positive psychology experts

positive psychology experts

Exploring the Principles and Applications of Positive Psychology: Insights from Leading Experts

1. Introduction to Positive Psychology

Positive psychology began as a new approach to science in the 20th century, but its organization as a specific direction began in the latter half of this century. It means at the beginning a differentiation with the common psychology, mainly because the common psychology aimed at preventing and treating human failures, studying the negative side of the behavior, the pathologies and the suffering. The difference became a true revolution, where the human being began to be studied and seen as a consumer of positive experiences and, therefore, there is an investigation aimed at preventive behaviors and the use of positive dimensions, pointing to the lived satisfactions and joys. The principles and the evaluation of what works well are the positive points, whether they are moral, emotional, subjective, valuable, cultural, national or hedonic points. Positive psychology investigates what is right about the human being and aims to inspire people to be better integrated and function better in a constantly changing world. This branch of psychology uses science in the area of personal strengths and positive characteristics that can help people and organizations thrive.

2. Key Theories and Concepts in Positive Psychology

Understanding the six virtues and three axioms of positive psychology

In 2004, significant progress was evident with the introduction of the Handbook of Positive Psychology. All the contributions to this largely edited volume supported the surprising conclusion that the richness of the human spirit is not prescribed by what is wrong, but by what’s right with people. Seligman’s personal contribution to this collection consists of an extensive exposition of the principal theoretical entities in positive psychology. Thirteen concepts are elucidated in this paper. These include the bad, good, and best life, hope, active, passive, realistic, and unrealistic optimism, catalysts, and positive emotions. What made these concepts unique was their proposed relationship with one or more major virtues such as the four life skills he had outlined in his earlier work.

How are these virtues related? When the authors reconsidered this question in detail, they concluded that the root of a large number of diverse character strengths can be traced to six universal virtues. Yet they recognized that historical and social variations might lead to different strategies elaborating the same universal human virtues. Their strategy was based on three axioms derived from a wide reading of the diverse source literature. The first axiom was formulated using August Strindberg’s provocative literary insight that failure generally results from only one of two ubiquitous defects—either a character flaw consisting of a failure to do good or a willful choice to do wrong.

3. Practical Applications and Interventions in Positive Psychology

Since its inception, the field of positive psychology has been defined by an emphasis on practice. This is reflected in the number of books with “practical” in their titles, or with authors whose work is described as solutions or interventions. In his chapter, Donald Clifton, the founding father of positive psychology, emphasized the importance of a strong and growing research foundation. He noted that without research “principles and guidelines often vary with whom you talk and what you read.” This state of affairs, he argued, has dire consequences for applied practice. When both practitioners and clients are unsure about these principles and their empirical support, the field of psychology risks becoming a set of guidelines that are inconsistently applied, and having less social impact because it lacks the credibility it could have had if decision-making were more evidence-based. This approach is embraced wholeheartedly by Dennis Charney and others in the chapters that follow. The belief that any empirical principle which catalogues for research is now known, is “clearly premature.” The book includes a number of seminal papers that reflect this influence, including our next chapter by Shelly Gable.

Positive psychology as a major augmentative area within psychology cheers the viewpoints associated with supplements such as cognitive-behavioral strategies, solution-focused brief therapy, choice theory, and psychotherapy. Training the students in utilizing the empirical findings of positive psychology together with the interventions in a sensible manner in enhancement of their personal life experiences and personal strengths will be a valuable exercise in initiating for a novel and substantive population to relate with the discipline of Psychology. Introducing the knowledge of the empirical findings and interventions to the population study, in a manner that is appropriate into multiple psychological subfields along with a motive for elevating undergraduate teaching will encourage the development of landmark projects for the interrelated student interns. Encouragement is offered to include state of the training as a designated field in practical sections of the psychology journal. Taking cognizance of study in further development together with integration of diverse and diffused intervention methods that are embraced by creative educators, faculty members of clinical, graduate students and their adaptive families. With a cognitive reappraisal, the major setbacks faced by psychologists in the implementation of long-lasting practices will be surmounted.

4. Case Studies and Success Stories from Positive Psychology Interventions

In recent years, a new, research-based, more applied and more practical field in psychology has evolved – that of positive psychology. In the first part of this book, theoreticians of this very young field presented their theories and models connected to subjective wellbeing, posttraumatic growth, character strengths, and virtues, while researchers in the second part showed possible applications of positive psychology in various intervention programs in clinical, educational, and organizational settings. However, the best proof of the whole concept, theory, and practice are real people, willing to share their personal experiences, hoping that they might inspire others to try and take some steps toward feeling better. In the third part, some of the most influential persons in the field of positive psychology have agreed to share their own success stories.

I would like to emphasize the diversity of their own life stories and changes, which only confirms that the principles of positive psychology are indeed universal. There is no one-fits-all recipe for enduring well-being; this is only something that can be achieved by trying, experiencing, and growing. I am grateful to all those who have been able to share their personal experiences in the hopes that they might inspire others. Particularly encouraging are split-second or brief experiences of happiness that can reverberate for a long time to come, teaching us also that investing in activity like that is another pillar of happiness. Positive psychology is a new concept in psychology, an attempt to change the dominant focus of psychology on states like depression, anxiety, anger, and on diagnosing mental illnesses. The objective of the pioneers of positive psychology is to study the components that underpin a content and fulfilled life.

5. Future Directions and Emerging Trends in Positive Psychology

It certainly appears that the future is promising and full of interesting possibilities for positive psychology that will expand and deepen the discipline of psychology in ways that its founders would appreciate and, perhaps, never imagined. The insights from evolutionary psychology and the naturalistic fallacy that inspired the launch of positive psychology have led to stimulating advances in the study of subjective well-being; virtues and character strengths; work that is more than workaholism; happiness that is more than the avoidance of unhappiness; the roots of empathy, altruism, pro-social behavior generally, and love; the meaning and purpose of life; and, more recently, the development of positive institutions, primarily the family, schools, and other educational institutions, the workplace, and governments.

Quite clearly, research at the bio-psycho-social level has stimulated a more sophisticated understanding of both physical and mental illness and how humanity can flourish by creating the conditions we have evolved to prefer. It has highlighted the importance of genes, brain physiology, and environmental influences at all critical periods of life, and very likely prenatal influences through the epigenetic processes that turn genes off and on. Such work has also begun to reveal the benefits of “nature” and the problems created when the “psychological environment is made toxic in terms of human evolutionary heritage” (p. 329) as it is today. These studies, not surprisingly, have raised many difficult challenges; methodological, ethical, and otherwise unexpected problems. It can be expected, as old problems are solved, newer, more interesting – often more intractable – problems will emerge. Positive psychologists will have plenty of interesting work to do, and that is as it should be.