Version 1
: Received: 8 January 2024 / Approved: 9 January 2024 / Online: 9 January 2024 (15:48:35 CET)
How to cite:
Wong, P.T.P.; Cowden, R.G.; Yu, T.T.F.; Arslan, G. Existential Wellbeing in Palliative Care: A Paradigm of Existential Positive Psychology. Preprints2024, 2024010747. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202401.0747.v1
Wong, P.T.P.; Cowden, R.G.; Yu, T.T.F.; Arslan, G. Existential Wellbeing in Palliative Care: A Paradigm of Existential Positive Psychology. Preprints 2024, 2024010747. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202401.0747.v1
Wong, P.T.P.; Cowden, R.G.; Yu, T.T.F.; Arslan, G. Existential Wellbeing in Palliative Care: A Paradigm of Existential Positive Psychology. Preprints2024, 2024010747. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202401.0747.v1
APA Style
Wong, P.T.P., Cowden, R.G., Yu, T.T.F., & Arslan, G. (2024). Existential Wellbeing in Palliative Care: A Paradigm of Existential Positive Psychology. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202401.0747.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Wong, P.T.P., Timothy T. F. Yu and Gökmen Arslan. 2024 "Existential Wellbeing in Palliative Care: A Paradigm of Existential Positive Psychology" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202401.0747.v1
Abstract
This article introduces existential wellbeing (EWB) as one of the most ignored but also the most important kind of wellbeing, especially for people who experience life-limiting diseases and need palliative care (Wong & Yu, 2021). This article will not only review the literature regarding the nature and practice of existential wellbeing in palliative care, but also propose a preliminary Existential Wellbeing Scale.
EWB is defined as the quality-of-life characterized by living well and dying well in spite of pain, obstacles, and the shadow of death; wellbeing within the context of human suffering can only be fully understood from the perspective of existential positive psychology (EPP), dedicated to the study of sustainable wellbeing based on the foundation of transcending suffering. The basic tenets of EPP are (1) redefining positivity or wellbeing in terms of seeing and being the light in the darkness; (2) focusing on the dialectical process of navigating an adaptive balance; and (3) re-orienting one’s life attitude from egotism to self-transcendence (Wong, 2023a).
More specifically, EWB depends on some combination of the following experiences: (1) Prior experience of overcoming adversity; (2) Existential intelligence (Gardner, 2020) in addressing existential concerns; (3) Existential wisdom of the soul (Wong 2022a; Wong, Ho, et al, 2023a) to achieve existential wellbeing and sustainable flourishing; (4) Spiritual wellbeing based on spiritual values such as faith, hope, and love (Wong, 2023); (5) Knowledge of meaning-focused coping (Eisenbeck et al., 2021); and (6) The new paradigm of self-transcendence (Reed & Haugan, 2021; Wong, Arslan et al., 2021; Wong, Ho et al., 2023b) to transcend and transform suffering into wellbeing and triumph.
Public Health and Healthcare, Public Health and Health Services
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
