The Effectiveness of a Positive Psychotherapy Program on Increasing Students' Psychological Capital and Well-being

Subject Areas : Clinical psychology

Gholamreza Abbasi ¹ , Jalil Fathabadi ^{2 *} , Shokri Omid ³ , Majid Zargham Hajabi ⁴

1 - PhD Candidate in Psychology Qom Branch Islamic Azad University Qom, Iran
2 - PhD, Shahid Beheshti University Tehran, Iran
3 - PhD, Shahid Beheshti University Tehran, Iran
4 - PhD Islamic Azad University Qom, Iran

Received: 2021-11-10 Accepted : 2021-11-10 Published : 2021-06-22

Keywords: psychological capital, character strengths, positive psychotherapy program, PERMA well-being model,

Abstract :

This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of a positive psychotherapy program on increasing students’ psychological capital and well-being. The research method was a quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest design and follow up for two months, 27  female students in the experimental group and 25 girl students in the control group before and after positive psychotherapy training program, responded to the Psychological Capital Questionnaire (Luthans, Avolio, Avey & Norman, 2007) and Positive Psychotherapy Inventory (Rashid & Seligman, 2013). The experimental group received 7 sessions of positive psychotherapy training package (2 hour a session). The results of simple mixed ANOVA indicated that in the short and long term, the psycho-educational package was effective in increasing the dimensions of psychological capital including hope, resiliency, optimism and self-efficacy and dimensions of PERMA well-being model including emotions, engagement, accomplishment, purpose and relationship. The results of this study consistent with the results of other studies in field of positive education showed that psycho-educational positive psychotherapy intervention by strengthening learners' coping resources and equipping their psychological capital was effective in creating skills based on well-being, happiness and character strengths of learners along with other traditional academic skills in them.

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