Springer Positive Psychology in the Clinical Domains: Research and Practice

This book builds the bridge between the fields of clinical and positive psychology research and practice. It presents a variety of interventions aimed at promoting positivity in clinical populations. Although clinical psychology has addressed issues such as happiness, resilience and optimal functioning, the field has stuck to the medical model and paid more attention to distress and negativity in human existence. Positive psychology, on the other hand, has been considered a “psychology for all” and has devoted attention and resources to the investigation of positivity in general populations, Only recently, the relationships between positivity, distress and psychopathology have been investigated. This book integrates research and practice from both fields. Its first part provides a theoretical framework for describing concepts such as hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing, resilience, character’s strengths, positive health and positive functioning, with a special reference to their clinical implications and their psychosomatic underpinnings. The second part provides a review of positive interventions in clinical practice and psychotherapeutic settings. These interventions are derived from positive psychology as well as from longstanding traditions in clinical psychology and psychiatry, and from eastern clinical and philosophical approaches.   Review “Distilling her nearly two decades long clinical expertise and scholarship in this volume, Ruini starts by making a persuasive case for the application of positive psychology in clinical domains. … Chiara Ruini’s Positive Psychology in the Clinical Domains is an important and timely contribution to an emerging field of positive clinical psychology―a label necessary to build scholarship and practice guidelines until traditional clinical psychology attends to positives as seriously as it does to symptoms.” (Tayyab Rashid, PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 62 (51), December, 2017) “This book links clinical and positive psychology, combining the medical model with positivity, and describes theoretical issues along with clinical applications. … The intended audience is clinical psychologists, positive psychologists and researchers, and mental health practitioners. … This book is well written and explores both theory and practice surrounding positive psychology. It can be used in a variety of settings with different patient populations, and will be of great help to both novice and seasoned clinicians.” (Gary B. Kaniuk, Doody's Book Reviews, September, 2017) From the Back Cover This book builds the bridge between the fields of clinical and positive psychology research and practice. It presents clinical interventions aimed at promoting positivity. Although clinical psychology has addressed issues such as happiness, resilience and optimal functioning, the field has stuck to the medical model and paid more attention to distress and negativity in human existence. Positive psychology, on the other hand, has devoted attention and resources to the investigation of positivity, without fully considering the complexities of human experience and the relationships with distress and psychopathology. This book integrates research and practice from both fields. Its first part provides a theoretical framework for describing concepts such as hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, resilience, character’s strengths, positive health and positive functioning, with a special reference to their clinical implications. The second part provides a review of positive interventions in clinical practice and psychotherapeutic settings. These interventions are derived from positive psychology as well as from longstanding traditions in clinical psychology and psychiatry, and from eastern clinical and philosophical approaches.   About the Author Chiara Ruini, PhD. is Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Bologna, Department of Psychology. Since 2006 she has