Influence of Positive Psychology on the PhotoVoice Project

PhotoVoice is traditionally focused on a community-based problem and implemented in order to solve the problem and to give community-based participants the opportunity to have a voice in calling attention to the problem, for example to policymakers, and to be part of the solution.

Within the post-secondary curricular context, we chose to focus on thriving as our theme, in conjunction with the Positive Psychology content of both courses in which this project was implemented. The first-year course focused on the skills associated with thriving as a student in a post-secondary context, based on the Thriving in Action program developed by Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer and Dr. Diana Brecher, at X/Ryerson University.  The upper-year course focused on research and theories of Positive Psychology and personal growth.  Students from the fourth-year course served as mentors to the first-year students.

The co-curricular PhotoVoice project adopted this theme since it is consistent with the aims of those services.

Psychology as a field of study has traditionally focused on helping people resolve crisis, loss, trauma and suffering, and to help people return to their previous level of functioning.

Positive Psychology instead, takes as its aim the exploration of what makes people feel great, how to move from one’s baseline of functioning to feeling even better, and ultimately how to flourish. Positive Psychology is the study of optimal human functioning. It is the study of how we thrive, and it focuses on our strengths. It blends insight, research, and wisdom taken from cognitive psychology, health psychology, organizational behaviour, and beyond.