Greetings,
We wanted to make people aware of an initiative of the Good Life Research Network, a collaboration between MSTAR and the Frost Center, as well as the Division 17 section on Positive Psychology. Positively Psyched is a speaker series started by Joel Wong and hosted by Donnie Davis in the upcoming year.
Save the Dates
Here are the dates to save. This is free. You may join as many of the calls as you like. We are also looking for labs or other groups who would like to be listed in the network this year. Filling out this form will get you on the email list when we send out the zoom link for the calls.
August 1, 2026
December 5, 2026
February 6, 2026
May 1, 2026
2025 to 2026 Invited Talks
Description: Because religious change has accelerated, it is increasingly important that clinicians have a comfort addressing spiritual, existential, religious, and theological (SERT) themes as they arise within psychotherapy. A broader framing is that clinicians can be ready to engage life worth living themes related to mattering—what matters to clients and how clients matter to others in their lives. It can be challenging to know how to come alongside clients who are repairing their idea of what it means to live a good life, especially if they are reworking their existential understanding of their lives. We will have discussants who can address how leaving religion may also intersect with other cultural identities and developmental processes.
Awards are a good way to spotlight someone’s good work!
Awards for the section are due 5/15
Office Hours to Learn about the Section
For new members, Donnie, Anica, and Joel will be sharing a few things about goals for next year, as well as ways to get involved.
Involved Groups (labs, centers, clinical training, pedogogy, etc.)
Let us know if you want to be included in our list of involved teams or groups.
Rationale: The Challenge
One of the things that is most important to supporting creative work, such as writing and research, is the opportunity to share ideas during formative stages. We need high quality feedback to do our best work.
Nothing can replace the benefits of small, in person gatherings. The problem is that meetings with 15 to 20 people from around the country and world are expensive.
Nothing can beat the convenience and cost of working at home in your pajamas, as all workers everywhere learned in 2020, and have never forgotten. But we need a little more to form relationships, and calls make it hard for groups to develop the burstiness of ideas that can happen in a good team.
Experimenting with Ways of Making the Early Career Phase Easier to Navigate
Maybe it is possible to combine the best of both. This kind of network could provide a relational space that would make it easier for early career scholars (or people wanting to explore new areas of work) to develop professional friendships that can energize their work.
We are experimenting cadence where we take advantage of in-person meetings such as national conferences or the MSTAR meeting each May for forming stronger professional friendships. Then, we want to get interested labs, centers, and other groups (focus on things like clinical training, peer-consultation, pedagogy) on a similar cadence.
At these quarterly meetings, people can send in 10-15 minute talks for feedback and reaction from the broader network. We have streamlined the length of each call to 30 minutes, with 15 minute for an invited talk, and 15 minutes for discussants to engage the talk, as well as any other presentations sent in for consideration that period.
After the call, we expect people will spend a little time with a group of their choosing. These could be labs focused on specific grants or papers, combinations of labs working on a similar idea (e.g., advancing research on hope), clinical training groups, or program-specific seminars (e.g., Counseling Psychology, School Psychology, Counselor Education and Practice).
We used this cadence to support some of the MSTAR fellows (e.g., life worth living, New Zealand Grant, Measurement Development) from last year. Email Donnie if you want additional support connecting.
Although Donnie is a Counseling Psychologist, this group is for anyone interested in applied positive psychology. We already have people from social psychology, clinical psychology, and counselor education and practice. Within APA, we have leaders from division 17, 29, 35, 36, 44, 45, and 51 (and would be interested in others). We are interested in helping people find highly generative scholars and clinicians across subfields of psychology and counseling. A spirit of generosity, hospitality, and encouragement are key to doing high quality interdisciplinary work of any kind.
2024 to 2025 Invited Talks
APA is working on revising its ethics code. This first talk includes two people aware of that process. This is a good subcultural “opportunity” to think about how training could be more strength-focused. There are many interesting trends in how the field is thinking about developing multicultural skills, and we see an opportunity for greater integration of MCO into ethics training through one’s career.
Description: What does it look like for clinicians to cultivate sustainable habits that will prevent burnout and promote professional flourishing throughout their careers? Sara Showalter Van Tongeren and Kirk Brink will be co-presenting a Therapeutic Group Consultation model that encourages lateral and hierarchical feedback, clinical consultation, and intergroup reflection. This approach seeks to bridge the gap between clinical supervision and interpersonal/group dynamics. The Therapeutic Group Consultation Model was developed by Kirk Brink and Richard Raubolt from years of clinical practice and implementation of this model. This presentation will introduce the main framework of this novel, yet needed, approach. Additionally, members of one of their groups will be in attendance to field questions and share the ways that this group process has influenced their approach to practice and their personal growth.
Description
Drs. Helen Neville and Bryana French described their recent work on radical hope, a critical dimension of the psychology of radical healing framework. They discussed their emerging conceptualization and measurement of radical hope. This talk illustrated a Counseling Psychology approach to positive psychology that integrates multicultural and critical psychology critiques into a research program on hope. They described some of the limitations of prior definitions and measures of hope, as well as their approach to clarifying a construct that aligns with broader values of counseling psychology related to healing, justice, and liberation.
Description: Positive psychology continues to grow as it helps add nuance and texture beyond mental illness within psychology. However, it has also faced numerous critiques and growth since its mainstream introduction over 20 years ago. Even with the third wave of positive psychology gaining traction, there still remains growth edges to lean into. In this brief presentation, we will share some of our critiques of positive psychology in hopes of inspiring continued formation and development of the field and its professionals.