Cowden Richard G, Hill Emily C, Haque Omar S, Zábó Virág, Purebl György, De Kock Johannes H, VanderWeele Tyler J
Human Flourishing Program, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Behav Sci (Basel). 2025 Mar 31;15(4):445. doi: 10.3390/bs15040445.
The discipline of psychology has long been interested in understanding human suffering and identifying suitable approaches for effectively managing it. Although there are many clinical models invoking different philosophical worldviews and therapeutic approaches for addressing suffering, they typically require trained professionals and, therefore, are not widely accessible to the general population. Empirical evidence suggests that even 'everyday' experiences of suffering in nonclinical populations can negatively impact mental health and well-being, which has ushered in calls for a population health psychology approach by developing accessible, affordable, and scalable interventions that attend to the experience of suffering. As a response to such calls, we developed the workbook, a brief self-directed workbook intervention for suffering. This project report describes the first phase of the workbook development process, including its scope, theoretical underpinnings, central change objectives, organization, and engagement targets. We summarize feedback that laypeople and experts spanning various academic and applied disciplines provided about the workbook and discuss how this feedback was evaluated and used to make refinements aimed at enhancing the utility of the workbook. While empirical testing is needed to determine the efficacy of the workbook, we discuss some potential implications (along with caveats and limitations) of this low-intensity intervention for addressing population-level suffering, facilitating growth through suffering, and promoting human flourishing.
长期以来，心理学学科一直致力于理解人类的痛苦，并确定有效应对痛苦的合适方法。尽管有许多临床模型采用不同的哲学世界观和治疗方法来解决痛苦问题，但这些方法通常需要专业训练的人员，因此普通大众难以广泛接触到。实证证据表明，即使是非临床人群中“日常”的痛苦经历也会对心理健康和幸福产生负面影响，这引发了人们对群体健康心理学方法的呼吁，即开发易于获得、价格合理且可扩展的干预措施来关注痛苦经历。作为对这些呼吁的回应，我们开发了这本工作手册，这是一种针对痛苦的简短的自我指导式工作手册干预工具。本项目报告描述了工作手册开发过程的第一阶段，包括其范围、理论基础、核心变革目标、组织结构和参与对象。我们总结了来自不同学术和应用学科的外行人及专家对该工作手册提供的反馈，并讨论了如何评估这些反馈并用于进行改进，以提高工作手册的实用性。虽然需要进行实证测试来确定该工作手册的有效性，但我们讨论了这种低强度干预措施在解决群体层面的痛苦、通过痛苦促进成长以及促进人类繁荣方面的一些潜在影响（以及注意事项和局限性）。
