A bit over two years ago I wrote a sequence of three blog posts starting with "New research suggests CBT depression treatment is more effective if we focus on strengths rather than weaknesses".  This was triggered by the fascinating paper by Cheavens & colleagues "The compensation and capitalization models: A test of two approaches to individualizing the treatment of depression" - with its abstract reporting "Despite long-standing calls for the individualization of treatments for depression, modest progress has been made in this effort.

WOOP is an acronym for Wish-Outcome-Obstacle-Plan.  This sequence is based on the very impressive body of research on how to boost motivation, goal setting & goal achievement assembled over many years by professors Gabrielle Oettingen & Peter Gollwitzer.

A few months ago I wrote a series of three blog posts on the theme "New research suggests CBT depression treatment is more effective if we focus on strengths rather than weaknesses".

I wrote an initial post on "New research suggests ... focus on strengths rather than weaknesses" a couple of days ago.  I discussed various reasons for thinking that better matching of patients to more personalized treatments could be helpful (although difficult) and looked as well at several research studies that have explored possible benefits of focusing treatment - particularly early in the course of therapy - on patient strengths rather than their weaknesses.

In 2010 Simon & Perlis highlighted the importance of being better able to match depression sufferers to treatment approaches that were more likely to benefit them.  In their paper "Personalized medicine for depression: Can we match patients with treatments?", they wrote: "Response to specific depression treatments varies widely among individuals. Understanding and predicting that variation could have great benefits for people living with depression ...

I blogged yesterday about the second full day of this "5th European conference on positive psychology".  So how was the last morning of the conference?  In order to catch my flight I only went in for the final two plenary presentations and then left at the coffee break - a pity, but I already have plenty new to chew over from this conference and I don't think I was missing anything too crucial - for the kind of work - I do by coming away a little early. 

Yesterday was the first full day of the conference.  I've already written about the first evening.  The full day started fairly bright and early at 8.30am.  First off was a talk by Corey Keyes, a sociologist from Emory University, Atlanta.  I've liked his work, but at first glance at this conference he looked a bit too like Johnny Depp for me to take him seriously (prejudice or what!).  The talk this morning soon put that right.  Passionate, informed, insightful.  Great stuff.