Okay so this may seem a bit strange. Each month I feature a book on AM Arizona which I feel represents some aspect of how to bring Positive Psychology alive in your life. This month I am really not recommending the book so much as what the book teaches. Positive Psychology at the Movies by Ryan Niemiec and Danny Wedding is a reference and research book. It is not a book you want to pick up and read from cover to cover unless you enjoy research. Yet there is so much to learn from this book. Using the model of character strengths and virtues from Positive Psychology, Niemiec and Wedding have developed an outstanding way to view movies and learn about your strengths and virtues.
There are two or three outstanding parts of the book that I would recommend to anyone interested in personal development. First, they cover every one of the strengths and virtues. Many times there is a particular strength like forgiveness or love or spirituality that you really can’t see as having a place in your development. Having worked with and for top executives my entire behavioral career, I can tell you forgiveness and mercy is a difficult strength to discuss. Most people feel that they are being doormats if they forgive too easily in business. Yet, when you see what the strength looks like coming from a character in a movie, you begin to see how it really can be a strength in your own life.
Next there are several charts and lists in the book that are priceless if you want to use film to learn from or to teach from. There are lists of movies with the exact strength the main character is exemplifying and my favorite – a list of the top 100 inspiring movies in the last 100 years!
For those who teach in the field of positive psychology, this book is a treasure chest of teaching opportunities. For anyone who wants to continue their own learning and development, this is an invaluable roadmap of where to start and how to appreciate a strength using something that is in your life every day – a movie.
What I would like to see is an addendum to this great resource book. There is a company that has devoted itself to bringing thoughtful and thought provoking films to wider and broader audiences. That company is The Spiritual Cinema Circle. It is a monthly, subscription based service. As a member you receive a DVD each month with a 4 – 5 films, a discussion sheet and questions to create conversation and thought around the teachings of the movies. I would like to see the Spiritual Cinema’s entire catalog of movies taken through the research matrix that the authors of Positive Psychology at the Movies used. Okay, so maybe – just maybe – my strength of spirituality is coming through. And maybe – just maybe – you can see how a strength can help you develop a livelihood. Spirituality may not be on the list of top ten business skills in any business education program, yet I have found a way to use that exact strength it in my work. That is the beauty of natural strengths, whether you know them or not, all you have to do is invest your time in things that interest you. Generally, you will naturally gravitate toward using your natural strengths.
Happy movie going, Andrea
Andrea T. Goeglein, PhD
DrSuccess@ServingSuccess.com
www.ServingSuccess.com
866 975 3777
Nice blog, Andrea.
If others are interested in one of the extensive handouts from the book (a comprehensive list of films categorized by each of the 24 character strengths), they can get it for free at: http://www.hogrefe.com/books/978-0-88937-352-5.html
Adding an appendix of Spiritual Cinema Circle films is a good idea for the next edition, as I’ve seen every one of their films. As you know, we limit discussion to “several” rather than “all” of their films in this book as some are better than others.
Very best to you,
Ryan Niemiec