Existential Suffering in Palliative Care: An Existential Positive Psychology Perspective.
Paul T. P. Wong,Timothy Yu +1 more
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TLDR
In this article, existential positive psychology (PP 2.0) represents a promising approach to meet the rising needs in palliative care, which has a twofold emphasis on how to transcend and transform suffering as the foundation for wellbeing and how to cultivate our spiritual and existential capabilities to achieve personal growth and flourishing.Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the inadequacies of the current healthcare system and needs a paradigm change to one that is holistic and community based, illustrated by the healing wheel. The present paper proposes that existential positive psychology (PP 2.0) represents a promising approach to meet the rising needs in palliative care. This framework has a twofold emphasis on (a) how to transcend and transform suffering as the foundation for wellbeing and (b) how to cultivate our spiritual and existential capabilities to achieve personal growth and flourishing. We propose that these objectives can be achieved simultaneously through dialectical palliative counselling, as illustrated by Wong's integrative meaning therapy and the Conceptual Model of CALM Therapy in palliative care. We then outline the treatment objectives and the intervention strategies of IMT in providing palliative counselling for palliative care and hospice patients. Based on our review of recent literature, as well as our own research and practice, we discover that existential suffering in general and at the last stage of life in particular is indeed the foundation for healing and wellbeing as hypothesized by PP 2.0. We can also conclude that best palliative care is holistic-in addition to cultivating the inner spiritual resources of patients, it needs to be supported by the family, staff, and community, as symbolized by the healing wheel.read more
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Book ChapterDOI
Shifting the Paradigm of Positive Psychology: Toward an Existential Positive Psychology of Wellbeing
Journal ArticleDOI
Existential Positive Psychology (EPP): A Positive Tool for Healing Existential Anxieties in South Africa during, and after, the COVID-19 Pandemic
Kathryn Nel,Saraswathie Govender +1 more
TL;DR: This paper argued that EPP can help humanity find the courage to challenge, and heal, its existential anxieties, namely, death, isolation, freedom, and meaningless, in order to find individual and group identities, as well as overall mental wellness (or happiness), specifically in a South African context, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Journal ArticleDOI
Varieties of suffering in the clinical setting: re-envisioning mental health beyond the medical model
Paul T. P. Wong,Donald H. Laird +1 more
TL;DR: In this article , the authors argue for the need to rethink mental health beyond the medical model because much of human suffering cannot be diagnosed by the DSM-5, and introduce integrative meaning therapy as a therapeutic framework which can equip people with the needed skills to achieve healing, wholeness, and total wellbeing.
References
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