What is Positive Psychology?
Positive Psychology has been around for more than a decade now, and by now it is a well established and a mature stream in psychology with its own publications, methodologies, conferences, and well-known experts. Over the past year I have been involved in Positive Psychology research and my company's flagship product is based on the work of Sonja Lyubomirsky, a leading positive psychologist. Yet, I am still surprised each and time again to see that the term Positive Psychology means different things to different people. I asked my twitter friends what they think and they said:
- Positive psych is understanding happiness, engagement, and fulfillment of human potential
- Positive Psychology = taking charge of your own state of mind/happiness
Happiness?
On the surface - Positive Psychology is perceived as the "the science of happiness". Yet this definition seems to focus on positive affect and is clearly not accurate. The PP discipline is also concerned with studying and understanding traits like strengths, and states like positivity and resilience. Being strong is not the same as being happy. And one can be very positive but not constantly smile.
Preventive Psychology?
The PP discipline started with Martin Seligman's recognition as APA president that psychology has been focused on treatment but will also benefit from studying prevention. This notion has led to Seligman's seminal work on human strengths and learned optimism. The definition then seems to have changed to focus more on flourishing: going from neutral to positive instead of negative to neutral.
A special issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychology in May this year focused on the clinical power of positive interventions that grew out of PP research. Clearly, these "happiness activities" also have clinical power and are effective at alleviating symptoms of clinical conditions like depression.
Psych-Engineering?
Finally - at the IPPA First World Congress on PP just about a month ago I've heard Seligman refer to applied PP as the engineering arm of the science of psychology.
Or - perhaps just BS?
This lack of clarity could lead to the misperception that there is "not much to positive psychology" as one of the field's leaders, Chris Peterson so gracefully wrote in his post "is positive psychology bullshit?"
IT'S NOT.
I've bet my company's future on PP - so I'd like to tell you what I think it is.
Positive Psychology is Over-the-Counter Therapy
Over-the-Counter medication is used both for prevention and for alleviation for certain conditions. Sometimes it can even cure. The broad range of OTC drugs is vast: it ranges from vitamins to drugs that have serious active ingredients. What's in common is that they are "self help" in nature: even though a doctor may suggest an OTC drug, you don't have to see a doctor to get a prescription.
Here's a little table explaining this analogy:
OTC drugs
- No need for MD prescription - but: Can be recommended by MD and be used in conjunction with Rx
- Evidence-based. Clinically proven to work
Positive Psychology:
- No need for therapist - but: Can be recommended by therapist and be used along with therapy
- Evidence-based. Empirically proven to work
Makes sense?
And it's a great sign
Over-the-counter medicine is a sign of the scientific maturity of medicine, and so I think that positive psychology is a token of maturity of the young science of psychology. It allows reaching the masses and most importantly: it replaces the non-tested and sometimes bogus self-help that occupied the psychology OTC shelves before (the same way Tylenol and Motrin replaced "grandma medicine" that was never empirically validated and many times ineffective). In this respect - Positive Psychology may be the best thing that happened to the science and practice of psychology in the past few decades.
