Virtue and Psychology: Pursuing Excellence in Ordinary Practices

Course overview

Virtue and Psychology offers a fresh and groundbreaking understanding of how psychologists can help people to flourish as human beings by cultivating their best selves. Virtues are character strengths--such as generosity, loyalty, and courage--that make it possible for individuals and relationships to flourish. The virtue perspective provides a deeper, richer account of many psychological topics than current theory is able to generate and can significantly enrich wide areas of current theory and practice. The text presents research results, clinical vignettes, and teaching and supervision experiences to illustrate how, individually and collectively, virtues make a very practical contribution to individual physical and psychological health, the quality of personal relationships, social harmony, and strong communities. The book has an extensive section on the centrality of practical wisdom. Numerous examples show how practical wisdom guides all of our activities, personal and professional by making it possible to see what is most important and choose actions that address the central aspects of our circumstances in ways that help us to reach our cherished goals.