WELLNESS WITHIN:
Psychology and Health
Tracy A. Knight
Department of Psychology
INITIAL QuestionS
What are the attributes of
wellness?
How do we know if and when
WE ARE well?
What is “the good life”?
Our Dominant Culture Today
Emphasis on consumption/products/services
Focus upon pathology/diagnoses/weakness
The neglected question: What resources do we
already possess that allow us to pursue the good
life?
Humanistic/Positive Psychology
“Symptoms” of Mental Health:
Self-Acceptance
Personal Growth
Purpose in Life
Environmental Mastery
Autonomy
Positive Relations with Others
Narrative Psychology
A primary focus upon the centrality of
human beings’ need to create meaning
Using our life experiences, we create
meaning in the form of stories
“You don’t remember what happened.
What you remember becomes what
happened.” John Green
Our Lives, Our Stories
The stories we create from the
experiences of our lives consist of:
Events/experiences
Linked in sequence
Across time
According to the plot we author (or at least
co-author)
Examples of Narrative
Exercise: Assume (as you legitimately
can) that you were born and grew up at
the “perfect time.” Provide evidence.
What are your narratives of your self?
(Write down five adjectives)
Do you have any “problem-saturated”
narratives?
The Effects of Dominant Stories
Our dominant stories affect:
how we interpret what happens to us
what we attend to, what we ignore
how we plan and decide our futures
Pathways Thinking
Refers to viewing ourselves as capable
of generating/imagining workable routes
to our goals
Involves thoughts/images (narratives?)
of routes to a desired goal
AGENCY THINKING: a motivational
component; the perceived capacity to use
our pathways to achieve goals
Pathways and agency thinking are the
manifestations
of hope
The Placebo Response
Rossi (1986) found that there appears to be a 55%
placebo response in many, if not all, healing
procedures.
 The placebo response approaches (and often
equals) the effectiveness of antidepressant
medications
 No-cebo: Negative effects of expectations
The placebo response is pathways
thinking, a narrative, imagining a
route to our goal of relief
Optimism and Pessimism
Optimists anticipate the possibility of
positive outcomes
Pessimists anticipate the possibility of
negative outcomes
Both are forms of narrative and pathways
thinking
Perhaps the important distinction is between
anticipation and expectation
IMAGERY
Involves the creation of experience
Utilizes the mind-body communication that,
while poorly understood, is ever-present in
our lives
Can be easily tailored
What’s the moral of this story?
Not to impose an unnatural or “unrealistic”
narrative on your life experiences
 Rather:
 To recognize the range of experiences available to you
 To recognize your role as an author and the choices it
provides
 To appreciate your natural abilities to re-author your
story, and to positively affect your wellness
“I don't want to get to the end
of my life and find that I lived just the length
of it. I want to have lived the width of it as
well.”
-- Diane Ackerman
“We are asleep with compasses
in our hands.”
--W. S. Merwin
“We are here and now. Further than
that, all knowledge is moonshine.”
--H.L. Mencken
Contact Information:
Tracy A. Knight
Department of Psychology
134 Waggoner
298-1842
TA-Knight@wiu.edu