Unit 1- Well-being and mental health

		Unit 1-Well-being and mental health Unit 2- Existential and Human Issues Unit 3- Conflict and reconciliation Unit 4- Overview of different methods of psychotherapy and personal change Unit 5- Ethics and culture in psychotherapy and counselling Unit 6- Development through the life cycle Back to introduction to tutorial pages

Course material overview

There are ten weeks, covering different viewpoints on well-being and relationship to health. We think of them as different places on "Well-being Island". They are:

• Week 1- Introduction and orientation: Well-Being Island Information Office

• Week 2- The philosopher's view-point: Philosopher's Cave

• Week 3- The health economist's view-point. Utilities, social capital, and QuALYs (Quality Adjusted Life Years): Health Economist's Market Place

• Week 4- The psychologist's view-point: Psychologist's Town

• Week 5- The doctor's view-point. Understanding depression and disease: Doctor's Amphitheatre

• Week 6- The spiritual view-point. Spiritual welfare and well-being: Spiritual Mountain

• Week 7- The psychotherapist's view-point. Emotional well-being, and healthy relationships: Psychotherapist's Grove

• Week 8- Values and the narrated self. Changing expectations of health and well-being: Values Spring

• Week 9- Psychotherapy as a means of increasing health and well-being. Emotional and relationship factors determining health: Relationships Lake

• Week 10- A well lived life: Well-Being Harbour

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Aims

This course will provide an introduction to issues of well being and health that are the foundation of an understanding of the role of psychotherapy within an overall strategy of improvement of quality of living.

A variety of perspectives and a range of current research data will be considered and students will be familiarised with different levels of intervention in mental health issues.

Students will be expected to develop an integrated perspective on well being and a sense of how to evaluate individual problems and the best method of intervention in relation to them.

Resources

You will not be required to buy any books, but you may want to look at the main text for the unit which is:

Diener, E. & Suh, E.M. (2000) Culture and Subjective Well-being Cambridge , MA : MIT Press

You may also want to look at the following:

Baumeister, R. F. (1991) Meanings of Life, London: Guildford Press.

Linley, P. A. & Joseph, S. (eds) (2004) Positive Psychology in Practice. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons

Kahneman, D., Diener, E. & Schwarz, N. (eds). (1999) Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology. New York : Russell Sage.

Orville, G. B., Carol, D. R., & Ronald, C. K. (2004) How Healthy Are We?: A National Study of Well-Being at Midlife. Chicago , Ill. : University of Chicago Press.

Seligman, M. (2002) Authentic Happiness. Glencoe , Ill. : Free Press.