Mar 28, 2024  
Academic Catalog 2018-2019 
    
Academic Catalog 2018-2019 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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PSY-752 Positive Psychology

2 or 4 semester credits


Positive psychology is an orientation to the field of psychology that goes beyond the emphasis on illness and pathology and examines the significance of character strengths, virtues and values, including happiness, well-being, optimism, and fulfillment. This discipline has been applied to a variety of settings including individuals, groups, and organizations. Positive psychology can be described as an effort to use the tools of rigorous science to help us understand the sources and nature of positive human strengths, characteristics, resources, and aspirations. The focus of this field is to promote the development of those positive features of human psychology, by guiding both individuals and the institutions within which they function. This course will critically examine the history, assumptions, principles and findings of the positive psychology movement, the role of values in the theory and practice of psychology, techniques in the practice of positive psychological assessment and to treatment, and the relationship between positive psychology to religion, spirituality, ethnicity and non-western traditions and philosophies.
Delivery Method: Distance/Electronically Mediated
Grading Default: Letter
Note: Elective
Learning Outcome(s):  

  1. Be familiar with the historical, philosophical and metapsychological foundations of the positive psychology movement.
  2. Be familiar with the basic theories and findings of positive psychology.
  3. Understand the place of values and cultural differences in the theory and practice of psychology.
  4. Be familiar with techniques and controversies in the practice of positive psychological assessment and to treatment.
  5. Understand the role of positive psychological assessment in creating psychological formulations and writing psychological reports.
  6. Be familiar with basic critiques of the positive psychological movement.
  7. Understand positive psychology in relation to non-western traditions and philosophies.

 



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