Aging as Adventure: Enhancing Our Capacity for Flourishing
Aging as Adventure: Enhancing Our Capacity for Flourishing
Friday - 11:00am
First Class: 1/13/23
Last Class: 2/10/23
Instructors: Joan Klagsbrun, PhD, is a psychologist, and psychotherapy supervisor, who has been practicing as a therapist for the past 40 years. Joan is also a longstanding Adjunct Professor at Lesley University, where she integrates her interest in the intersection of spirituality and psychology in the courses she teaches.
Joan has been teaching positive psychology to the public and to mental health professionals for over a decade. Her publications include articles in professional journals and chapters in several books. Her most recent chapter, co-written with Julian Miller, is Acknowledging the Dark and Embracing the Light in the Time of Covid-19, published in Senses of Focusing Volume I in 2021.
Aging comes with inevitable limitations and loss, but with a positive attitude, supportive friends, meaningful activities, and an enhanced capacity for gratitude, we can make our later years a time for flourishing. We may even be able to transform this period into the best years of our lives.
This 5 session class, with assigned readings and selected TED talks, will cover a variety of approaches to aging wisely. We will present research from positive psychology about the negativity bias, as well as the benefits of gratitude, optimism, generosity, and meaning-making. We will also engage in exercises to access our implicit wisdom.
The format of the course will include brief lectures, large and small group discussions. and prompts for personal journaling on the above topics.
