Positive change in clinical settings: Flow experience in psychodynamic therapies

Abstract

In both psychotherapy and other mental health care settings Positive Psychology models are widely spread among cognitive-behavioral approaches, structured in order to prescribe changes in behavior and in approach towards life. Most of these therapeutic instruments, practical and prescriptive, are not fitting in psychodynamic psychotherapies, which have had little influence from positive psychology. Flow experience, characterized as a fluid, subjective, psychodynamic process, is more suitable to be used in psychodynamic therapy frames. In this chapter we will propose a clinical approach that allows the use of the Flow model in psychodynamic therapies, in a number of different ways, such as during diagnosis, while constructing therapeutic compliance, or during the different phases of the clinical process.