Positive Psychology

Positive psychology is a science of positive aspects of human life, such as happiness, well-being, and flourishing. Positive psychology aims to understand and enhance positive aspects of human life, such as happiness, well-being, resilience, optimism, and flourishing. It also explores the ways in which positive emotions, behaviors, and attitudes can be cultivated and sustained in individuals, families, organizations, and communities.

Martin Seligman, is the ‘scientific study of optimal human functioning that aims to discover and promote the factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive’ (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000 CHEEK-SENT-MEE-HIGH). It is not targeted at fixing problems but is focused on researching things that make life worth living instead.

This orientation in psychology was established about fourteen years ago and it is a rapidly developing field. Its aspiration is to bring solid empirical research into areas such as well-being, flow, personal strengths, wisdom, creativity, psychological health, and characteristics of positive groups and institutions.

Some key areas of research within positive psychology include gratitude, mindfulness, positive relationships, resilience, happiness, and positive education. Positive psychology has a wide range of practical applications, including in education, counseling, coaching, business, and public policy.

Positive psychology is not selfish psychology. Positive psychology has been able to give the scientific community, society, and individuals a new perspective on existing ideas as well as provide empirical evidence to support the phenomenon of human flourishing.

Positive Psychology has challenged and rebalanced the deficit approach to living while connecting its findings to many different disciplines. Positive psychology is the study of what is right with people and what makes life worth living. The field of coaching has focused on the client being “whole” and able to access solutions to challenges.

The field of positive psychology was officially launched in January 2000 in a special issue of the American Psychologist. In his seminal article, positive psychology founder MARTIN SELIGMAN and his co-author, MIHALYI CSIKSZENTMIHALYI, propose that traditional psychology is “half-baked.” That is, while the full mission of psychology was to cure disease, help the life of ordinary people and foster genius.

After the War the last two tasks somehow got lost, leaving the field to concentrate predominantly on the first one. This is how psychology as a field learned to operate within a disease model. This model has proven very useful.

Seligman highlights the victories of the disease model, which are, for example, that fourteen previously incurable mental illnesses (including depression, personality disorder, and anxiety attacks) can now be successfully treated

However, the costs of adopting this disease model included the negative view of psychologists as ‘victimologists’ and ‘pathologizes’, the failure to address the improvement of normal lives, and the identification and nurturance of high talent.

There are numerous practical uses for positive psychology. For instance, positive psychology is applied in the field of education to advance academic success, social-emotional development, and student wellbeing. Positive psychology is applied in the workplace to increase productivity, job happiness, and employee engagement. Positive psychology therapies are used in clinical psychology to support people in managing their anxiety and depressive symptoms, coping with stress, and building resilience. Positive psychology is applied in public policy to advance happiness and well-being as vital social objectives.

Overall, positive psychology is an exciting and rapidly growing field that offers new insights into the nature of human well-being and flourishing. It has the potential to transform the way we think about mental health and well-being, and to offer new tools and strategies for promoting individual and collective thriving.