Controversies Regarding The Definition Of Positive Psychology

Every aspect of psychology excites me. As I take more classes, and my exposure to different theories and perspectives as well as topics and fields increases, I want to know more. The possibilities and applications of psychology are endless. When I wrote about peace and positive psychology for a career paper in an English class, my thoughts on psychology's impact expanded. Influenced by humanistic psychology, positive psychology focuses not only on the health or unhealthiness of an individual, but his or her potential to thrive and live a happy life. The prior theories have opened up the long-neglected opposite side of the spectrum of one’s psychological health. I am inspired by countless psychologists, but notably Abraham Maslow and Martin

The pursuit of happiness is the universal search for a life an individual can feel content and satisfied with. However, as stated in class, happiness is a fleeting emotion rather than a prolonged state. Once an individual achieves a sense of happiness it is only a matter of time before they return to the starting point of their quest. Therefore, happiness alone is not enough to elicit a good life. On a similar note, in 2004, Professor Martin Seligman gave a TED talk that addressed the current direction of psychology. He believed the extent of psychology had become the ability to “make miserable people feel less miserable” rather than “[making] relatively untroubled people happier.” As a result, he and his colleagues developed positive psychology, a branch of psychology that promotes the components of happiness, well-being, and fulfillment to achieve a satisfactory life. The purpose of this project is to learn about your well-being and discover ways to increase the quality of your life through positive psychology.

In a true clinical setting, a patient is free to express feelings and experiences to facilitate self-healing through positive intervention techniques. With the data available on positive psychology, many clinicians may be tempted to utilize a particular positive intervention with the belief it will make a tremendous impact on the patient. However, this may be unhealthy for the patient who may need to experience negative or difficult emotion to work through the issue they are dealing with. Nonetheless, positive therapy has a definitive useful role in psychological treatment and “adds a deeper dimension to the treatment setting” (p. 404). Therapists who use this type of therapy, however, should remember not to “become a slave to the ‘tyrannies of optimism’” (Seligman, 1990, p. 292; as cited in La Torre, p. 404).

In class on Monday, we had a very engaging presentation on positive psychology and how flourishing shapes our perspective to be the successful young adults we are today. Positive psychology is the study of promotion for successful functioning. Building enabling conditions for a life worth living is vital to being satisfied with our lives and within ourselves. A few enabling conditions for a life worth living for my own perspectives is my resilience, my supportive buffers, and using my signature strength to help others.

The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” (Chuck Palahniuk). The first concept I learned is positive psychology, and unexpectedly I have applied this concept throughout my life for the last sixteen years without realizing it until this course. People who employ positive psychology are those who make people happy throughout the course of their life and are optimistic during difficult times to cope with the challenges (Franzoi, 2014, pg. 8). People who incorporate positive psychology into their life have less stress and are tend to be happier and healthier. Positive psychology brings similar effects to positive emotions like happiness and pleasure as clinical psychology that treats depression and anger (Max, 2007).

Positive Psychological Interventions (PPIs) are defined as “Treatment methods or intentional activates aimed at cultivating positive feelings, positive behaviors, or positive cognitions… (Sin, N. L., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2009). The primary goal of PPIs is to “enhance well-being and ameliorate depressive symptoms” (Sin, N. L., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2009). In simpler language, a PPI can be described any activity or daily routine that helps train the mind to have an overall positive attitude towards everyday life. This positive attitude can ultimately help people view a variety of both everyday and stressful situations and scenarios in a more positive light. The beauty of PPIs is the fact that each individual can pursue actions that

Positive Psychology is defined as “…the scientific study of human flourishing, and an applied approach to optimal functioning. It has also been defined as the study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals, communities and organizations to thrive” (Gable & Haidt, 2005, Sheldon & King, 2001, as cited by Positive Psychology Institute). According to Martin Seligman, one of Positive Psychology’s pioneers, positive psychology consists of three major components- “pleasure and gratification”, “strength and virtue”, & “meaning and purpose”. He believes that the road to “lasting fulfillment” is a journey in which an individual must pass through each component in chronological order. (Seligman)

According to Seligman (2000), positive psychology is a science that “promises to improve the quality of life” through positive individual traits, experiences and institutions (p.5). Positive psychology plays an essential role and articulates a view of good life, which can show what actions of a person would lead to well-being and into positive individuals (Seligman, 2000, p.5). Seligman formed this focus of positive psychology to study the happiness and well-being of individuals. He believed this exclusive new focus emphasizes attention on individuals’ flourishment and their ability to thrive in their commonalities and institutions. Similar to Seligman, Gable and Haidt (2005) believed that positive psychology takes an aim to study “the other side of the coin”; the ways people express their emotions and build healthy relationship with their families and institutions (p.104-105). According to Linley, Govindji and West (2007), positive psychology has grown into the study of what is right for people, particularly within the topics of strengths and happiness (p.44-45).However the negatives in life are not forgotten it is simply overridden by the focus of what makes people thrive in happiness (Gable & Haidt, 2005, p.104).Therefore the focus of positive psychology alternated from pathology to forward growth of people to be simply defined as the “science of optimal human functioning” (Linley, Govindji and West, 2007

Some applications of psychology on people are “mental health treatment, performance enhancement, self-help, ergonomics, and many other areas affecting health and daily life” (Cherry, n.d.). Nevertheless, over the years, psychologists realized that a better way to improve health and welfare is to prevent the issue before it arises. Thus, it would be easier not to let the mental disorder take place and struggle the issue in its roots. Therefore, Positive Psychology was born.

The study randomly assigned participants to either express an optimism and gratitude letter. Whereby the control group generate a list of activities from the previous week over the course of an 8 week period. Well-being was measured instantly before and after, for a 6 months intervention period. According to the article, the results of the study indicates that performance of an “optimistic thinking” activity predicted a much greater maintained change in subject well-being compare to a control condition. In contrast to Seligman et al. (2005), happiness-enhancing activities can maintain a person’s well-being improvements for up to 6 months. The activities that was best believed to maintain a person’s well-being were: positive emotion pleasure, engaged in a positive matter in life and lastly, having a meaningful life were the better route to increase happiness. The researchers examined whether the three interventions will increase lastingly happiness and decreased depressive symptoms. In the study, participants were fully aware of the conditions to embellish

Basic Assumptions: Each individual has the innate desire to live a meaningful life. Psychology is heavily focused on fixing what is wrong with an individual when there is a mental or emotional breakdown. However, people are endowed with strengths and core values that if nourished can lead to personal well-being and feelings of fulfilment. Lives can be more productive if a greater interest is placed on building a person’s strengths than on correcting the weaknesses.

There have been numerous studies in the realm of Positive Psychology and the effects it can influence in other sectors of a person’s overall wellbeing, especially in terms of attaining a positive mindset and treatment of negative general disorders, the short term benefits of a positive psychological outlook and the long term health and lifestyle benefits that are produced from it. In a 2006 journal article, Park, Peterson & Seligman stated that character strengths that were most associated with positive life satisfaction, and thereby positive psychology attaining a positive lifestyle, were hope, zest, gratitude and love. This paper examines how a person

The video discussion consists of a speech given by Martin Seligman entitled The New Era of Positive Psychology. In this speech, he discusses the use of psychology to make people happy. Attempting to define what is happy. What does it mean to be happy? Before, Psychology use to be to answer what was wrong with you. Seligman wanted to change that. He saw the state of Psychology as it was good, not good, but also where it could go.

Positive psychology, which has emerged recently, is the scientific study of human thriving. Psychology traditionally focuses on dysfunction—on people with mental illness or other psychological problems and how to treat them. Positive psychology, by contrast, is a relatively new field that examines how ordinary people can become happier and more fulfilled. In his 1998 APA presidential address, Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, argued that psychology had become too focused on curing mental illness according to a disease model, and that, for all intents and purposes, it had become a “victimology” (Seligman, 1998). What was needed, he averred, was a new “science of human strengths,” a positive psychology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).

As humans, it’s in our nature to continuously strive to live and be well . We seek