8190: The Optimistic Child

About the Course:

This course is recommended for health care professionals, especially psychologists, counselors, social workers, and nurses who provide services to or seek knowledge about the impact of children learning the skills of optimism. Whether unfamiliar or familiar with some of the concepts involved in this material, you can benefit from information in this course. This book shows that learning the skills of optimism not only reduces the risk of depression in children, but also boosts school performance, improves physical health, and provides children with the self-reliance they need as they approach the teenage years and adulthood. Aaron T. Beck said of this book, “The first major work to provide an effective program for preventing depression in childhood.

Author

Seligman, Martin E.P., Ph.D.

About the Authors:

He is professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and past president of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Seligman is the leading authority in the world on learned helplessness and on explanatory style. He has written more than 12 books and more than one hundred fifty articles on motivation. His research has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Aging, the National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Course Objectives:

1. To be able to describe how pessimists and optimists tend to think about life.

2. To be able to explain how rumination combined with pessimistic explanatory style contribute to depression.

3. To be able to teach others the skills of learned optimism.