Confronting Loneliness: A Talk with 19th Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy at the 2019 MAPP Summit

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Confronting Loneliness: A Talk with 19th Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy at the 2019 MAPP Summit

Graduates of UPenn’s MAPP program know well that social connection is a powerful and necessary ingredient for well-being. At the MAPP Summit last October, students were treated to a visit from the 19th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who has made it his mission to spread the message that lack of human connection poses a significant public health risk to our nation. In fact, lack of connection, experienced as loneliness, can affect our health in profoundly negative ways.

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Sowing A Garden of Positivity during a Pandemic: MAPP’s Strategies to Thrive Series

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Sowing A Garden of Positivity during a Pandemic: MAPP’s Strategies to Thrive Series

It was a spark of an idea in the first days of the “lockdown” into physical distancing instigated by the COVID-19 crisis: share positive psychology with the public to counteract what was beginning to feel like a collective emotional tailspin. Penn MAPP alumni Sharon Danzger (C’18), Lisa Sansom (C’10), Senia Maymin (C’06) and Sean Doyle (C’07) got busy and organized Strategies to Thrive, a forum for Penn MAPP alums to present a series of webinars, available free to the public. Now drawing to the end of a 42-day outpouring of information and know-how, the positivity inherent in the 70 presentations has been viewed 5,869 times and counting.

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Strength in Community: Special MAPP Meet-Ups during the COVID-19 Crisis

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Strength in Community: Special MAPP Meet-Ups during the COVID-19 Crisis

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 COVID19 crisis and to find ways to collaborate and build on these efforts.

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Uncertain times. Anxious times. Times to write: Tips for Getting Beyond Writer’s Block

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Uncertain times. Anxious times. Times to write: Tips for Getting Beyond Writer’s Block

We are in the middle of a world-wide crisis as humans face the threat of COVID-19. Is this the right time to write? I answer this question for myself by thinking about two audiences.

  • The people whose anxiety and uncertainty might be eased by what I have to say.

  • Our children, grandchildren, and others in the future who may wonder, “What was it like in the middle of a global pandemic? What did you do? What worked? How did you feel? What helped you get through it?”

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When the Going Gets Tough, MAPPsters Get Going

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When the Going Gets Tough, MAPPsters Get Going

Over the past three weeks, as our world underwent a dramatic, unprecedented transformation to “social distancing” in the face of the COVID19 pandemic, The University of Pennsylvania’s Master of Applied Positive Psychology alumni community, affectionately known to one another as MAPPsters, were mobilizing.

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MAPPsters Unite at IPPA’s 6th World Congress, Melbourne 2019

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MAPPsters Unite at IPPA’s 6th World Congress, Melbourne 2019

For four days in July, 2019, more than 1700 delegates from 60 countries around the world came together in Melbourne, Australia, for the 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology (WCPP). Academics, researchers, educators, practitioners, change agents, students, and positive psychology experts gathered at the Melbourne Convention Center to exchange ideas, learn from one another, and to advance the field.

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