The Summer of our Discontent
31 Oct 2011 | Miriam Akhtar
This summer the UK was rocked by riots with young people playing
the major role in the looting of shops. In the weeks that followed
children as young as 11 were put in front of the courts. Many of
these young offenders had already chalked up a list of previous
convictions.
I came across disaffected young people such as these and others
known as NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training)
when I was carrying out my MAPP (Masters in Applied Positive
Psychology) research working with the charity In-Volve to
apply positive psychology with substance-misusing young people, in
particular those abusing alcohol. Given that the motivation to
drink amongst teenagers is related to wanting to be happy, to
change mood, escape from troubles and deal with stress, surely
positive psychology is well-placed to help adolescents to
alternative routes to happiness, positive emotions and
resilience?
'The Happiness Zones'
To test this I ran a small pilot of positive psychology
interventions (PPIs) over 8 sessions and tracked the teenage
participants over 5 months. The experiment turned out to be a
success with positive changes on the inside (higher happiness,
optimism and other positive emotions, lower rates of drinking and
drug-taking) mirrored by welcome developments on the outside as the
teens re-engaged with education, got jobs and moved into better
accommodation.
There were improvements across their hedonic, eudaimonic,
physical and social well-being. It convinced me that PPIs are
useful not only as prevention but also as treatment for young
people who've moved beyond the risk and into the reality of social,
educational and health problems. Here are five practical insights
that emerged from that experiment for anyone applying PPIs with
disaffected teens.
- What makes you happy? When I asked the
young participants about what made them happy, the answers that
came back were mainly related to money - the latest gadgets etc. So
when they heard about the limited role that money plays in
happiness, there was such strong resistance that several
participants threatened to walk! But then as part of a savouring
activity I asked them to write a list of their happiest memories.
And that's when they got it - they realised that none of their
cherished memories of falling in love, babies' births and special
moments with loved ones came with a price-tag attached. This was a
pivotal exercise in helping them to appreciate what really makes us
happy and to challenge the familiar media message of
consumerism.
- Three Good Things. The participants viewed
themselves as deprived with little reason for gratitude, so I used
Three Good
Things as a way for them to check in at the start of a session
and report back on all the positives that had happened since the
previous week. This got the sessions off to a good start, put the
participants into a good mood and was instrumental in the
significant rise in happiness and positive emotions in the
experimental group. Gratitude was rated as their most effective
intervention and the most frequently-experienced positive
emotion.
- Future focus. A future time perspective was
absent in these disaffected young people. They were present
hedonists with their horizons set to instant gratification through
alcohol, drugs, sex, shoplifting etc. Coaching helped them to
develop more of a future focus. The key here was to make sure that
they were setting goals based on what they themselves wanted for
their lives, rather than being influenced by family, peers,
key-workers etc. Also helpful was adding both a 'towards' and 'away
from' motivation to the goal. It's useful when giving up an
addiction to have both in place so that as well as creating an
attractive vision of the goal you also ask what it might be like if
they don't achieve their goal? Coaching turned out to be a highly
effective process to use with disaffected young people.
- Using your talents. Most of the teens had
dropped out of education and had very little sense of their
talents. Taking the VIA test helped them to discover that they had
strengths beyond academia. For Danni, 16, discovering that she had
strengths in the love/humanity virtue fired her up to pursue her
dream of becoming a youth worker. Discovering their strengths led
to an increase in confidence, motivation and self-esteem. Taking a
strengths test is an incredibly valuable thing for any young person
who's been disenfranchised by the education system.
- Mindfulness. Meditation is not an easy sell to
disaffected young people (nor is it to some of my high-flying
coaching clients!) but if you can get past its hippy image and
emphasize the benefits of relaxation, it is worth it. Our route in
was by giving young people taster sessions of the physical
therapies like foot massage to help them switch into the
parasympathetic nervous system. We followed this with a guided
mindful meditation, which led one participant to exclaim that she
felt so chilled like she'd just smoked a joint! The goal was to
show them alternative ways to calm a busy, anxious mind. During the
follow-up the young people reported experiencing calm more
frequently and also valuing the benefits of that tranquillity.
Disaffected young people are one of the toughest groups to work
with but I was surprised to find that they were receptive to
happiness interventions, possibly reflecting a longing to escape
from their chaotic lives. Across the experiment the positivity
ratio of the group rose from 1:1 and approached the tipping point
of 3:1, which marks the start of flourishing. Even at these
sub-threshold levels of positivity there was evidence of a
transformation from druggie drop-outs to dynamic young people.
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Miriam Akhtar is a positive psychology coach and trainer and
author of Positive Psychology for Overcoming Depression which will
be published in 2012. www.positivepsychologytraining.co.uk
References
Akhtar, M. & Boniwell, I. (2010). Applying positive
psychology to alcohol-misusing adolescents: a group
intervention.Groupwork,20(3), pp.6-31.
Fredrickson, B.L. & Losada, M.F. (2005). Positive affect and
the complex dynamics of human flourishing. American
Psychologist, 60,678-686.
Honess, T., Seymour, R., & Webster R. (2000).The Social
Contexts of Underage Drinking. London: The Home Office.
Tags:
Do things for others, Take care of your body, Look for what's good, Local community, Be a Happiness Activist, Education