Wellbeing is often conceptualized as uninterrupted optimal health, as the definition created by the World Health Organization implies:
"Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."
(WHO, Founding Document)
This multidimensional, aspirational formulation was an important step for the fields of medicine and global public health.
But complexity theory teaches that this optimal level of sustained equilibrium is rare, if not impossible, in life’s complex, ever-changing conditions. Most life processes exist in far-from-equilibrium states.
Complexity theory has also demonstrated that life’s far-from-equilibrium states have a very positive feature. They regularly catalyze creative modes of self-organization that produce novel forms of increasingly complex order.
(See Prigogine’s work in physics on non-equilibrium thermodynamic systems; Kauffman’s work on complex biological and human systems.)
Humans, as complex organisms, have the same inherent capacity for self-organization that can produce new levels of self-awareness and psychological wellbeing—as an autocatalytic response to life’s dysregulating challenges.
This profound recognition concerning the human psyche requires a definition of wellbeing that incorporates life’s disorder, challenges, and uncertainty in a positive manner—rather than viewing life’s problems as aberrant impediments.
From this perspective, wellbeing must be understood as a positive process of becoming, rather than a static state of optimal being. Faced with inevitable complexity and uncertainty, humans have the self-organizing capacity to reframe their life challenges as essential ingredients for maturational growth. Applying this reformulation, they learn to interact with life’s complex difficulties through a resilient worldview, Confidence in Life and Self.
Thus, through the lens of complexity theory, wellbeing is an emergent property of the human organism: the ability to confront life’s non-equilibrium conditions with confidence in life and self.
Such confidence does not exclude natural human emotions: sorrow when experiencing loss, anger when experiencing injustice, and fear when experiencing the unknown.
However, beneath these naturally occurring emotions, the self-organizing capacity of the individual forges a foundational core of internal composure.
This confidence facilitates a sustainable form of psychological wellbeing that can thrive amidst difficulties.
This emergent process supports self-reinforcing growth. By addressing life’s complexities more creatively and effectively through this resilient worldview, individuals experience growing levels of confidence in life and self.
*
Assessing / Measuring Growth in Psychological Wellbeing
In this process-oriented approach, clinicians can invite patients to reflect on their current responses to stressful situations and life challenges.
Do they experience sufficient Confidence in Life and Self to approach these problems with growing levels of internal composure and creativity? Do they experience themselves on a path of constructive growth? Alternatively, do they feel stuck, treading water? Or do they find themselves on a downward spiral of anxiety and depression?
Through this mode of self-inquiry, clinicians can introduce patients to new concepts about psychological wellbeing. Patients often assume wellbeing is synonymous with having all their problems solved. They have not learned that they can experience wellbeing in the midst of their problems—by recognizing their disequilibrium as fertile ground for maturational growth.
This reformulation introduces a potentially transformative existential perspective.
While life may appear disorderly and chaotic on a visceral, surface level, it can be understood to have a deeper structure that is trustworthy and coherent. Its ever-changing states of disequilibrium provide necessary fertile soil for maturational growth. From this existential perspective, life becomes a teacher, rather than an adversary. This lens supports a growing sense of Confidence in Life.
To help patients monitor this growth, clinicians can also introduce them to the Inventory of Positive Psychological Attitudes (IPPA-32R). The IPPA has a self-scoring format for use in counseling, in addition to its research format. The IPPA has also been translated into Spanish.
Each of the 32 IPPA items measures a continuum (Likert Scales) of psychological responses to stressful conditions. These responses range from anxious dysregulation to internal composure.
As patients monitor their IPPA scores over time, positive changes indicate that they are encountering life challenges more resiliently.
First, they show evidence of experiencing their challenges as part of a coherent life process that can help them achieve maturational growth (Confidence in Life).
Second, they show growing evidence that they are experiencing inner resources that can help them cope more effectively and creatively with these problems (Confidence in Self).
The IPPA has two sub-scales. Life Purpose and Satisfaction During Stress (LPS) measures Confidence in Life. Self-Confidence During Stress (SCDS) measures Confidence in Self.
Together, these two sub-scales measure the unified construct, Confidence in Life and Self (CLS).
As patients engage in reflective self-inquiry about their responses to life’s disequilibrium conditions, and/or employ the IPPA, they learn that this process-oriented approach to psychological wellbeing enables them to develop a resilient worldview which is robust and sustainable in the midst their life challenges.
Additional information is available in the section, Assessment Measures.
