Recreate or create? leisure as an arena for recovery and change

Abstract

While passive leisure is experienced as pleasant and serves as an important route to recovery, active leisure has a distinct phenomenology and a different function. Active leisure is first and foremost a motivator for creating changes and developing potentials. The chapter investigates links between leisure and well-being, and is particularly concerned with the issue of whether development of skills and recreational specialization really is experienced as pleasant. In conclusion, positive psychology is considered to still be a field of conceptual confusion, but with an important promise: That of establishing a scientific understanding of how the balance between work and leisure may provide opportunities satisfaction and flourishing completion. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.