Page 50 - JCBP-1-2

Journal of Clinical and
Basic Psychosomatics Wisdom in mentally ill and healthy

marry or remain single, have children or kickstart a career stressful events and thus calm down, use active coping
– or both leading to nonstop stress, or buy expensive or strategies for cognitive reassessment (“reframing”) or
cheap products to save money for vacation. It is often not cope with life problems, and apply gained life experiences
right or wrong in the decisions made because all options in new problem situations. In contrast to “non-wise”
have their own advantages and disadvantages. Nevertheless, persons, “wise” persons recognize that it is not the external
different levels of capacities are required for coping with situation, but their own reaction that influences their well-
difficult interpersonal, cognitive, and factual problems. being. “Wise” persons are more concerned with the well-
Thus, having a spectrum of capacities for complex problem being of others rather than of their own [2,5,12] .
solving is a prerequisite for choosing the fitting capacity in In the modern psychosocially and cognitively
specific situations. This is what one would call “wisdom” demanding world, people with common chronic mental
and what would be helpful for everybody. health problems (e.g., anxiety, depression, and adjustment

Modern research on wisdom has been carried out for disorders) often report a lack of life and stress coping
[1]
about three decades . Wisdom is mainly understood as an capacities, which comes along with problems in work and
expertise in dealing with difficult problems in life, such as societal integration. Thus, wisdom capacity trainings have
problems about life planning, design and interpretation [2-6] . been performed, and it has been found that such trainings
Wisdom is not a disorder-specific symptom, but a achieved positive effects in psychosomatic medicine and
multidimensional and transdiagnostic capacity. Like other rehabilitation [7,10,13-15] .
capacities (e.g., assertiveness or endurance), wisdom can Wisdom as a multidimensional life and stress coping
be trained . In psychosomatic diagnostics and treatment, capacity is especially important for persons with chronic
[7]
diagnosis and training of wisdom can also be carried out mental health problems. However, it is also relevant for
by non-licensed professionals, such as social therapists or healthy people, because everybody has to cope with life
occupational therapists. This is an important advantage problems and critical situations. Until now, the distribution
for further application in prevention, treatment, and of wisdom capacities in the general population remains
rehabilitation in clinics or outpatient settings, for example, unknown. Wisdom has been investigated either in non-
occupational health prevention. clinical or clinical populations , but comparative studies
[10]
Since life stresses and dilemma target different aspects on wisdom in persons with and without chronic mental
and topics (e.g., family, money, profession, and living) which health problems are scarce [16,17] . There are currently
require different coping strategies, wisdom is understood as a no systematic data representative of a population to
multidimensional capacity [8,9] . Based on the summarization illustrate the distribution of wisdom capacities in a
of different wisdom capacities , 12 different capacities general population. The population-representative data
[10]
were found to constitute wisdom in an integrative wisdom are necessary for determining the number of people (with
model. Wisdom capacities are constituted by attitudes and and without chronic mental health problems) who have
behavior strategies, which can be used to solve different problems with certain wisdom capacities and might benefit
life problems. Wisdom capacities can also be trained. The from specific education or training in these capacities, to be
integrative wisdom concept includes the following wisdom better prepared for coping the unavoidable life problems.
capacities: (1) Factual knowledge, (2) contextualism, Representative data also contribute to basic research in the
(3) value relativism, (4) change of perspective, (5) empathy, field of psychosomatics by providing norm data that can be
(6) relativization of problems and aspirations, (7) self- used for comparisons of specific (clinical) samples with the
relativization, (8) self-distance, (9) emotion acceptance, general population.
(10) emotional serenity and humor, as well as the ability 1.1. Research questions
to accept conditions and translate them into forward-
looking behavior (11) tolerance of uncertainty, and Against this background, the main question is whether
(12) sustainability (Linden et al., 2019). people with chronic mental health problems have different
[10]
profiles of wisdom capacities as compared with people
Wisdom is the opposite of rigid, dogmatic, and inflexible without chronic mental health problems. This analysis is
thinking and behavior . There is no correlation between part of a larger representative study which investigates
[5]
[18]
wisdom and desire to behave wisely or having formal the distribution of wisdom capacities in a general national
education. Wisdom is the best predictor of life satisfaction population.
and can counteract negative impacts of aging more than
what objective life conditions, economic, environmental, The research questions are as follows:
social, and financial context aspects could do . People (i) Is there a significant difference in the wisdom
[11]
with high wisdom can better distance themselves from capacities between those with and without chronic

Volume 1 Issue 2 (2023) 2 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcbp.0945