Mental Healthcare, Virtue, and Human Flourishing

Nearly half the United States population will experience a mental disorder in their lifetime, and about one in seven adults (44.7 million) receive mental health treatment each year largely focused on reducing negative symptoms. A large body of scientific research in positive psychology over the past three decades has connected character strengths and virtue with well-being and flourishing. Yet very little of this research involves mental healthcare contexts with these millions of U.S. citizens receiving treatment. This compounds a common problem in health-related research with a very slow translation of findings into everyday clinical practice. Our project addresses this problem through a multi-site collaboration with major treatment research teams serving thousands of clients. We will conduct clinical studies on how growth in virtues such as humility, gratitude, wisdom, and forgiveness can help individuals, couples, and families eventually flourish in response to suffering. Measures of virtue and flourishing will be clinically-validated, and these measures will advance further clinical research to change the field’s goals toward a “higher bar” of flourishing-related treatment outcomes. We will also study character and virtue among clinicians and ways humble and clinically-wise therapists effectively cultivate virtue and flourishing in their clients. We will also utilize the emerging methods of dissemination and implementation science in collaboration with practitioners and clinical trainers to develop and test innovative training strategies that facilitate the integration of evidence-based virtue and flourishing interventions into frontline clinical practice. Our team will disseminate answers to these clinical and training questions through best practice guidelines published in top tier psychotherapy journals and an edited book, and we will train thousands of clinicians in these clinical approaches to virtue and flourishing through our training networks.