Ernst Bohlmeijer

Department of Psychology, Health & Technology

Flourishing: So What?

Positive psychology and mental health

(care)

ECPP 2014

Questions

1. How many people are able to beflourishing during 9 months?

2. What is the impact of well-beingon psychopathology over time?

3. How should our knowledge aboutwell-being inform mental health care?

4. Can we improve well-being andflourishing in a substantialway, yet?

5. Can we enhance flourishing witha comprehensive positivepsychological intervention?

University of Twente

Personal background

• Mental health care

• Public mental health

• Depression, well-being

• Life-story, reminiscence, acceptance-and commitment

therapy, mindfulness,

positive psychology.

• (E-health)Interventiondevelopment and

evaluation.

Collaboration

Mission statement

FLOURISH

51

Huppert & So (2013)

Huppert & So (2013)

A different well-being

approach based on work by

Ed Diener, Carof Ryff and

Corey Keyes.

Emotional well-being

Psychological well-being

Social well-being

Flourishing

At least 1 item emotional

well-being and at least 6

items psychological well-

being and/or social well-

being often or very often

in the past month.

Longitudinal population study

• MHC-SF & BSI (Brief SymptomInventory)

• LISS panel (CentERdata; Tilburg)

Longitudinal Internet Studies in the Socialsciences

• Representative sample of Dutch adult population

• N = 1,662 (18 to 87 years)

• Four measurements in 9 months

Longitudinal population study

Further evidence for the

two-continua model.

The proposition that well-

being and psychopathology

are two distinct but

related continua

Evidence from research

Flourishing

At any moment about 33% of

the adults were

flourishing.

At any moment about 33% of

the adults were

flourishing.

Flourishing

Does it matter to improve

from moderate mental health

to flourishing three and

six months later?

Mental health promotion

hypothesis (Keyes, 2012)

Impact of mental health on psychopathology (Lamers e.a., in review)

Overall model

• Initial levels of well-beingand psychopathology andchanges of well-beingaccounted for 66% of the variance in psychopathology

• Change in well-beingaccounted for 18% of the variance in psychopathology.

• Change in psychopathologyaccounted for 27% of the variance in well-being.

• Reciprocal impact of well-being and psychopathology.

Interim - conclusions

• About one third of the Dutch population is flourishing at anyone moment.

• About one eigthth of the population is able to stayflourishing during 9 months.

• Well-being and psychopathologyhave a reciprocal impact; changes in well-being explain 18% of variance of psychopathology.

• Promotion from moderate mentalhealth to flourishing appears tohave an impact on the levels of psychopathology 3 and 6 monthslater.

Balanced mental healthcare

Work in progress

Can we improve psychological

well-being?

The effects of interventions on

psychological well-being: a

meta-analysis of randomized

controlled trials.

Outcome measures

Psychological well-being scale

MHC-SF (subscale psychological

well-being)

Preliminary Result

N = 1850

Cohen’s d = 0.40

Results on flourishing

Inclusion criteria

A psychological intervention

(Sin & Lyobomirsky, 2009,

primarily aimed at raising

positive feelings, cognitions

and behavior and should have

been explicitly developed in

line with the theoretical

tradition of positive

psychology.

Conclusions

• Small but significant

effects

• Quality of studies as a

major challenge

• Lack of comprehensive

interventions (exception

of well-being therapy)

This is your life

Design

• Randomized controlled trial

• This is your life (book) as

guided self-help versus

waiting-list.

• Intervention: 12 weeks to

complete the 8 lessons.

• Weekly e-mail

• Feedback to supervised

students master positive

psychology

Design

Inclusion

• Adults with moderate mental

health.

Exclusion

• Flourishing

• Other treatment

• Moderate to high levels of

distress (HADS)

Design

Open recruitment: national

newspapers.

Measurements: Pre (T0), Post

(T1), 3 months FU (T2), 9

months FU (T3; intervention

group only).

Outcome measures: MHC-SF, HADS,

process measures.

Preliminary Results

Preliminary Results on flourishing

Conclusions & implications

• Further strong evidence that well-being and psychopathology are distinct(though related) components of mentalhealth.

• Underscores a reformulation of mentalhealth care (positive psychiatry) in which well-being promotion is a necessary complementary approach toillness treatments.

• Systematic attention to well-being(e.g. values, stengths, positiveexperiences) in all phases of mentalhealth care.

• There are now a few comprehensivepositive psychology interventionsavailable with promising effects but a large research agenda awaits us.