Having practiced Transpersonal Psychology within my professional life and studied metaphysics and energy medicine in my personal life, I have worked in the paradigm of wellness and how to reclaim it throughout my career. There have been numerous times when my perspective was not in line with company policies due to the fact that I have always understood to heal includes a spiritual component. Dis-ease is not the natural underpinnings of humanity, wellness is. Yet we have gotten so out of balance with spirit that the medical model specifies that wellness is the absence of symptoms. What a limiting concept!
In the late 1990s, Positive Psychology was developed within the cognitive/behavioral theories, and shifted focus from a preoccupation with mending what has been damaged to building an attitudinal foundation that can weather the difficulties that naturally come along in life. Positive psychology is about developing a strong sense of wellbeing, optimism, contentment, and faith that allows an individual to see life from a perspective of hope rather than despair, which contributes to resiliency in the face of misfortune and tragedy.
Resilience has been defined as good life outcomes in people who have experienced serious threats to their development. Resilience has been associated with stable characteristics such as wellbeing, optimism, faith, wisdom, creativity, self-control, morality, gratitude, forgiveness, and hope. Resiliency theory research examines the factors that help people grow through adversity. Richardson (2002) in an article entitled The Meta-theory of Resilience and Resiliency, suggested that resiliency is a meta-theory that encompasses many theories across varied academic disciplines. The common idea is that all living things have innate energy or resilience, and that the energy “that drives a person from survival to self-actualization may be called quanta, chi, spirit, God, or resilience”.
The first wave of resiliency inquiry identified the internal and external qualities that enable people to cope and grow despite high-risk circumstances. The second wave of resiliency inquiry “defined the process of coping with adversity, change, or opportunity in a manner that resulted in the identification, fortification, and enrichment of protective factors”. The third wave of research in resiliency assisted individuals in discovering and applying “the force that drives a person toward self-actualization and to resiliency reintegration from disruptions”.
Maslow (1971) called transpersonal psychology the Fourth Force in psychology, implying an understanding of psyche that goes beyond ego and re-embraces the concept of psychology as the study of the soul. “In resilience theory, soul refers to the whole, integrated being of an individual with one’s transpersonal nature, or human spirit, as the primary guiding force of the system”. This would imply that to embrace of philosophy of wellness we as individuals, families, communities, and nations need to reconnect to spirit to come back into balance, harmony, and wellness. As we do this we will find that the overwhelming issues humanity faces can be addressed and resolved.
