Interdisciplinary Psychology:

            While reading An Introduction to Positive Psychology I was drawn to the wellness, health psychology, and positive coping chapter. This chapter fascinated me because I have always had trouble coping with things that have happened in my life. When problem situations have occurred in my life I usually try to ignore them or downplay them, such as with the death of all of my grandparents within the same three month block. And with not coping with things in an appropriate way for me, I have become somewhat closed off from being able to experience the joys in life because I am always trying to stop the negative felling from flowing in.

            The text described coping as “a response aimed at diminishing the physical, emotional, and psychological burden that is linked to stressful life events and daily hassles” I think that the coping style that I have been using in my life is most like the cognitive emotion-focused coping, which is defined as “ways of thinking that attempt to draw attention away from the more painful elements of a situation be reinterpreting the situation, using positive thinking to block out negative emotions, or by the use of selective attention. But this coping style has often left people thinking that I was either heartless or emotionally distant, because I don’t express anything that I am felling when I fell the sadness of something, like a death, I don’t cry, I just continue to do what I would normally do, like play my video games or listen to music, I ignore those bad feelings so that I can go on with my life. I know that this is not exactly the cognitive emotion-focused coping but my coping style comes to this style more then others.

            With not being able to cope with negative emotions in a positive way that also lets me experience positive emotions I am unable to experience what Dunn defines as wellness, Dunn defines wellness as “A zest for life, a way of living that maximized potential, a sense of meaning and purpose, a sense of social responsibility, and skills for adopting to the challenges of a challenging environment”. With not being able to experience positive emotions, while trying to block the negative emotions, I have found it difficult to have a zest for life, because I am always worried about the next negative emotion that I am going to have. Without the ability to have a zest for life I am unable to life my life to its maximized potential. Always being watchful for the negative limited the skills that have for adapting to the challenges that arise in my life. As I have said not being able to properly experience negative emotions I am also unable to properly experience positive emotions which cause a strain on three of the five things needed to have wellness as described by Dunn.

            I think that I need to find a new way of coping that works better for me that still lets me experience positive emotions. In this text I found another coping style that might work better for me but I need to practice this style. This style is the problem-focused coping. This style would allow me to deal with the problem rather then the emotions, which would allow me to still experience positive emotions. Once I find a better way of coping I would hope to have more optimism as well as a more rounded wellness.