Positive Psychology and Seafarers' Wellbeing

Abstract

The maritime profession can be psychologically challenging for individuals. Some of the compelling factors are isolation and loneliness, workplace bullying, staying away from the family, fear of losing their job, lack of sleep, and fatigue. These compelling factors have been associated with stress, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and suicide. It is necessary to benefit from the principles of psychology in order to make the ship environments more peaceful ensuring that seafarers work in a social sustainable conditions. However, It is essential to focus on positive psychology intervention programs or training in order to manage the challenges of ship life. According to the definition of the "World Health Organization," health is not just the absence of disease or infirmity, but a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing. Therefore, it is not enough for a person not to have just a problem, but also important that he/she should be in a good state of wellbeing in all areas. When the idea of wellbeing is investigated, values like having self-acceptance and self-satisfaction, the capacity for making autonomous judgments and the ability to carry out these decisions come to the fore. Looking at the maritime sector, aside from the effect of genetic psychological wellbeing factors, there are many external factors that will negatively affect the wellbeing status. The health of the seafarer is influenced by a variety of external elements, including the kind of ship he or she is working on, the length of the voyage, business culture, compliance with his or her co-workers, weather and sea conditions, family relationships and the ship's technical condition. These factors directly or indirectly affect the psychological wellbeing of the seafarer. For this reason, it is very important to inform each ship's crew, regardless of their duty, about difficult situations, to raise awareness of psychological wellbeing and to show how they can cope with the problems that may occur in their maritime life. Resilience; it is the positive psychological capacity that enables individuals to successfully overcome change, difficulty and risky situations. Therefore, people with high psychological resilience, both in their daily lives and in their business lives, can stand up many times without giving up. The ship environment is also risky, it is inevitable for the individual to encounter challenging experiences in terms of psychological wellbeing. Therefore, it is critical for seafarers to be informed about psychological wellbeing and resilience and to sail with steps taken to improve them, in terms of a peaceful ship environment.