Assessing & working with human strength in clinical settings:Are the signals positive or just noise?

Abstract: The diagnosis of psychopathology and personal maladaptive behaviors, thoughts, and emotional states are important considerations of clinical psychology and psychotherapy research. In contrast, the assessment of human strengths is a less recognized perspective in individuals suffering from mental disorders, and when it is, clinical studies often show a lack of positivity, well-being, life satisfaction and self-esteem in clinical populations. Over the past decade, however, there has been widespread research interest in the systematic assessment and integration of human strengths in psychotherapy research projects. The webinar provides an overview of research approaches to studying human strengths in clinical populations and clinical interventions. It provides practical and relatively easy-to-implement research strategies in the form of psychological experiments, process-outcome studies, and randomized clinical trials for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in integrating strengths-based perspectives into their research projects.