Murat Yıldırım

Gökmen Arslan

Students spend significantly more time in school compared to any other formal institution during their lives; therefore, mental health in schools has attracted a lot of attention in recent years. According to Seligman et al. (2009), positive psychology in school is a response to the gap between what people want for their children and what schools teach. That is, most parents want their children to be happy, healthy, and confident, but schools only focus on achievement, discipline, and academic skills. These are of course important, but so are positive mental health outcomes. To fix this gap, schools must teach achievement and accomplishment along with positive psychology-informed mental health skills. In other words, positive education aims to bring positive psychology’s goals of well-being and mental health support for everyone into the school setting. Psychological interventions have been around in schools since at least the 1930s. Therefore, it makes sense to supplement the already-existing traditional psychology in schools with positive psychology. In the field of psychology, positive psychology interventions are defined as those aimed at raising positive feelings, positive thoughts, and positive behaviour and increasing well-being. Positive Psychology Interventions in schools have been shown to improve mental health and well-being outcomes for students. Recent research has confirmed the same results, as offering emotional support early in a school year can lead to improved instructional quality later in that school year. In other words, positive school psychology interventions offer a focus on mental health in order to set the stage and give students the opportunity for academic achievement. Since the beginning of the positive psychology movement, the application of its assumptions in schools has been one of the movement’s main pillars. The objective of the book is to help counsellors, teachers, and school leaders engage in a positive psychology research-based practice in schools.

Evidence-Based Strategies for Youth Well-Being

Handbook of Positive School Psychology

Claude-Hélène Mayer

Paul T. P. Wong

In the era of COVID-19, many people have suffered high levels of stress and mental health problems. To cope with the widespread of suffering (physical, psychological, social, and economical) the positive psychology of personal happiness is no longer the sole approach to examine personal wellbeing. Other approaches such as Viktor Frankl’s theory of self-transcendence provide a promising framework for research and intervention on how to achieve resilience, wellbeing, and happiness through overcoming suffering and self-transcendence. The existential positive psychology of suffering complements the positive psychology of happiness, which is championed by Martin Seligman, as two equal halves of the circle of wellbeing and optimal mental health. This Research Topic aims to examine the different approaches to Positive Psychology and their influence on individual wellbeing during the COVID-19 era. One of the exciting development in the positive psychology of wellbeing is the mounting research on the adaptive benefits of negative emotions, such as shame, guilt, and anger, as well as the dialectical process of balancing negative and positive emotions. As an example, based on all the empirical research and Frankl’s self-transcendence model, Wong has developed the existential positive psychology of suffering (PP2.0) as the foundation for flourishing. Here are a few main tenets of PP2.0: (1) Life is suffering and a constant struggle throughout every stage of development, (2) The search for self-transcendence is a primary motive guided by the meaning mindset and mindful mindset. (3) Wellbeing cannot be sustainable without overcoming and transforming suffering. In this Research Topic we welcome diverse approaches discussing the following points: • The dialectic process of overcoming the challenges of every stage of development as necessary for personal growth and self-transcendence; • The role of self-transcendence in resilience, virtue, meaning, and happiness; • The upside of negative emotions; • The new science of resilience based on cultivating the resilient mindset and character; • How to make the best use of suffering to achieve out potentials & mental health.

Gökmen Arslan

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