Strength in Community: Special MAPP Meet-Ups during the COVID-19 Crisis
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Photo from penntoday.upenn.edu
On Saturday, April 4th, the Penn MAPP community held an unprecedented video call with founder Dr. Martin Seligman, affectionately known to MAPPsters as Marty. This “Massive Meet-Up with Marty” brought together more than 180 MAPP alumni and current students to offer one another support, to learn about alumni efforts to address the COVID-19 crisis and to find ways to collaborate and build on these efforts.
In the community-wide invitation, MAPP Alumni Association Board President Andrew Soren stated, “we all know that resilience, and well-being more broadly, is a team sport. This is certainly a time when we need to be on the playing field together.”
The video call opened with Marty offering his reflections on the role of positive psychology in the crisis. “Right now, focus on creating positive affect for yourself and others because research supports that those activities can lower rates of infection,” Marty advised. Research also supports the importance of connecting with mentally fragile people who may be isolated. Marty suggested that we can form virtual groups – with friends or strangers – and temper catastrophic thinking by offering perspective and encouraging people to envision positive possible futures. We can bring out tried and true interventions from positive psychology that include “best-self positive introductions”, using active-constructive responding, focusing on character strengths and expressing gratitude with the “three blessings” exercise.
“After the medical crisis of COVID-19 has calmed down, it will be more about what helps people to pick up the pieces,” Marty offered. MAPPsters should plan to shift their professional focus to optimism, hope, and resilience. For practitioners, this may include stimulating post-traumatic growth and showing resilience as a route to recovery. As a society, we would benefit from strong leadership that leads with optimism and future-mindedness, as well as positive journalism, shifting away from negative biases in the media. Particularly important will be to address new levels of unemployment and to build individuals’ sense of agency.
In the discussion that followed, dozens of alumni shared their own contributions to calm, encourage and offer hope to their clientele and communities. In a technological feat for a group this size, the organizers then created breakout rooms for small groups of MAPPsters to discuss the following questions: “As a community, what are we learning, and how can we be of service?” One representative from each group then posted their group’s conclusions in the chatbox, with a number of themes emerging, including:
The positive psychology tools we already know can be life-sustaining.
We can create spaces for people to virtually connect and share, and that is powerful.
It is not necessary to have a global stage; we can act locally and no action is too small.
“Neck-down” or physical interventions like dancing and exercise are impactful.
Remember that the “cape” is reversible: both the red and the green sides are important, as is the right balance between them.
Hold space for things that aren’t so positive.
The April 4th meet-up was such a success that a follow-up event was scheduled for Saturday, April 11th, with the theme “Hunt for Hope.” MAPP alumni Rebecca Lamperski and Sophia Kokores led this meet-up, focusing on hope and creating some fun with a sing-along. Sophia encouraged the 50+ attendees to sing and dance together to some upbeat and uplifting music - with all on mute so as to minimize self-consciousness about our singing voices. Participants reported that being able to see each other sing and dance with abandon was a wonderful green-cape intervention.
Once again, the moderators made use of breakout rooms on Zoom, and the groups had lively discussions about what brings us hope and how we as MAPPsters can share hope in our communities. Author and psychologist Dan Tomasulo reminded the full group that “Hope is a unique positive emotion, in that it actually requires negativity and anxiety to be activated.” He went on to explain that hope allows people to decide to view a challenge as an opportunity instead of an obstacle.
In these community-wide meetings, one message came through loud and clear: our MAPP education has prepared us to be givers in the COVID-19 crisis. We are called to support loved ones and to scale positive psychology knowledge and interventions to the broader world. And on a fundamental level, we can use our education and understanding of well-being to take care of ourselves, and in doing so, to actively model well-being practices for those around us. As Fred Rogers instructed us in times of trouble, “Always look for the helpers.” And now more than ever, may we look no further than ourselves.
