Flourishing as a dialectical balance: emerging insights from second-wave positive psychology

Positive psychology, an emergent branch of scholarship concerned with wellbeing and flourishing, initially defined itself by a focus on “positive” emotions and qualities. However, critics soon pointed out that this binary logic—classifying phenomena as either positive or negative, and valorising the former while disparaging the latter—could be problematic. For example, apparently positive qualities can be harmful to wellbeing in certain circumstances, while ostensibly dysphoric emotional states may on occasion promote flourishing. Responding to these criticisms, over recent years a more nuanced “second wave” of positive psychology has been developing, in which wellbeing is recognized as involving a dialectical balance of light and dark aspects of life. This article introduces this emergent second wave, arguing that it is characterized by four dialectical principles. First, the principle of appraisal states that it is difficult to categorically identify phenomena as either positive or negative, since such appraisals are fundamentally contextually dependent. Second, the principle of co-valence holds that many states and qualities at the heart of flourishing, such as love, are actually a complex blend of light and dark elements. Third, the principle of complementarity posits that not only are such phenomena co-valenced, but that their dichotomous elements are in fact co-creating, two intertwined sides of the same coin. Finally, the principle of evolution allows us to understand second-wave positive psychology as itself being an example of a dialectical process. This article is published as part of a collection entitled “On balance: lifestyle, mental health and wellbeing”.

Challenges Facing Long Term Foster Carers: Exploration of the Nature of Psychoanalytic Parent/Carer Support

This research study investigates the role and impact of psychoanalytically-informed short-term parent work with long-term foster carers of looked-after children, in support of the foster placement. The study reflects on the data gathered from four child assessments and five foster families seen by a psychoanalytic child psychotherapist for four sessions each. It draws on psychoanalytic ideas from a range of theoretical traditions, exploring such concepts as trauma, defences, compulsion to repeat, psychological-mindedness, ‘container/contained’ (Bion) and ‘holding environment’ (Winnicott). One distinctive contribution of this research is what it adds to our already existing understanding of the defences (or responses) aroused in the carer when faced with the intense and distressing affect associated with the child’s early trauma; and the impact of this legacy of trauma on the child, on the carer and on the wider Social Services system. Applying Grounded Theory and psychoanalytically-informed clinical case study methodology to the research material, the study breaks down the data analysis into seven stages of coding, from the initial reading of the data to the eventual development of two key hypotheses. One of the predominant themes that emerged from the analysis was the carer’s capacity to remain focused on the child’s emotional needs and how this in turn was linked to the direction of the therapist’s focus. The successive analyses of the data culminated in the hypothesis that the more the therapist focused on the carer and the carer’s emotional states in the course of the parent work, the more the carer was enabled to focus on the child’s emotional needs. As the system of categories emerged according to the themes exemplified in the sessions, a particular focus of analysis became the concept of psychologicalmindedness, considered under several sub-categories: displaying insightful comments; awareness of the child’s bodily states; awareness of the child’s affect; the carer’s ability to recognize the child’s defences; and the carer’s ability to make links between the child’s current difficulties and the child’s past experiences. Through this analysis it became apparent that degree of psychological-mindedness was closely linked to the individual carer’s capacity to metabolize the child’s distressed and distressing communication. This in turn led to a deeper exploration of the situations that were particularly challenging for the carers: i.e., instances when the child was compelled to repeat past traumatic emotional states and as a result was communicating intense distress. This exploration eventually generated the second hypothesis: that in reaction to the child’s distress, the response of each carer could be plotted somewhere along a spectrum, from either distancing themselves from the child’s emotional state to seeking excessive closeness with the child (merging). The next stage of the analysis developed four new categories of carer responses to the distressed child: identification and distancing from the child; identification and merging with the child; the category that describes the carer’s psychologicalmindedness as being ‘impaired’; and ‘good enough’ caring. This then led to an exploration of the carer’s own defences at these most challenging times. This research demonstrates clearly that even within the short space of four sessions of weekly psychoanalytic parent work, it is possible to achieve significant improvement in a carer’s capacity to bear the child’s compulsion to repeat early traumas, and to help the carers become more emotionally available to provide the child with effective psychological parenting at such difficult and challenging times. Key words: looked-after children; long-term foster carers; psychoanalytic short-term parent work; trauma; compulsion to repeat; psychological-mindedness; empathy; defences; psychoanalytically-informed clinical case study research methodology; Grounded Theory research methodology.

Towards a positive cross-cultural lexicography: Enriching our emotional landscape through 216 ‘untranslatable’ words pertaining to well-being

Although much attention has been paid to culture-specific psychopathologies, there have been no comparable attempts to chart positive mental states that may be particular to certain cultures. This paper outlines the beginnings of a positive cross-cultural lexicography of ‘untranslatable’ words pertaining to wellbeing, culled from across the world’s languages. A quasi-systematic search uncovered 216 such terms. Using grounded theory, these words were organised into three categories: feelings (comprising positive and complex feelings); relationships (comprising intimacy and pro-sociality); and character (comprising personal resources and spirituality). The paper has two main aims. First, it aims to provide a window onto cultural differences in constructions of wellbeing, thereby enriching our understanding of wellbeing. Second, a more ambitious aim is that this lexicon may help expand the emotional vocabulary of English speakers (and indeed speakers of all languages), and consequently enrich their experiences of wellbeing. The paper concludes by setting out a research agenda to pursue these aims further.