Positive Leisure Science

Teresa Freire is assistant professor in the School of Psychology in the University of Minho (Portugal); PhD in 2000 in Psychology (Social Psychology) in the University of Minho. She graduated in Psychology in 1987, in the Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education in the University of Porto, Portugal. From 1987 to 1993 she was a teacher in the psychology course, in the University of Porto, where she did her Master Degree in Psychology (Social Psychology). Since 1993 she integrates the Department of Psychology, in the University of Minho in Braga. Presently her main researches and intervention interests are related to socio-cognitive processes and the quality of subjective experience in daily life, studying in particular optimal leisure experience and positive development of adolescents. These issues have been investigated using on-line and retrospective measures, being the study of these methodological procedures other main research goals. She is the coordinator of the Laboratory of Social Cognition and coordinator of the Research Group for the Study of Optimal Functioning (Grupo de Investigacao para o Funcionamento optimo - GIFOp) - her research group team in the School of Psychology. She coordinates several research projects, such as Master and PhD projects (funded and not funded), and belongs to European research teams in the positive psychology domain. She belongs to the European Network for Positive Psychology (ENPP), being member of the Management Board Committee and country representative for Portugal (http://www.enpp.org/), and to the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology, being founding member. For practice and intervention, she develops community services being the coordinator of the Counseling Service for Children and Adolescents of the Psychological Counseling Service and Human Development of the University of Minho, working on with individual intervention as well as group intervention. Several psychological intervention group programs have been developed, with children and adolescents, in school contexts. She also coordinates the Peer Tutoring and Coaching Project for students implemented in the University of Minho, being the author of the project and responsible for its implementation and evaluation. Within this project she coordinates master's research projects.

• Preface; Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.- Introduction; Teresa Freire.- PART I. LEISURE AND POSITIVE LIVING.- Chapter 1. Research and Theory on Positiveness in the Social Sciences - The central role of leisure; Robert A. Stebbins.- Chapter 2. Redeeming leisure in later life; Douglas A. Kleiber.- PART II. LEISURE, GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT.- Chapter 3. Adolescent Leisure from a Prevention Perspective; Linda L. Caldwell.- Chapter 4. Leisure experience and positive identity development;Teresa Freire.- Chapter 5. Positive leisure science: leisure in family contexts; Ramon Zabriskie and Tess Kay.- Chapter 6. Leisure, optimal experience and psychological selection: Cultural and developmental perspectives; Marta Bassi and Antonella Delle Fave.- PART III. LEISURE, WELL-BEING AND QUALITY OF LIFE.- Chapter 7. Facilitating change through leisure: the leisure and well-being model of the therapeutic recreation practice; Colleen D. Hood and Cynthia P. Carruthers.- Chapter 8. Flow and leisure; Kim Perkins and Jean Nakamura.- Chapter 9. Physical activity, leisure time and health; Jorge Mota, Mauro Barros, José Carlos Ribeiro and Maria Paula Santos.- Chapter 10. Bringing Leisure in: the benefits and importance of leisure to non-resident fatherhood and parent-child contact; John M. Jenkins.- Chapter 11. Happiness through leisure;Jeroen Nawijin & Ruut Venhoven. PART IV. LEISURE AND THE PURSUIT OF A POSITIVE LEISURE SCIENCE (PLS).- Chapter 12. Afterthoughts and future research directions on leisure; Teresa Freire and Linda Caldwell.-