Positive Psychology Interventions

Throughout the years education has taken many different directions, each direction presenting new positive and negative outcomes. One of the newest directions the school system has taken is the inclusion movement. As a result of the inclusion movement some other changes within the classroom have been made. This includes behavior management programs. This has led to the development of Positive Behavioral Support.

According to the Center, “Positive psychology is the systematic study of human strength, resilience and qualities that empower individuals and group of people to succeed” (Positive Psychology Center, 2014). Positive psychology’s founders learned through study that people usually place more emphasis on what goes wrong in their lives; they focus on their failures. For instance, divorce, financial obligations, or losing a job. It is imperative to comprehend the characteristics of undesirable experiences in an individual’s life. As an alternative to focusing on failure, focus can be placed on the positive situations in life and understand those are the occasions worth living for. Positive psychology emphasizes strengths and weaknesses, magnifying the positive aspects of life, and healing the effects of negative experiences. Positive psychology focuses on a person’s strengths and the hope of something larger then oneself to lead individuals to a more meaningful

According to Feierman, (2013)Researchers have identified evidence-based practices that reduce incidents of school delinquency including violent misbehavior, lessen the need for exclusionary disciplinary practices or referrals to the justice system, and amilorate academic performance among all students. School-Wide Positive Behavioral Supports (SWPBS)—also referred to as Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), restorative justice and trauma-informed education are examples of these practices. PBIS is the only such approach directly supported by federal law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires consideration of PBIS in an eligible student individualized education program.

Psychodynamic Therapy assisted in discovering what childhood experiences and situations influenced Christina’s personality development. For instance, the client discussed how she grew up in a military family and was required to relocate every two years. The client stated how she felt like the “new kid” at each school she attended during her childhood and adolescent years. In regards to being labeled as the “new kid”, Christina created a “shield” to defend her from her classmates and keep her hidden. Based on being alone most of her childhood and being distant from others, Christina stated how she enjoys being independent and making her own rules. Furthermore, while her father was deployed, her mother was the parent playing the roles of the

Raver and Knitize state (as cited by Bayat, Mindes, & Covitt, 2010) that “some estimates suggest 10% of preschoolers exhibit noticeable problem behaviors, with 4-6% of this population exhibiting serious behavior difficulties. Preschool children are expelled at a rate that three times more than students in grades K-12 (Bayat et al., 2010). Gilliam reported (as cited in Bayat et al., 2010) that the lowest rate of expulsion was associated with when there are behavioral interventions in the classroom. Progress monitoring and interventions are not only for academic struggles. It can be used to help with behavior issues and struggles in the early childhood classroom. Intervention teams have intervention opinions to use such as Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and function-based interventions.

The client will continue participating in her positive therapy exercises for grief and depression at the Renaissance Centre.

The result of the Google Doc survey from teachers and parents showed an ineffective school wide discipline/behavior program.

Evanovich, L. L., & Scott, T. M. (2016). Facilitating PBIS Implementation: An Administrator's Guide to Presenting the Logic and Steps to Faculty and Staff. Beyond Behavior, 25(1), 4-8.

What were the measures of therapeutic efficacy used in the study that you read? That's always an important critical analysis question in any research discussing psychotherapeutic interventions

According to the literature review, clinical consensus suggests that pharmacological treatment is important for depression and a recent study found that 'medication' was the most commonly recommended intervention for depression in young offenders in custody (Chitsabesan et al., 2006), especially severe depression. However, all types of antidepressants showed limitation for use with juvenile offenders with depression because of side effects and monitoring cannot be provided in a detention facility. For psychotherapeutic interventions, there are particularly useful for the juvenile offender during stable periods, but not in crisis. Psychotherapeutic interventions can mobilize emotional, intellectual, and social and familial resources more

Recommendations for alleviating the unmet need according to teachers and administrators include: Needing more education and resources for teachers and parents to create more understanding and cohesion and hopefully increase parental involvement and student support, continue attending “Ed Direction” to increase positive quality teacher instruction to students, implementing Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) system, teaching students “Skill-of-the-Week” lessons to encourage the building up of appropriate social skills, and developing empathy for plights of the students and parents.

Coming to the end of my training, I believe that I possess the basic therapy and assessment skills to provide services to client without causing harm. I am also cognizant of the possible ethical dilemmas and have the analytical skills to problem-solve these challenges.

In Professor Seligman’s TED Talk he presents to us the state of psychology today. Just what is the state of psychology today? According to Seligman it is good, not good, and not good enough. In the “good” update for psychology today, it is beneficial that psychology is progressing forward. Once what was an extreme science of finding out what is wrong with someone has progressed forward into also finding out how to improve one’s life quality. Seligman states that just sixty years ago no disorder was treatable. However in today’s world of modern psychology not only are fourteen disorders treatable, but two are even curable. In the terms of not good, in Seligman’s opinion, there has been too much of an extreme focus on mental illness. Seligman believes that psychology has gone a pessimistic route and in turn forgotten about improving “normal” lives to make people less miserable. He believes that there should not only be interventions in terms of treating mental illness, but also interventions to make people happier. Seligman lists a few different ways that positive psychology could improve itself to go this route. The main idea is that psychologists should be concerned with both strength and weakness of people, therefore building strengths and repairing weakness. From further research in modern positive psychology has sought to answer just what are happy people and what makes them happy? Seligman explains that

Martin Seligmon introduced the positive psychology movement after noticing how overly negative the field of psychology is. Though he agreed that psychology's previous study of weakness, damage, and suffering had yielded in valuable information about human behavior, Seligmon believed this negative approach of study neglected the positive qualities of human life and interaction. Positive psychology aims to shift focus away from negative thinking that is generally associated with the study of psychology. It is intended to better our unerstanding of the positive aspects of human existance. The field of postive psychology is broken down into three areas: positive emotions, positive traits, and positive communities. Positive emotions include feelings

Positive psychology, which has emerged recently, is the scientific study of human thriving. Psychology traditionally focuses on dysfunction—on people with mental illness or other psychological problems and how to treat them. Positive psychology, by contrast, is a relatively new field that examines how ordinary people can become happier and more fulfilled. In his 1998 APA presidential address, Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, argued that psychology had become too focused on curing mental illness according to a disease model, and that, for all intents and purposes, it had become a “victimology” (Seligman, 1998). What was needed, he averred, was a new “science of human strengths,” a positive psychology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).