Nonattachment and nonattachment to self: the role of letting go in optimal psychological health

This thesis provides a comprehensive investigation of the benefits of the Buddhist construct 'nonattachment', defined as the absence of fixation on experience needing to be any way in particular. The results showed that being more nonattached is related to greater psychological and subjective well-being, and increased wisdom, self-actualisation and self-transcendence. Further, this thesis provided the first qualitative investigation of high and low levels of nonattachment, and created a new measure of 'nonattachment to self'. The findings provide detailed insight into how Buddhist concepts such as nonattachment can play in important role in Western conceptualisations of mental health.