Building a Community of Positive Psychology Practitioners
The 2024 Positive Psychology Summit:UK will be held on Thursday 11th and Friday 12th April 2024 at the Mercure Hotel, Bedford, United Kingdom. Our overarching theme for the 2024 summit will be “Putting Positive Psychology into practice” with a focus on:
Building community;
Applying Positive Psychology;
Sharing knowledge.
Each session will be an interactive workshop, helping you integrate the learning and giving you clear takeaways that you can apply in your personal and professional life. Don’t miss this opportunity!
2024 SUMMIT AGENDA
Tickets for this two day event are available from Eventbrite, below:
Positive Psychology Merchandise
We are delighted that we will also have products for sale from the Workshop facilitators. Please support their stalls and resource yourself with tools for bringing the science of wellbeing to life!
Workshop Facilitators
We are delighted to have the following exceptional Workshop Facilitators for the 2024 summit:
Sarah Lewis: Exploring positive emotions: Extending our ability to feel good.
This workshop, working with positive emotion cards, would enable participants first to identify which, out of 30 positive emotions, they are most aware of experiencing; giving them to the opportunity to explore and share how experiencing these top five emotions aids their wellbeing.
Then, in the second half of the workshop, participants would identify one or two positive emotions with which they are less familiar and, using the coaching questions and suggestions provided, help each other devise first steps towards increasing the likelihood of, or their ability to, experience this particular positive emotion.
Takeaways
An expanded positive emotion vocabulary and mental model, and a practical exercise for working with clients to boost wellbeing.
A personal development idea.
Frederika Roberts: Positive Change that sticks: organisation-wide improvement through Appreciative Inquiry
Appreciative Enquiry (AI) shifts the focus of organisational change and development from looking at what’s wrong to looking at what’s right and building from there. This positive, strengths-based approach is therefore a perfect partner to Positive Psychology, which focuses on supporting individuals, groups and organisations to function at their best.
Takeways
In this workshop, you will gain an overview of the stages and processes of AI and how this organisation-wide approach, involving all stakeholder groups, can significantly improve the “stickability” of any changes made. Even more importantly, as this is a practical workshop, you will experience some of the AI methods and processes for yourself, so you can gain practical insight into what AI can achieve in an organisation, and how it feels to participate in this strengths-based, positive process.
Martina Gannon: Post-Traumatic Growth: an exploration
Objectives
This workshop will enable participants to better understand Post Traumatic Growth, its importance in theory and practice as well as exploring research into historical and contemporary perspectives on its issues and caveats. They will also be able to reflect on personal or known experiences of Post Traumatic Growth, how that can contribute to and enhance a life narrative and how this could be facilitated in others in a trauma informed way.
Takeaways
Workshop participants will leave with a better understanding of the importance of Post Traumatic Growth and its caveats as well as ‘expert companion’ strategies for facilitating Post Traumatic Growth in others in a trauma informed way.
Who could this benefit
This workshop could be of benefit and interest to:
Those working in wellbeing or pastoral roles in education, self-development, therapy or healthcare.
People interested in understanding thriving after adversity.
People interested in understanding what promotes and inhibits growth after adversity.
We recognise that trauma is a difficult and complex issue, so please make sure you practice self care before you attend this session.
Lynn Burrow: We all want to be heard
How can we improve relationships with partners, co-workers, family and friends? Do we feel heard in life? Do others around us feel heard? If we handle complaints at work, is there a better way of approaching them?
Feeling seen and heard often diffuses the anger in situations, at home and work, and socially, giving a better basis for moving forward.
Using pairs in breakaway sessions we can explore issues and instances of feeling unheard, and feeling heard. The difference it makes when this works out. How this could improve communication within personal relationships.
Takeaways:
Ways to use this in close relationships, resulting in other people feeling heard and validated.
How to diffuse 'complaint' situations at home and work
Do I feel heard in significant ways? If not, what can I consider to change that?
Dr. Rebecca Jackson: Crafting Positive Psychology Interventions for Autistic Coaching Clients
The aim of this workshop is to help positive psychology coaches discover how autistic clients may respond and what needs they may have in the coaching space, and make a plan for what the coaches can craft, embed or say to meet these clients where they are and offer inclusive and effective coaching to them.
Objectives and Takeaways
Develop understanding of autism in the context of adult autistic clients without learning disabilities.
Discover how autistic coaching clients may present in coaching conversations, including points in the coaching process/conversation where adjustments and accommodations may be needed.
Create an amended roadmap for one’s own positive psychology coaching process based on what has been discovered about autism and autistic clients.
Determine an action plan for crafting one’s practice and CPD process to better support autistic clients through increased accommodation of needs and knowledge of how to support autistic clients.
The session finishes with a very brief summary of what we have done and what they might have discovered. There will be some time at the end for targeted questions about the coaches’ own coaching of autistic clients, allowing them to tap my experience as an autistic coach of autistic people.
Matt C. Freeman: Positive Ageing
This workshop will help you to better understand what it can feel like to be on the receiving end of ageing changes and challenges. It will also leave you better equipped to shift your mindset from a negative emotional state - low mood, rumination, inertia, languishing and unhelpful comparisons to youth - via an immersion in a positive, purposeful state - to an energised, motivated, and hopeful view of the future. From there, you may gain the potential for an open-minded, forward-looking state, with ambitions and plans for positive action to create a healthier, happier older age.
Takeaways
Whether you are ageing yourself (as we all are), or have a parent who an older adult, a partner/spouse who is not adjusting to their advancing years well, or you work with/support older adults, this workshop will help you to better understand what it can feel like to be on the receiving end of ageing changes and challenges
Sarah Monk: Exploring Emotional Acceptance Techniques for Resilience
This workshop will introduce the acceptance approach to emotional regulation and the links to the evolutionary psychophysiology work of Paul Gilbert and Polyvagal theory of Stephen Porges. Applied practices will be used to illustrate the concepts of experiential avoidance, the control agenda that impacts emotional flexibility and the benefits of the acceptance and compassion approach. Participants will be encouraged to think about how this approach might be useful in their personal and professional lives and consider potential ethical issues associated with the latter.
Takeaways
Gain an understanding of how we can improve our resilience by appreciating the functions of difficult emotions and responding to them with acceptance and compassion.
Experience of practical exercises which can be used to promote personal self care.
A chance to reflect on how these ideas might be useful in your own work context.
Darshak Laklani: The mind is our best friend or worst enemy
This workshop will allow participants to practice positively turning into one’s mind and grasping the strengths and positives that flow.
It invites the participant to see and have a feel from a spiritual perspective how tools and practises can be applied in everyday life in all situations.
Who will it benefit?
● Anyone and everyone, people coming from different backgrounds or a scientific place, like-minded people with a connection to either positivity or spirituality.
● This is taken from an angle of positivity from a spiritual lens, inviting those who are open and new, inquisitive and curious, to dip their toes into the curiosity of what is being offered and shared as well as the well-established in the field.
● This will also be beneficial for people in Leadership, HR, Management and anyone who is looking to help guide moving forward with a positive mindset!
Dr Raul Rodriguez: Synergies at the Intersection: Artificial Intelligence, Positive Psychology, and the Quest for Human Flourishing
In a world marked by unprecedented technological advancements, our exploration will venture into the intricate relationship between AI, Positive Psychology, and their joint quest for elevating human flourishing.
Participants will be exposed to high-level discussions, nuanced theories, and intriguing practical applications.
Who would benefit?
Any professionals managing individuals/managers/academics/learners interested in discovering the intersection of AI and Psychology.
About the Venue
The Mercure Hotel - Bedford
For the 2024 summit, we are delighted to be working again with the team at the Mercure Hotel, Bedford, who hosted our successful 2019 event.
The perfect place for guests who wish to explore the beautiful town of Bedford and its local attractions, with it's many attractive outdoor spaces and museums. Located in the heart of the town centre, on the bank of the Great Ouse River and boasting unparalleled panoramic views of the river and town, this hotel is the ideal retreat and a great place to unwind. The hotel is easily accessible as it is close to the M1, just a mile away from the A6, with both Bedford's Railway Stations just a short walk away.
Mercure Bedford Centre has 121 rooms and 7 meeting rooms. It is also close to the M1 and just a mile off from the A6, the hotel is easy to access no matter where you're coming from. The hotel has a view of the river Great Ouse. The hotel also has the Riverside Restaurant and Bar, as well as being easy assessable to drive. If our guests prefer to travel by train the hotel is also a stone’s throw away from Bedford train station.
The venue has limited parking and is accessible for people with restricted mobility.
2 St Marys Street, Bedford, MK42 0AR
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