Apply Presentation International Positive Psychology Association 7th IPPA World Congress 2021

R3SET Stress (#15)

Megan McDonough 1 2 , Michelle McCoy Barrett 2 , Eric First 2
  1. Wholebeing Institute, Hardwick, MA, United States
  2. R3SET, New York, NY

Feeling stressed is … well, stressful. Left unchecked, stress can exhaust and debilitate. The stress response, though, is part of how the body is designed—it provides the resources needed to meet a challenge. Stress is not a flaw; it’s a natural response. 

In this session, you'll get an overview of a 14-day online pilot course and the results from the pre- and post-program measurements of perceived stress, resilience, mindfulness, and mindset scales. Plus, you'll experience firsthand a set of embodied interventions drawn from positive psychology and other fields, informing a whole-person approach to stress resilience. 

Participants learn a framework to unpack stress, understand mindset and sensory cues, and masterfully engage with the stress response as a valuable and helpful feedback loop, rather than letting it control you. Stress then becomes an opportunity to be with everyday challenges in a healthy way. 

  1. Baer, R. A., Smith, G. T., Hopkins, J., Krietemeyer, J., & Toney, L. (2006). Using self-report assessment methods to explore facets of mindfulness. Assessment, 13(1), 27–45. doi: /10.1177/1073191105283504
  2. Baer, R. A., Smith, G. T., Lykins, E., Button, D., Krietemeyer, J., Sauer, S., Walsh, E., Duggan, D. & Williams, J. M. G. (2008). Construct validity of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire in meditating and nonmeditating samples. Assessment, 15, 329–342. doi: 10.1177/1073191107313003
  3. Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., Mermelstein, R. (1983). A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24, 385–396.
  4. Crum, A., Salovey, P. & Achor, S. (2013). Rethinking Stress: The Role of Mindsets in Determining the Stress Response. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
  5. Gu, J., Strauss, C., Crane, C., Barnhofer, T., Karl, A., Cavanagh, K., & Kuyken, W. (2016). Examining the factor structure of the 39-item and 15-item versions of the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire before and after Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for people with recurrent depression. Psychological Assessment.doi: 10.1037/pas0000263
  6. Sandeep Vaishnavi, Kathryn Connor, Jonathan R.T. Davidson, An abbreviated version of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), the CD-RISC2: Psychometric properties and applications in psychopharmacological trials, Psychiatry Research, Volume 152, Issues 2–3, 2007, Pages 293-297, ISSN 0165-1781, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2007.01.006.
  • Keywords: Biology, Coping and Emotion Regulation, Health and Medicine, Mindfulness, Resilience and Posttraumatic Growth
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