exercise · all tools
Positive Reframing
Depth · what it can open●●○○2 — reflective
Holding · facilitation2 — facilitator
Trust · group readiness★any
Disclosure · what is sharedoptional
Participants take real negative framings — of the crisis, the project, the team's chances — and rework them into honest positive ones, testing the difference in energy and options each framing produces. Optimism built as a craft of language and attention, explicitly without denial.
Hold with care
- Reframing despair a group actually feels, too fast, reads as dismissal — acknowledge first, reframe second (Jordan's version: 'genuine hope without denial')
Practical
- Time
- 60-90 min
- Group
- 2–10 · pairs, small-group
- Settings
- in-person, online
- Materials
- Whiteboard or flip chart
- Mechanisms
- cognitive-reframing, dialogic-encounter
- Change scope
- state → skill · repeatable
Instructions
- Where
- transitionmakers.nl/tool/positive-reframing — Transition Makers Toolbox, open
- Availability
- Open online — published at the link, free to read
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0 per the Transition Makers footer; its badge links CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 — variant unresolved, see source record
Source link checked 29 Aug 2026 — unchanged since we recorded it on 28 Aug 2026
This directory describes and points home; the instructions stay with the people who made them.
Origin
Mashiho Mihalache via Transition Makers Toolbox (IIS UvA); team adaptation by Thomas Jordan — Cognitive reframing / hope work
In this directory via Transition Makers Toolbox · Thomas Jordan's IDG Resource Library
status: checked · added 2026-08-25