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This final chapter first summarizes the existing published measures of efficacy, hope, optimism, and resiliency and then presents the recently developed 24-item psychological capital questionnaire (PCQ). This is followed by a recap of the research evidence to date on the positive relationship between the PsyCap measure and work-related outcomes. The major portion of the chapter is devoted to the developmental guidelines for PsyCap, and the recent psychological capital intervention (PCI) model is presented. Detailed attention is given to assessing the return on PsyCap investment by using utility analysis on a variety of examples and specifically a PsyCap training intervention study that yielded a 270 percent return. The concluding sections recognize potential limitations and pitfalls and future implications and directions for research and practice.

The perceived need to prevent and rehabilitate psychological injuries has encouraged the development of various psychological and pharmacological interventions in the last two decades. This chapter provides an overview and analysis of these interventions. Topics covered include critical incident debriefing, treating acute stress disorder, psychological treatment of PTSD, pharmacological treatment of PTSD, special issues in psychological treatment of PTSD, and ethnicity and treatment outcome.

Psychological interventions are now embedded within and tailored to the needs of a person with dementia. A person living with a progressive cognitive disability is struggling to learn, recall, reason, and communicate, yet remains a person nevertheless. No longer does anyone seriously argue that the erosion of cognitive function leaves a person ‘nonhuman’, to be regarded as a physical entity devoid of self and feeling. Instead we embrace a person with a psychology that is dimmed by dementia but not destroyed; a person with a unique life history that exerts influence over how they live in a world that is rendered more complex, mysterious and, if history is our guide, increasingly unsupportive. This chapter discusses the psychology of dementia, contemporary psychological interventions, and behaviours that challenge carers.

It must be taken into consideration that people diagnosed with cancer encounter not just physical damage but psychological problems as a result of the disease being terminal (at least, for some cases). That is why poignant back-up should be given to help the individuals concerned to cope with their illness. Aside from family members, friends, colleagues, and other significant people, there are institutions that provide interventions such as psychotherapy, which mainly comes in the form of group therapy with groups of patients with the same ailment. In this chapter compassionate and communicative counseling clusters for women with breast cancer are examined as a way to facilitate affective adaptation. Steps involved in the study consist of identifying the elements of psychiatric treatments and empirical evidences about the relationship of these components with psychological adjustment and mortality; reviewing literature regarding the effectiveness of therapeutic treatments and their interplay with well-being; and recognizing the type of support from others and the level of expression of one's self necessary to lengthen the survival period of patients.

Whether there are intrinsic differences between different means to intervene into brains and minds is a key question of neuroethics, which any future legal regulation of mind-interventions has to face. This chapter affirms such differences by a twofold argument:. First, it present differences between direct (biological, physiological) and indirect (psychological) interventions that are not based on crude mind–brain dualisms or dubious properties such as naturalness of interventions. Second, it shows why these differences (should) matter for the law. In a nutshell, this chapter suggests that indirect interventions should be understood as stimuli that persons perceive through their external senses whereas direct interventions reach brains and minds on different, nonperceptual routes. Interventions primarily differ in virtue of their causal pathways. Because of them, persons have different kinds and amounts of control over interventions; direct interventions regularly bypass resistance and control of recipients. Direct interventions also differ from indirect ones because they misappropriate mechanisms of the brain. These differences bear normative relevance in light of the right to mental self-determination, which should be the guiding normative principle with respect to mind-interventions. As a consequence, the law should adopt by and large a normative—not ontological—dualism between interventions into other minds: nonconsensual direct interventions into other minds should be prohibited by law, with few exceptions. By contrast, indirect interventions should be prima facie permissible, primarily those that qualify as exercises of free speech. The chapter also addresses a range of recent objections, especially by Levy (in the previous chapter).

Mental health disparities exist for ethnic minority populations due to inaccessible and ineffective interventions for these clients. Research findings indicate that ethnic minority clients were often assigned therapists or administered psychological interventions that were incompatible with their cultural backgrounds or life circumstances. Decades of research have identified cultural factors, such as racial/ethnic match, face concern, and social validity, as important contributors to mental health outcomes for ethnic minority populations. This chapter summarizes a research program dedicated to examining the disparities in psychological interventions and mental health outcomes for ethnic minority groups. This work also identified critical cultural factors related to treatment processes and outcomes for these groups. The chapter reviews the current efforts to translate this research program into culturally adapted and community-centered interventions as a way of reducing mental health disparities. Research challenges and future directions in the field of culture and psychological interventions are discussed.

The expressive self of educational psychology is considered in greater detail in this chapter through a historical and critical examination of self-esteem. This chapter focuses on self-esteem research and measurement and the psychological interventions of educational psychologists. Relevant historical consideration suggests that self-esteem as an educational aim has a fairly recent history marked by a gradual erosion of social, political, and moral considerations in those educational theories and programs of inquiry that support it. Theoretical concerns associated with this erosion center around the social, political, and moral consequences of elevating self-esteem over engagement with—and understanding of—the wide array of disciplinary, interpersonal, and sociocultural perspectives essential for productive citizenship and personal development.

This chapter examines the multiplicity of definitions and conceptions of self-regulation that typify contemporary research on self-regulation in psychology and educational psychology. This examination is followed by critical analyses of theory and research in educational psychology that reveal not only conceptual confusions but also misunderstandings of conceptual versus empirical issues, individualistic biases to the detriment of an adequate consideration of social and cultural contexts, and a tendency to reify psychological states and processes as ontologically foundational to self-regulation. The chapter concludes with a consideration of educational research and psychological intervention in the area of students’ self-regulated learning in terms of the scientific and professional interests of psychologists and the disguised manipulation of student self-surveillance in the service of the institutional mandates of schools.

Psychotherapy is an integrative and integrated part of modern patient/relation-centered care in the advanced and terminal phases of physical illness. Psychiatric disorders (e.g. depressive spectrum, stress-related, and anxiety disorders), other clinically significant psychosocial conditions (e.g. demoralization, existential pain) and interpersonal, psychological, and spiritual needs have to be addressed by psychological intervention. Supportive-Expressive Group Psychotherapy (SEGT), Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy (MCT), Managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully Therapy (CALM), cognitive-existential therapy, dignity therapy (DT) and other psychotherapeutic interventions have been developed over the last 40 years. These treatments have proved to be effective in increasing the patients’ sense of dignity, purpose, and meaning, and to reduce demoralization, anxiety, and existential distress at the end of life. Also Family Focused Grief Therapy (FFGT) and grief therapy have shown to be effective in overcoming anxiety, depression, and complicated grief symptoms both before and after loss. Psychotherapy should thus be considered a mandatory ingredient of palliative care.

This chapter considers some of the main psychological factors theorised to cause and maintain homelessness, with an eye towards developing an integrative theory of homelessness and rough sleeping. It first describes what a good theory or model may do in terms of identifying the psychological factors and concomitant interventions that may be useful in helping people to break out of behavioural patterns that maintain a cycle of rough sleeping and homelessness. It then examines factors that affect the likelihood of people becoming and staying homeless on a number of levels by making use of a framework increasing in ‘reductionism’. It also discusses a psychological approach to homelessness, the psychology of environment–individual interaction, and the detrimental effects of attachment and interpersonal issues, cognitive functioning, and negative beliefs on homelessness. Finally, it introduces a model of repeat homelessness that takes into account the factors mentioned above, along with psychological interventions.

Social responses to juvenile delinquency depend on four variables: the state and jurisdiction in which the offense was committed; the types of programs that are available; the laws affecting juvenile offenders; and the decisions made at intake by the court workers and family court judges. This chapter provides an overview of the judicial/legal responses to juvenile delinquency. It discusses the basic process of the juvenile justice system and the psychological interventions that have been developed to modify delinquent behavior in adolescents. The purpose of the juvenile court is rehabilitation, not punishment. Even though many treatment protocols were designed for modifying the behavior of delinquents, only a few of them were highly effective.

A large number of gene–environment interaction studies suggest that some people are more vulnerable to adverse experiences than others due to their genetic make-up. Much less effort has been directed toward illuminating genetic factors associated with variability in response to exclusively positive influences. The recently proposed concept of vantage sensitivity, derived from the empirically well-supported and evolutionary-inspired theory of differential susceptibility, provides a theoretical framework for the expectation of variability in response to positive experiences as a function of genetic factors. After introducing the basic properties of vantage sensitivity and the corresponding terminology, selected empirical evidence for vantage sensitivity featuring different genetic factors as moderators of a wide range of positive experiences ranging from parental sensitivity to psychological intervention is presented. Finally, important conceptual differences between vantage sensitivity and theoretically related concepts of Resilience and differential susceptibility are highlighted, before considering practical implications.

Research supports the utilization of positive psychological constructs, theories, and interventions for enhanced understanding and improvement of mental health. When applied to mental health enhancement, the foundation of a positive psychological perspective is one of balance between working to repair or manage identified problems while also attending to, enhancing, and utilizing areas of strength in the process. A number of connections between mental health and quality relationships have also been noted within the literature on positive psychology. The correlations among positive psychology theories (such as strengths theory and the broaden and build theory of positive emotions), mental health enhancement (via incorporation of such therapies as well-being therapy and positive psychotherapy), and relationships and love are discussed throughout this chapter.

This chapter discusses the intersection between infectious disease and critical care and how it has impacted the delivery of critical care medicine as well as the ability to provide rehabilitation and psychological intervention. It also considers the psychological implications for critical care staff, relationships at work and team dynamics, and the requirements for staff support. Specific issues encountered during worldwide pandemics are also reviewed, along with implications for future practice. The family of coronavirus illnesses are highlighted, including Middle East respiratory syndrome, severe acute respiratory syndrome, and coronavirus, which causes coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Similarities and differences between practices in the United Kingdom and United States are also discussed.

Cancer, sickle cell disease (SCD), hemophilia, and other blood-related and immunologic disorders represent some of the most complex medical conditions of childhood. All involve a diagnosis that is directly associated with a genetic risk that is interpreted within a complex family system. All have complex biology involving multiple organ systems, and all are potentially fatal. All involve treatment that is demanding, both biologically and behaviorally. All inevitably alter the normal course of development, often during critical periods in the lives of children and families. All have potential significant economic and social consequences that include costs of treatment, indirect costs associated with disease management, and potential long-term costs associated with disability. All have potential long-term effects of treatment that may involve additional new diseases or disabilities. Surprisingly, however, hematologic and oncologic diseases of childhood have one other commonality; despite the complexity and high potential for devastating biologic, psychosocial, family, and economic consequences, all have affected individuals and families who do not experience these devastating consequences and in fact demonstrate a biologic and psychologic resiliency that defies conventional wisdom. Understanding the complex interactions among genetic risk; biology of disease; effectiveness and outcome of treatment; child and family coping, adjustment, and resilience; developmental trajectories; and community support is the challenge for investigators and clinicians during this century, particularly as basic advances in diagnosis and treatment result in anticipation of probable survival for the vast majority of children with these conditions. It is for this reason that these diseases of childhood are frequently considered from a biopsychosocial perspective (Engel, 1980), although we argue that this term must be expanded to incorporate developmental complexity, particularly when applied to children. Since Engel (1980) first proposed a biopsychosocial model of illness as a conceptual model for understanding and treating functional gastrointestinal disorders, our understanding of chronic illness has increasingly incorporated this perspective. The biopsychosocial model recognizes that illness, and one’s experience of illness, occurs through a dynamic interaction among biologic, psychologic, social, and environmental factors, all of which overlap as potential causes and maintenance factors of symptoms associated with the illness.

In a relatively small percentage of ALS patients a frontotemporal-type dementia may occur. A significant percentage of non-demented patents may show mild to moderate cognitive change, predominantly of a dysexecutive nature. Memory deficits may occur, and language involvement has been noted. Disease-related factors, mood disorder, and medication may compound cognitive impairment and must be accounted for when assessing cognition. There has been no research into the effectiveness of psychological interventions for cognitive dysfunction in ALS, although cognitive neuropsychological rehabilitation techniques may be applicable. The development of interventions for behavioural changes that may occur may be guided by approaches used in other neurodegenerative diseases, especially frontotemporal dementias. People with ALS should have access to clinical neuropsychologists who can assess the presence of cognitive dysfunction, undertake behavioural assessments, and work alongside other members of the clinical team to ensure the best outcome for ALS patients and their carers.

This chapter addresses how others react to tears and crying. These reactions of others can be studied at different levels and in different ways. For example, some studies have investigated brain responses and physiological reactions to crying, whereas others have focused on feelings in the observer, his or her perceptions, and how he or she behaves. Although there is certainly evidence that tears seems to elicit social support and may reduce aggression, this is certainly not the complete story. Crying infants are at increased risk of physical abuse, in children it may elicit bullying, and the image of celebrities may be seriously damaged by public crying. This is why this chapter calls for an approach that takes into account the specific context, the perceived appropriateness of crying, how one cries, the mutual relationship between crier and observer, and further characteristics of the observer. Since no studies until now have adopted this approach, it is too early to draw any definitive conclusions, but anecdotal evidence suggests that each of these factors may be considered as a co-determinant of crying.