Faith from a Positive Psychology Perspective

Faith from a Positive Psychology Perspective PDF Author: Cindy Miller-Perrin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9401794367
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
This book highlights religious faith from a positive psychology perspective, examining the relationship between religious faith and optimal psychological functioning. It takes a perspective of religious diversity that incorporates international and cross-cultural work. The empirical literature on the role of faith and cognition, faith and emotion, and faith and behaviour is addressed including how these topics relate to individuals’ mental health, well-being, strength, and resilience. Information on how these faith concepts are relevant to the broader context of relational functioning in families, friendships, and communities is also incorporated. Psychologists have traditionally focused on the treatment of mental illness from a perspective of repairing damaged habits, damaged drives, damaged childhoods, and damaged brains. In recent years, however, many psychological researchers and practitioners have attempted to re-focus the field away from the study of human weakness and damage toward the promotion of a positive psychology of well-being among individuals, families, and communities. One domain within the field of positive psychology is the study of religious faith as a human strength that has the potential to enhance individuals’ optimal existence and well-being.

Faith from a Positive Psychology Perspective

Faith from a Positive Psychology Perspective PDF Author: Cindy Miller-Perrin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9401794367
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book highlights religious faith from a positive psychology perspective, examining the relationship between religious faith and optimal psychological functioning. It takes a perspective of religious diversity that incorporates international and cross-cultural work. The empirical literature on the role of faith and cognition, faith and emotion, and faith and behaviour is addressed including how these topics relate to individuals’ mental health, well-being, strength, and resilience. Information on how these faith concepts are relevant to the broader context of relational functioning in families, friendships, and communities is also incorporated. Psychologists have traditionally focused on the treatment of mental illness from a perspective of repairing damaged habits, damaged drives, damaged childhoods, and damaged brains. In recent years, however, many psychological researchers and practitioners have attempted to re-focus the field away from the study of human weakness and damage toward the promotion of a positive psychology of well-being among individuals, families, and communities. One domain within the field of positive psychology is the study of religious faith as a human strength that has the potential to enhance individuals’ optimal existence and well-being.

Religion, Spirituality, and Positive Psychology

Religion, Spirituality, and Positive Psychology PDF Author: Thomas G. Plante Ph.D.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313398461
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
A multidisciplinary team of scholars shows how spiritual and religious practices actually do power psychological, physical, and social benefits, producing stronger individuals and healthier societies. In recent years, scholars from an array of disciplines applied cutting-edge research techniques to determining the effects of faith. Religion, Spirituality, and Positive Psychology: Understanding the Psychological Fruits of Faith brings those scholars together to share what they learned. Through their thoughtful, evidence-based reflections, this insightful book demonstrates the positive benefits of spiritual and religious engagement, both for individual practitioners and for society as a whole. The book covers Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and other major traditions across culture in two sections. The first focuses on ways in which religious and spiritual engagement improves psychological and behavioral health. The second highlights the application of this knowledge to physical, psychological, and social problems. Each chapter focuses on a spiritual "fruit," among them humility, hope, tolerance, gratitude, forgiveness, better health, and recovery from disease or addiction, explaining how the fruit is "planted" and why faith helps it flourish.

Faith and Health

Faith and Health PDF Author: Thomas G. Plante
Publisher: Guilford Press
ISBN: 9781572306820
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
This volume reviews and integrates the growing body of contemporary psychological research on the links between religious faith and health outcomes. It presents up-to-date findings from empirical studies of populations ranging from healthy individuals to those with specific clinical problems, including cancer, HIV/AIDS, and psychological disorders. Drawing on multiple perspectives in psychology, the book examines such critical questions as the impact of religious practices on health behaviors and health risks; the role played by faith in adaptation to illness or disability; and possible influences on physiological functioning and mortality. Chapters reflect the close collaboration of the editors and contributing authors, who discuss commonalities and differences in their work, debate key methodological concerns, and outline a cohesive agenda for future research.

Flourishing in Faith

Flourishing in Faith PDF Author: Gillies Ambler
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498296416
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Flourishing in Faith: Theology Encountering Positive Psychology explores the fascinating dialogue between two scholarly traditions concerned with personal wellbeing, Christian theology and Positive Psychology, primarily from the perspective of theology. Although each works within different paradigms and brings different fundamental assumptions about the nature of the world, both are oriented toward that which leads to human flourishing and contentment. In such an encounter, can both disciplines learn from one another? Do they challenge each other? How can they enrich and or critique each other? With the widespread emergence of Positive Psychology in educational, church, and community settings across the world, many of which self-identify with the Christian tradition, many are wondering how this new branch of psychology integrates with traditional Christian belief and practice. This groundbreaking book explores this question from a diversity of perspectives: theology, biblical studies, education, psychology, social work, disability studies, and chaplaincy, from scholars and practitioners working in Australia and the United States.

Positive Psychology in Christian Perspective

Positive Psychology in Christian Perspective PDF Author: Charles Hackney
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830828710
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Positive psychology is about fostering strength and living well—about how to do a good job at being human. Charles Hackney connects this still-new movement to foundational concepts in philosophy and Christian theology. He then explores topics such as subjective states, cognitive processes, and the roles of personality, relationships, and environment.

The Gospel of Happiness

The Gospel of Happiness PDF Author: Christopher Kaczor
Publisher: Image
ISBN: 0804141010
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
What is true happiness? How can you experience it? And can you live it wholeheartedly in your day-to-day life? Every thoughtful person asks such questions. Thoughtful Christians ask a few more questions such as, Can Christian practices enhance happiness? If so, how? And does Christianity provide happiness in a way that other paths, like psychology, cannot? Christopher Kaczor suggests answers to these and other questions about how to be happier. In The Gospel of Happiness, the bestselling author of The Seven Big Myths of the Catholic Church highlights seven ways in which positive psychology and Christian practice can lead to personal and spiritual transformation. Focusing on empirical findings in positive psychology that point to the wisdom of many Christian practices and teachings, the author provides not only practical suggestions on how to become happier in everyday life but provides insight on how to deepen Christian practice and increase love of God and neighbor in new and bold ways. “Part of the Christian message is that authentic happiness is to be found not in selfishness, but self-giving,” writes Dr. Kaczor. “In this book, I highlight the many ways in which positive psychology and Christian practice overlap. All of this points us toward deeper fulfillment in this life, and in the life to come.”

The Life and Creative Works of Paulo Coelho

The Life and Creative Works of Paulo Coelho PDF Author: Claude-Helene Mayer
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783319866697
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book assesses the life and success of the writer Paulo Coelho, one of the most fascinating and contemporary writers in the world, through new lenses. It applies a positive psychology perspective and contributes to using innovative theories in psychobiographical studies. This study explores the development of holistic wellness (HWM) and faith development (FDT) throughout the writer's life. It presents radical changes in spirituality, self-direction, love and faith across the life span. Further, it analyses the development of Coelho’s relationship with God and the creation of meaningfulness through his belief and writing. This study contributes to a new era of psychobiographical works within the positive psychology framework.

Character Strengths and Virtues

Character Strengths and Virtues PDF Author: Christopher Peterson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198037333
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 815

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Book Description
"Character" has become a front-and-center topic in contemporary discourse, but this term does not have a fixed meaning. Character may be simply defined by what someone does not do, but a more active and thorough definition is necessary, one that addresses certain vital questions. Is character a singular characteristic of an individual, or is it composed of different aspects? Does character--however we define it--exist in degrees, or is it simply something one happens to have? How can character be developed? Can it be learned? Relatedly, can it be taught, and who might be the most effective teacher? What roles are played by family, schools, the media, religion, and the larger culture? This groundbreaking handbook of character strengths and virtues is the first progress report from a prestigious group of researchers who have undertaken the systematic classification and measurement of widely valued positive traits. They approach good character in terms of separate strengths-authenticity, persistence, kindness, gratitude, hope, humor, and so on-each of which exists in degrees. Character Strengths and Virtues classifies twenty-four specific strengths under six broad virtues that consistently emerge across history and culture: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Each strength is thoroughly examined in its own chapter, with special attention to its meaning, explanation, measurement, causes, correlates, consequences, and development across the life span, as well as to strategies for its deliberate cultivation. This book demands the attention of anyone interested in psychology and what it can teach about the good life.

Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling

Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling PDF Author: Mark R. McMinn
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
ISBN: 1414349238
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
The American Association of Christian Counselors and Tyndale House Publishers are committed to ministering to the spiritual needs of people. This book is part of the professional series that offers counselors the latest techniques, theory, and general information that is vital to their work. While many books have tried to integrate theology and psychology, this book takes another step and explores the importance of the spiritual disciplines in psychotherapy, helping counselors to integrate the biblical principles of forgiveness, redemption, restitution, prayer, and worship into their counseling techniques. Since its first publication in 1996, this book has quickly become a contemporary classic—a go-to handbook for integrating what we know is true from the disciplines of theology and psychology and how that impacts your daily walk with God. This book will help you integrate spiritual disciplines—such as prayer, Scripture reading, confession—into your own life and into counseling others. Mark R. McMinn, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at Wheaton College Graduate School in Wheaton, Illinois, where he directs and teaches in the Doctor of Psychology program. A diplomate in Clinical Psychology of the American Board of Professional Psychology, McMinn has thirteen years of postdoctoral experience in counseling, psychotherapy, and psychological testing. McMinn is the author of Making the Best of Stress: How Life's Hassles Can Form the Fruit of the Spirit; The Jekyll/Hyde Syndrome: Controlling Inner Conflict through Authentic Living; Cognitive Therapy Techniques in Christian Counseling; and Christians in the Crossfire (written with James D. Foster). He and his wife, Lisa, have three daughters.

Toward a Positive Psychology of Islam and Muslims

Toward a Positive Psychology of Islam and Muslims PDF Author: Nausheen Pasha-Zaidi
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030726061
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
This book integrates research in positive psychology, Islamic psychology, and Muslim wellbeing in one volume, providing a view into the international experiential and spiritual lives of a religious group that represents over 24% of the world’s population. It incorporates Western psychological paradigms, such as the theories of Jung, Freud, Maslow, and Seligman with Islamic ways of knowing, while highlighting the struggles and successes of minoritized Muslim groups, including the LGBTQ community, Muslims with autism, Afghan Shiite refugees, and the Uyghur community in China. It fills a unique position at the crossroad of multiple social science disciplines, including the psychology of religion, cultural psychology, and positive psychology. By focusing on the ways in which spirituality, struggle, and social justice can lead to purpose, hope, and a meaningful life, the book contributes to scholarship within the second wave of positive psychology (PP 2.0) that aims to illustrate a balance between positive and negative aspects of human experience. While geared towards students, researchers, and academic scholars of psychology, culture, and religious studies, particularly Muslim studies, this book is also useful for general audiences who are interested in learning about the diversity of Islam and Muslims through a research-based social science approach.