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Positive Thinking (positive + thinking)
Selected Abstracts,Right' way to ,do' illness?INTERNAL MEDICINE JOURNAL, Issue 10 2006Thinking critically about positive thinking Abstract Exhortations to ,be positive' accompany many situations in life, either as a general injunction or in difficult situations where people are facing pressure or adversity. It is particularly evident in health care, where positive thinking has become an aspect of the way people are expected to ,do' illness in developed society. Positive thinking is framed both as a moral injunction and as a central belief system. It is thought to help patients cope emotionally with illness and to provide a biological benefit. Yet, the meanings, expectations and outcomes of positive thinking are infrequently questioned and the risks of positive thinking are rarely examined. We outline some of the latter and suggest that health professionals should exercise caution in both ,prescribing' positive thinking and in responding to patients and carers whose belief systems and feelings of obligation rest on it. [source] Diversity of effective treatments of panic attacks: what do they have in common?,DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY, Issue 1 2010Walton T. Roth M.D. Abstract By comparing efficacious psychological therapies of different kinds, inferences about common effective treatment mechanisms can be made. We selected six therapies for review on the basis of the diversity of their theoretical rationales and evidence for superior efficacy: psychoanalytic psychotherapy, hypercapnic breathing training, hypocapnic breathing training, reprocessing with and without eye-movement desensitization, muscle relaxation, and cognitive behavior therapy. The likely common element of all these therapies is that they reduce the immediate expectancy of a panic attack, disrupting the vicious circle of fearing fear. Modifying expectation is usually regarded as a placebo mechanism in psychotherapy, but may be a specific treatment mechanism for panic. The fact that this is seldom the rationale communicated to the patient creates a moral dilemma: Is it ethical for therapists to mislead patients to help them? Pragmatic justification of a successful practice is a way out of this dilemma. Therapies should be evaluated that deal with expectations directly by promoting positive thinking or by fostering non-expectancy. Depression and Anxiety, 2010. Published 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] ,Right' way to ,do' illness?INTERNAL MEDICINE JOURNAL, Issue 10 2006Thinking critically about positive thinking Abstract Exhortations to ,be positive' accompany many situations in life, either as a general injunction or in difficult situations where people are facing pressure or adversity. It is particularly evident in health care, where positive thinking has become an aspect of the way people are expected to ,do' illness in developed society. Positive thinking is framed both as a moral injunction and as a central belief system. It is thought to help patients cope emotionally with illness and to provide a biological benefit. Yet, the meanings, expectations and outcomes of positive thinking are infrequently questioned and the risks of positive thinking are rarely examined. We outline some of the latter and suggest that health professionals should exercise caution in both ,prescribing' positive thinking and in responding to patients and carers whose belief systems and feelings of obligation rest on it. [source] Self-care in adults with asthma: how they copeJOURNAL OF CLINICAL NURSING, Issue 4 2000Satu MÄkinen MScN ,,The purpose of this study was to find out how well adult asthma patients in Finland cope with self-care in three areas of asthma treatment. The areas of physical, psychological and social asthma treatment were examined. Associations between demographic background data and self-care were also studied. ,,Data (n = 130) for the study were collected using a questionnaire specially developed for this study. A deductive perspective was employed in data analysis. ,,Respondents showed fairly good competence in self-care in all three areas of asthma treatment. However, up to 30% of the asthma patients had pets and 16% were smokers. ,,Extra stress was reduced by exercise and positive thinking. Humour was also important in helping most of the respondents cope mentally. ,,Social support played a significant part in fighting the sense of powerlessness which is caused by asthma. ,,According to the results, women coped better than men in the social area of self-care. [source] The tyranny of the positive attitude in America: Observation and speculationJOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 9 2002Barbara S. Held According to both popular and professional indicators, the push for the positive attitude in America is on the rise. After considering the popular culture zeitgeist, I compare and contrast two recent professional psychology movements,those of positive psychology and postmodern therapy,both of which rest on a foundation of optimism and positive thinking despite their opposing views about a proper philosophy of science. I then present cross-cultural empirical research that calls into question the typical (North American) assumption that a positive attitude is necessary for (a sense of) well-being. I also consider findings in health psychology, clinical/counseling psychology, and organizational behavioral science, findings which call into question the assumption that accentuating the positive (and eliminating the negative) is necessarily beneficial in terms of physical and mental health. The clinical/therapeutic implications of this analysis are addressed, as I put forth my conjecture about the existence of what I call the "tyranny of the positive attitude" in the form of a question: If there indeed now exists unprecedented pressure to accentuate the positive, could it then be that the pressure itself to be happy and optimistic contributes to at least some forms of unhappiness? © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 58: 965,991, 2002. [source] | ||||||||||