The phrase "optimal human being" is used to refer to the empirically documented features that tend to characterize high-quality human functioning. "Optimal human being" is a profile that is developed within this book by consulting what contemporary theorizing at different levels of analysis might have to say about what causes a optimal functioning

This volume deals with the human desire to live the good life, defined as seeking that which "is good, optimal, or ultimately desirable." While there may be different ways of achieving this goal, the pathways are similar in some ways. In exploring the ways in which these paths cross, Mortensen asserts that an ability to sustain optimal human relations--that is, healthy communication, interpersonal compatibility, and prosocial influence--is a standard against which the good life can be measured. Optimal Human Relations explores the favorable conditions for human beings to live the best possible way of life imaginable; it both argues the case for and documents recent advances in the study of social influences on everyday life. Social influences help to develop an expansive sense of intrinsic motivation in daily encounters with others. While optimal relations are not easily achieved or maintained, it is through healthy relationships that one may pursue pleasure and happiness--even meaning, importance, and significance with valued companions. The cultivation of physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health through these relations generates an enhanced sense of well-being, growth, and maturity. Mature individuals are more likely to maintain optimal relations by counting daily blessings more than lamenting routine burdens. This inspirational conception of "the good life" invites productive inquiry into the conditions responsible for the pursuit of optimal conditions, fulfilled expectations, and a rich, vital, way of life. It is through this lens that Mortensen measures the good life, pointing to these aspects of human communication as a litmus test of the relative importance of individualistic and collective orientations. Along the way, the reader discovers who and what we are in relation to the quality of the world in which we reside alongside those who journey with us.

Counseling psychologists have always been vitally involved in promoting good health and preventing mental, physical, and social disorders. This volume focuses on how their efforts can foster and build optimal human strength and well-being. The chapters show how counseling psychology plays a major role in helping people make changes at home, at work, and in the community in ways that prevent disease risk and strengthen personal and social resources. Written by leading psychologists, the volume shifts away from pathology and illness and moves more toward the science of positive psychology. Five major themes--intact personalities, individual assets and strengths, positive mental health, person--environment interaction, and career development-are discussed. These serve to unite the roles and tasks of counseling psychology. All students and professionals concerned with mental health and career counsiling with find Counseling Psychology and Optimal Human Functioning thought-provoking and helpful reading.

Derived from a conference sponsored by the Heinz Werner Institute for Developmental Analysis at Clark University, these papers consider the role emotions play in ideal human development. Contributors from the fields of psychology, philosophy, and sociology discuss the place that "feelings," "affect," "passion," and "emotion" should ideally occupy in human existence and how realization of this goal can be fostered. The conference organizers focused the discussions by asking the participants to consider six questions, each of which was intended to touch upon some aspect of the relationship between emotions and ideal human development. Chapters contain the papers presented and a summary of the discussions that followed the presentations.

An ebook version of this title is available on GooglePlay. This book is drawn from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s graduated path to enlightenment teachings given over a four decade period, starting from the early 1970s, and deals with how rare and precious it is to receive not just a human rebirth but a perfect human rebirth, with eight freedoms and ten richnesses, the best possible conditions for practicing Dharma. FPMT Lineage is a series of books of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings on the graduated path to enlightenment (lam-rim). This series will be the most extensive contemporary lam-rim commentary available and comprises the essence of the FPMT’s education program. This book is made possible by kind supporters of the Archive who, like you, appreciate how we make these teachings freely available in so many ways, including in our website for instant reading, listening or downloading, and as printed and electronic books. Our website offers immediate access to thousands of pages of teachings and hundreds of audio recordings by some of the greatest lamas of our time. Our photo gallery and our ever-popular books are also freely accessible there. Please help us increase our efforts to spread the Dharma for the happiness and benefit of all beings. You can find out more about becoming a supporter of the Archive and see all we have to offer by visiting our website. Thank you so much, and please enjoy this book!

This volume offers insights into contemporary trends and perspectives in psychobiographical research. It applys new theoretical and methodological frameworks and presents discourses on psychobiography from transdisciplinary backgrounds and various socio-cultural contexts, displaying the new state-of-the-art, new trends and themes in psychobiography. The book outlines psychobiography’s outstanding contribution to psychology from 36 internationally reputable authors. It also presents the ideas of five outstanding psychobiographers through interview excerpts. This book is a must for researchers, lecturers and practitioners in the field of psychology and social sciences interested in the use of new psychological theories and methodologies in life-span research.

Today, the human species is collectively confronting a complex existential crisis comprised of a number of diverse elements: political, economic, religious, technological, and environmental. The globalization of information and commerce has revealed to us the universality and interrelatedness of all of these factors. A Treatise of Humanism is an attempt to address the human crisis through an examination of ourselves: our past, our possibilities for a future, our common rational capacity (which should give us hope), and our common human nature. As a philosophy of humanism, this book shares many ideas with existentialism, and it may in fact be viewed as a work of American existentialism, focused on our common human condition and on what we may need to do to continue to survive and to thrive together, not only as a species of life unified through reason but as an interrelated collectivity of unique human individuals.

This book features essays that untangle, express and discuss issues in and around the intersections of politics, pop-culture, democracy, liberalism, the environment, colonialism, migration, identities, and knowledge and as they relate to the two concepts of radicalisms and conservatisms in Africa.

This volume of original work comprises a modest challenge, sometimes direct, sometimes implicit, to the mainstream Anglo-American conception of the discipline of medical ethics. It does so not by trying to fill the gaps with exotic minority interest topics, but by re-examining some of the fundamental assumptions of the familiar philosophical arguments, and some of the basic situations that generate the issues. The most important such situation is the encounter between the doctor and the suffering patient, which forms one of the themes of the book. The authors show that concepts such as the body, suffering and consent - and the role such concepts play within patients' lives - are much more complicated than the Anglo-American mainstream appreciates. Some of these concepts have been discussed with subtlety by Continental philosophers (like Heidegger, Ricoeur), and a secondary purpose of the volume is to apply their ideas to medical ethics. Designed for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students with some philosophical background in ethics, Reconceiving Medical Ethics opens up new avenues for discussion in this ever-developing field.

Surg. Dr. Kemal Tekden He was born in 1959. After completing his primary and secondary education in Kayseri, he graduated from Istanbul Faculty of Medicine in 1982. He took his first step into the profession in Dalaman Open Prison under the Ministry of Justice. Later, he specialized in Otorhinolaryngology Department of Faculty of Medicine, Erciyes University. He bring to Turkey Kayseri and Denizli TEKDEN Hospitals; Kayseri and İstanbul TEKDEN Educational Institutions with his partners. He is the Chairman of the Board of TEKDEN GROUP including these organizations and also TEKDEN FILM company, which is the producer of the series “REVIVAL ERTUGRUL” (“DİRİLİŞ ERTUĞRUL”). Surg. Dr. Kemal Tekden worked in many foundations and civil society organizations as an executive or founder. Dr. Kemal Tekden, who makes frequent trips abroad for observation purposes has studies in health, education and social fields and journal articles. He is still the holder of the privilege of Bizim Eyvan Magazine, and the Chairman of Turkey Gifted and Genius Children Education Foundation (TÜZDEV). He gives lectures on “The Meaning of Life, Entrepreneurship, Mystery of The Human Being, Gifted and Genius Children, Wisdom Education, The Art of Childrearing, Fall in Love”. He has 2 more books named OUR ABOVEGROUND TREASURES and THE STAGE IS YOURS. Surg. Dr. Kemal TEKDEN is 25th Term Kayseri Deputy. He is married and has 3 children.