Life Stories and Mental Health: The Role of Identification Processes in Theory and Interventions

The goal of this article is to explore the relations between narratives and mental health from a psychological perspective. We argue that a process of identification with personal experiences underlies narrative structures that are known to be related to mental health. Overidentification and underidentification are described as general processes underlying mental health problems. Gerontological insights in reminiscence and life review and cognitive psychological studies on autobiographical memories validate this claim. Practical applications in mental health care provide even further evidence for the role of identification processes in mental health and how they can be targeted in intervention

Medical poetry

“Medical or mental” poems: mind, nerves, flesh and blood, blending the humorous and sensitive

Reminiscence and depression in later life

Dit proefschrift behandelt de effecten van reminiscentie en life-review op depressieve klachten, zingeving en gevoel van controle bij ouderen. In het eerste deel worden een review van de internationale literatuur en twee meta-analyses gepresenteerd. In het tweede deel worden twee nieuwe interventies en de uitkomsten van evaluatieve studies besproken. Geconcludeerd wordt dat life-review een veelbelovende preventieve interventie is voor (sommige) ouderen met depressieve klachtenBeekman, A.T. [Promotor]Cuijpers, W.J.M.J. [Promotor]Marwijk, H.W.J. [Copromotor]van Westerhof, G.J. [Copromotor

Navigating the App-Wilderness: Learn to Find the Best App or Start to Design One Yourself:Pre-Conference Session

In this workshop you will learn how to evaluate existing apps on their theoretical basis, their usability and their persuasiveness to keep users engaged. We will provide hands-on experience in evaluating and selecting the right app for the job; give examples of high quality and lower quality apps to improve e.g. self-compassion and positive emotions; and give you the tools to apply this to your own field of interest

Nudging socially isolated people towards well-being with the ‘Happiness Route’: design of a randomized controlled trial for the evaluation of a happiness-based intervention

Background:\ud The Happiness Route is an innovative intervention that uses a happiness-based approach for people with an accumulation of risk factors for low well-being: socially isolated people with health impairments and a low socioeconomic status. The goal of this intervention is to improve well-being by engaging participants in intrinsically motivated activities with methods from positive psychology. We hypothesize that the primary outcome measure, emotional, social and psychological well-being of participants of the Happiness Route, will increase in comparison to the traditional and commonly-used problem-based approach. Secondary outcome measures are health-related quality of life, psychosocial functioning and health care consumption. \ud \ud Methods and desig:\ud Participants will be socially isolated people with health problems and a low socioeconomic status. Participants will be recruited in ten Dutch communities and candidates will be signed up by intermediaries, professionals from the health and social sector. Randomly assigned, half of the participants will follow the Happiness Route and half of the participants will follow the active, problem-focused control group ‘Customized Care’. In total, 256 participants will be included. In both conditions, participants will receive counseling sessions from trained counselors. In the control group, participants will talk about their problems and the care they get and counselors help to optimize their care. In the Happiness Route, the counselor ask questions such as “How do you want to live your life?”. The intervention helps people to find their ‘passion’, i.e., a positive goal-engaged and intrinsically motivated activity. It enables them to follow their passion through by a once-only personal happiness budget (maximal €500). We use well-validated and reliable questionnaires to measure primary and secondary outcome measures at baseline, directly after the intervention and at a nine-month follow-up. \ud \ud Discussion:\ud Shortcomings of earlier intervention studies in positive psychology will be tackled with this study, such as having a target group who is especially vulnerable for low well-being. The practice-based setting is especially interesting, as it can give valuable insights in how positive psychology interventions work in practice, but can also give rise to several challenges