Preliminary Results
Preliminary Results on flourishing
Conclusions & implications
• Further strong evidence that well-being and psychopathology are distinct(though related) components of mentalhealth.
• Underscores a reformulation of mentalhealth care (positive psychiatry) in which well-being promotion is a necessary complementary approach toillness treatments.
• Systematic attention to well-being(e.g. values, stengths, positiveexperiences) in all phases of mentalhealth care.
• There are now a few comprehensivepositive psychology interventionsavailable with promising effects but a large research agenda awaits us.