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It’s hard enough to summarise an individual’s diverse experiences of wellbeing coherently, let alone summarise a nation. It’s a whole lot harder to offer comprehensive coverage of objective and subjective wellbeing worldwide, and harder still to combine this with historical depth and detailed cultural analysis. This collection therefore wins the prize for being the most ambitious collection on wellbeing to date.

In this study, we examined loneliness and hope components as predictors of unhappy conditions (viz., anxious symptoms, depressive symptoms, & suicidal ideation) in young adults. The sample was comprised of 489 Hungarian college students. Results of conducting hierarchical regression analyses indicated that loneliness and hope pathways (but not hope agency) were important unique predictors of anxious symptoms, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation. Moreover, in part, consistent with the notion that hope might buffer the negative effects of loneliness on unhappy conditions, evidence for a significant Loneliness × Hope Pathways interaction effect in predicting each of the three indices of unhappy conditions was found. In contrast, the Loneliness × Hope Agency interaction effect was not found to be significant. Some implications of the present findings for the study and treatment of unhappy conditions in adults are discussed

This chapter discusses the importance that stories have in our lives and how the creation of coherent personal narratives is important for well-being and a relevant topic for positive psychology. There is solid research evidence about the benefits of expressive writing on mental health, particularly for people who have experienced trauma, and analyses of people´s choice of words in their writing can be useful in predicting depression and suicidal risk. Studies also show how writing can help us deal with adversity in the present and dream of better futures. Expressive writing can have beneficial effects on physical health, as it has an impact on immune function and cardiovascular health; writing is also associated with higher subjective well-being in patients with a variety of chronic diseases. Expressive writing has also been found to improve interpersonal relationships in schools and in work settings, and it can be helpful for couples who are struggling with their relationship and for individuals who have gone through a break-up. In the final section, the chapter presents a list of positive psychology interventions that are use writing to increase well-being.

La psicología positiva estudia el funcionamiento óptimo de las personas, utiliza el método científico para investigar las experiencias, rasgos e instituciones positivas. Las terapias "constructivas", que incluyen la terapia centrada en soluciones, la narrativa y la colaborativa, se centran en construir sobre las excepciones a los problemas, indagan sobre las fortalezas y recursos de los clientes y parten de la base de que las personas quieren tener buenas relaciones y vidas plenas. Este artículo plantea por qué y cómo, a pesar de provenir de tradiciones intelectuales diferentes, la psicología positiva y las terapias constructivas pueden integrarse y enriquecerse mutuamente en la práctica terapéutica.

In assembling this special issue, we decided to plunge into the rabbit hole. Having put the words teaching and postmodern together in our call for articles, we entered a domain of shifting meanings, a place of ongoing deconstruction and reconstruction. That defiant refusal of firm categorization and final definitions goes with the territory we opted to explore. However, as editors of this special issue, we found it necessary to temporarily “fix” the terms so that we could communicate to prospective readers the approximate outer boundaries of the pieces we were soliciting. So before we introduce you to this collection of bold and inventive essays, we would like to take a moment to reflect on these key terms and our intentions in using them. In seeking to explore the teaching of postmodern family therapy, we were deliberate in excluding supervision. We realize that the line between teaching and supervision is not always a sharp one; on the other hand, there is a fair body of accumulated literature on postmodern supervision and very little devoted to teaching and training per se. We distinguish “teaching” from “training” mostly in terms of the divide between university-based programs (teaching), where the learning happens as part of ongoing coursework, and the private domain (training), where learning happens in the context of a workshop or some form of ongoing externship. The articles submitted for this special issue cover both domains. The word postmodern rolls off the tongue easily and is widely disseminated these days; because of its wide currency and varied usage, however, the word is not very precise. We chose it to represent a wide swath of contemporary therapeutic practice mostly linked by a critique of approaches that lead to the adoption of an expert stance, approaches that champion themselves by appealing to purportedly universal human change processes, personality dimensions, and the like. We find useful Anderson’s (2003) description of the postmodern critique as a

Aaron Jarden interviews 13 outstanding researchers and practitioners of Positive Psychology and invites us to listen in as these friendly and stimulating discussions among colleagues take place. We get the opportunity to know these “insiders” of positive psychology a little better as they share their views on what is exciting in the field, whose work they admire, their favorite books, criticisms about positive psychology, what they have learned in their careers and the advice they would give to young colleagues.