Application of positive psychology in social work groups

With reference to Professor Martin Seligman, positive psychology is the study of subjective experiences, positive individual traits and programs that assist in improving an individual’s quality of life while decreasing the incidence of psychopathology. This has led to a change from a pathological or deficiency orientation to a personal strength orientation. Positive psychology has enriched traditional approaches such as cognitive behavioural therapy and narrative therapy. Positive traits comprise six virtues. The virtues are derived from religion and philosophies of different cultures, namely, wisdom and knowledge, humanity, justice, temperance, transcendence, and courage. There are a total of 24 character strengths in the six virtues. Within wisdom and knowledge, there are love of learning, perspective, judgement, creativity, and curiosity. In humanity, there are love, kindness, and social intelligence. There are three elements in justice, i.e. teamwork, leadership, and fairness. Humility, prudence, forgiveness, and self-regulation are included in the virtue of temperance, while zest, bravery, honesty, and perseverance are incorporated in the virtue of courage. Lastly, transcendence includes the strengths of appreciation of beauty and excellence, spirituality, gratitude, humor and hope. Positive emotions, positive relationships, positive engagement, positive accomplishment, positive meaning are the key elements leading to a flourishing life.

Research showed that use of character strengths can help promote positive emotions, positive relationships, and positive engagement. In this workshop, participants will be guided to be aware of their signature character strengths, explore other strengths and learn to apply the strengths appropriately and innovatively. Participants will learn activities related to perspective, creativity, love, kindness, social intelligence, teamwork, forgiveness, self-regulation, gratitude, hope, perseverance, etc. Adopting the experiential learning approach, participants can also learn how to lead the clients to attain the state of flow, have a sense of accomplishment, and explore the meaning of life.