回忆疗愈:过往旅游经历对老年人不幸福感的治愈作用研究

Reminiscence Therapy:The Healing Effect of Past Travel Experiences on the Unhappiness of the Elderly

在我国社会老龄化程度不断加深的背景下,寻求治疗老年人心理问题的有效疗愈手段,是提升老年人幸福感水平、实现健康老龄化的重要保障。文章基于回忆疗法,以过往旅游经历作为回忆内容,采用3个现场实验验证其对老年人心理问题的疗愈作用。其中,实验一检验回忆过往旅游经历对老年人心理问题的疗愈效果及作用机制;实验二进一步对比不同回忆内容的疗愈效果差异;实验三验证不同时期的旅游经历对老年人幸福感的提升作用。实验结果表明,回忆过往旅游经历一方面通过提升积极情绪增强老年人当下幸福感,另一方面通过提升存在意义感增强老年人回溯幸福感,对老年心理问题具有疗愈作用。此外,相比于回忆过往生活经历,回忆过往旅游经历尤其是早年旅游经历的疗愈效果更好。研究结论不仅在更大的时间尺度上探讨了旅游经历对老年人幸福感的积极影响,剖析了旅游对个体生命的整体意义,还证明了旅游经历在心理问题治疗领域的重要价值,为健康老龄化的实现提供了建议。

As the population aging becomes more serious in China,the mental health problem of the elderly is increasingly in the forefront.Against this backdrop,responding proactively to population aging has made a crucial national strategy,and the efforts to explore effective methods for treating psychological problems in the elderly is an important basis for enhancing their happiness and achieving healthy aging.Utilizing reminiscence therapy,a non-pharmacological psychological intervention,this study tested the healing effect of recalling past travel experiences on the psychological problems of the elderly and investigated the mechanism of action based on the socioemotional selectivity theory(SST),the psychosocial developmental theory,and the reminiscence bump effect.Three field experiments were conducted in 11 nursing homes in Chengdu.Experiment 1 compared the healing effect and mechanism of reminiscing past travel experiences with that of daily conversations to prove the rationality of adopting reminiscence therapy.Then,with a focus on reminiscence therapy,Experiment 2 compared the healing effect of recalling travel experiences with that of recalling life experiences and clarifies the unique healing value of recalling travel experiences.In Experiment 3,past travel experiences were divided into three stagesearly,middle,and lateand the effect of recalling travel experiences in different periods on enhancing different dimensions of happiness in the elderly was analyzed.The experimental results suggested that recalling past travel experiences enhances both the present happiness of senier individuals by boosting positive emotions and their retrospective happiness by increasing the presence of meaning,which has a significant healing effect on psychological problems in old age.In contrast,daily conversations,a common intervention to improve the emotional state of the elderly,have no obvious positive effect in tackling psychological problems.Moreover,there is no distinct difference in the effects of different reminiscence contents on positive emotions and the present happiness of older adults.With regard to the presence of meaning and respective happiness,the levels of those who recall past travel experiences are higher than those who recall past life experiences.In terms of stages when travel experiences took place,early-life ones can make older adults happier than experiences they had in middle or late life.These conclusions extend the temporal scope of existing research on tourists'happiness by validating the effect of travel experiences on the happiness of the elderly over a longer time span and analyzing the overall significance of travel on individual lives.Additionally,the study links travel experiences with reminiscence therapy and uses reminiscence of past travel experiences as a therapeutic method,expanding the content of reminiscence therapy.The results prove the importance of travel experiences in the treatment of psychological problems and provide valuable suggestions for healthy aging.