Well-being Processes: Insights into Personal Growth and Adolescent Mental Health

This thesis follows two main lines of inquiry into well-being processes: 1) a
theoretical exploration of personal growth, defined as the gradual growth of wellbeing, and 2) an empirical exploration of students’ mental health profiles and sense of self. Altogether five studies are included in the thesis, two of which follow the
first line of inquiry (articles I and II) and three of which follow the second (articles
III, IV, and V). The first line of inquiry has the aims of 1) integrating parts of the
subfields of positive and humanistic psychology (article I) and 2) suggesting a
model of personal growth based on Carl Rogers’ (1961) person-centred humanistic
theory of therapeutic change operationalized into constructs mainly from positive
psychology (article II). This model of personal growth is intended to provide
positive psychology and positive education a theory of well-being change that could
serve as the basis for a framework for well-being interventions at schools. To
promote well-being, one must know how well-being changes; the present thesis
aims to fill this gap in the research. The other line of inquiry has the overarching
aim of studying facets of this theoretical process among adolescents – adolescents’
mental health profiles (article IV), as well as adolescents’ sense of self and mental
health (article V). Additionally, article III is a validation study of one of the
adolescent well-being scales we used. Adolescent mental health should be
understood in a nuanced way through profiles, whereby mental health symptoms
and well-being are seen as separate continuums that can co-occur in complex ways.
We found five different mental health profiles among adolescents: complete mental
health, moderate mental health, vulnerable, symptomatic but managing and
troubled. People develop a sense of self throughout adolescence, often characterized
by a conflicting sense of self in early and mid-adolescence, turning in later
adolescence towards greater coherence and authenticity, which are aspects of
personal growth. We found that the self-processes of self-awareness and self-compassion are conducive to adolescent authenticity, which was in line with the
theoretical model. This thesis contributes to new theoretical developments and
research surrounding personal growth and adolescent well-being processes. Future
research is suggested to take the study of personal growth further with evaluation of
the model, building measurement scales, and framing new well-being intervention
initiatives from the perspective of personal growth.