Prospective Psychology is the scientific study of mental representations and evaluations of possible futures. Seligman, Railton, Baumeister, & Sripada (2013) concluded that most human behavior is not driven by the past but pulled by the future. When it comes to psychopathology, negative prospections, disrupt emotion and motivation and could facilitate the development of mental disorders. Indeed, negative prospection may be seen as core causal element of depression (Roepke & Seligman, 2016).
In the light of these findings Philip Streit developed, together with Martin Seligman, the new psychotherapeutic approach of Prospective Psychotherapy, which focuses on the change in negative prospections and on the development of an attractive and pragmatic view of the future. These new prospections pull the patient out of his symptoms and navigate him towards the solution of his problems.
In this workshop Philip Streit will present the theoretical framework of Prospective Therapy, the three stage RET-model (Resonance-Everest-Tools) for successful prospection. In the first stage several strategies and the basic attitude on building up positive resonance with the patient will be discussed. The second stage focuses on the development of an Everest goal. The third stage involves empirically validated psychotherapeutic tools which support the patient during the therapeutic process.