Abstract

How can positive psychology approaches help us to understand the process of adjustment to, and living well with dementia?

As accounts of positive experiences in dementia are increasingly emerging, this book reviews current evidence and explores how psychological constructs such as hope, humour, creativity, spirituality, wisdom, resilience and personal growth may be linked with wellbeing and quality of life in dementia. Expert contributors from a range of academic and clinical backgrounds examine the application of positive psychological concepts to dementia and dementia care practice. The lived experiences of people with dementia are central to the book, and their voices bring life to the ideas explored, highlighting how positive experiences in dementia and dementia care are possible.

In this brilliant benchmark work, the insights of Positive Psychology are finally examined in the lives of those who experience dementia. Positive Psychology focuses on a set of character strengths that contribute to human flourishing, but it has never been applied to deeply forgetful people. Herein we find chapters that for the first time carefully examine the experience of dementia with regard to well-being, hope, humor, creativity, resilience, spirituality and wisdom. No, this is above all NOT in the least bit pollyannaish. People with dementia really do draw on these strengths as they navigate their predicament, and they do so surprisingly deep into their illness. Building on the tradition of Tom Kitwood, Steven Sabat, and myself, this book shows us with unmistakable clarity and good science that there is a deeper and more hopeful way of looking at the person underneath dementia that we often miss. This book is a work of genius. All who care about the dignity of deeply forgetful people should read with excitement! I can assure the reader that this is a bold, necessary and compelling new pathway for future research and for sensitive caring. Bravo on a well-researched field-creating book!
Stephen G. Post, PhD, Author of The Moral Challenge of Alzheimer Disease and Founding Director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics, Stony Brook University School of Medicine
Whilst not underestimating the challenges dementia throws at the individual, this book highlights the crucial benefits of positive approaches in helping us to face those very challenges, as opposed to the medical view which is often very negative.
Wendy Mitchell, living with dementia and blogger at Which Me Am I Today