Positive Psychology

STRESS MANAGEMENT IN PATIENTS WITH CANCER:

THERAPY TO IMPROVE LIFE QUALITY & COPE STRESS

Positive Psychology

Positive psychology is the scientific examination of that which makes life worth living. Cutting across traditional boundaries of clinical, social, and developmental psychology, positive psychology examines the nature of happiness, the power of hope, and fundamental human strivings such as the search for meaning. As a subfield of psychology that has received much attention recently, it is particularly fitting to discuss the shape positive psychology may take in the 21st century. We will begin this discussion by providing a brief review of the history of the positive psychology initiative before defining positive psychology as it stands at the beginning of the 21st century. We will then review three areas of positive psychology that have been emphasized in recent years: positive emotions, character strengths, and positive mental health. We will conclude with a brief glimpse of some recent fascinating findings, a discussion of the current limitations of positive psychology, and a perspective on where positive psychology may go as the 21st century unfolds. (Isen, 1970)

Positive Psychology and Cancer Patients

Human weaknesses such as hopelessness and aggression have often been the focus of psychologists. This attention to weakness has resulted in information on treatments of psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression. However, with the recent emergence of the positive psychology perspective, more focus is being given to studying human strengths. The aim of positive psychology is to help health care, education, and business professionals apply a science that focuses on the understanding of what makes life worth living. Positive psychology is an umbrella term for the study of positive character traits, positive emotions, and enabling institutions. One example of such human strength that has been studied widely is the construct of hope.

Research concerning hope and the primary prevention of physical illness has revealed that people with higher levels of hope use information about physical illness to their advantage to do more of what helps and less of what is harmful. Knowledge is used as a pathway for prevention. Snyder and colleagues discussed that women with higher levels of hope performed better on a cancer facts test than women with lower levels of hope, even after controlling for their past academic performances and their contacts with others who have had cancer. Furthermore, women with higher levels of hope reported higher intentions to engage in cancer prevention activities than women with lower levels of hope, and people with high hope reported engaging in more preventive behaviors, such as physical exercise, as compared to people with low hope. (Gallagher & Lopez, 2007)

Stress Management in Patients with Cancer

The leading causes of death for Americans are heart disease, cancer, stroke, accidents, and lung disease. This pattern of disease is very different from the leading causes of death at the turn of the century in 1900: pneumonia/influenza, tuberculosis, and intestinal disease. The pattern of mortality changed from infectious disease, which was diminished through public sanitation and immunizations, to a pattern of chronic, ...