History.pdf

History of Positive Psychology  Psychology after World War II became a science largely focused on healing It concentrated on repairing damage Used disease model of human functioning Lot of attention to pathology Not focusing on a fulfilled individual and a thriving community Not focusi...

History of Positive Psychology  Psychology after World War II became a science largely focused on healing It concentrated on repairing damage Used disease model of human functioning Lot of attention to pathology Not focusing on a fulfilled individual and a thriving community Not focusing on the possibility that building strength is the most important weapon in therapy  The aim of positive psychology To bring a change in psychology from focus on repairing the worst things in life to also building the best qualities in life To redress the previous imbalance Bring the building of strength to the forefront in the treatment and prevention of mental illness  The field of positive psychology at the subjective level is about positive subjective experience: well-being and satisfaction (past); flow, joy and happiness (present); and constructive cognitions about the future—optimism, hope, and faith At the individual level it is about positive personal traits—the capacity for love, courage, interpersonal skill, aesthetic sensibility, perseverance, forgiveness, originality, future mindedness, high talent, and wisdom.  At the group level it is about the civic virtues and the institutions that move individuals toward better citizenship: responsibility, nurturance, altruism, civility, moderation, tolerance, and work ethic (Gillham & Seligman, 1999; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Before World War II, psychology had three distinct missions: curing mental illness making the lives of all people more productive and fulfilling identifying and nurturing high talent Right after the war, economic events—changed the face of psychology In 1946, the Veterans Administration was founded, and thousands of psychologists found out that they could make a living treating mental illness  At that time the profession of clinical psychologist came into its own. In 1947, the National Institute of Mental Health (which was based on the American Psychiatric Association’s disease model and is better described as the National Institute of Mental Illness) was founded Research focused about pathology  This arrangement brought many substantial benefits There have been huge strides in the understanding of and therapy for mental illness Different disorders, previously intractable, have yielded their secrets to science and can now be either cured or considerably relieved (Seligman, 1994).  But the downside was that the other two fundamental missions of psychology—making the lives of all people better and nurturing genius—were all but forgotten. Psychology came to see itself as a mere subfield of the health professions, and it became a victimology. We saw human beings as passive: stimuli came on and elicited responses. External reinforcements weakened or strengthened responses, or drives, tissue needs, or instincts. Conflicts from childhood pushed each of us around.  Psychology’s empirical focus then shifted to assessing and curing individual suffering. There has been an explosion in research on psychological disorders and the negative effects of environmental stressors such as parental divorce, death etc. Practitioners went about treating mental illness within the disease- patient framework of repairing damage: damaged habits, damaged drives, damaged childhood, and damaged brains  The message of the positive psychology movement is to remind our field that it has been deformed. Psychology is not just the study of disease, weakness, and damage It also is the study of strength and virtue Treatment is not just fixing what is wrong It also is building what is right  Psychology is not just about illness or health It also is about work, education, insight, love, growth, and play And in this quest for what is best, positive psychology does not rely on wishful thinking, self-deception, or hand waving; instead, it tries to adapt what is best in the scientific method to the unique problems that human behavior presents in all its complexity Positive Prevention What foregrounds this approach is the issue of prevention. In the last decade psychologists have become concerned with prevention, and this was the theme of the 1998 American Psychological Association meeting in San Francisco. How can we prevent problems like depression or substance abuse or schizophrenia in young people who are genetically vulnerable or who live in worlds that nurture these problems? How can we prevent murderous schoolyard violence in children who have poor parental supervision, a mean streak, and access to weapons?  What we have learned over 50 years is that the disease model does not move us closer to the prevention of these serious problems. Indeed, the major strides in prevention have largely come from a perspective focused on systematically building competency, not correcting weakness  We have discovered that there are human strengths that act as buffers against mental illness: courage, future-mindedness, optimism, interpersonal skill, faith, work ethic, hope, honesty, perseverance, the capacity for flow and insight, to name several. Much of the task of prevention in this new century will be to create a science of human strength whose mission will be to understand and learn how to foster these virtues in young people  Prevention - amplifies a skill that all individuals possess but usually deploy in the wrong place. The skill is called disputing (Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979), and its use is at the heart of “learned optimism.” If an external person, who is a rival for your job, accuses you falsely of failing at your job and not deserving your position, you will dispute him.  You will marshal all the evidence that you do your job very well. You will grind the accusations into dust. But if you accuse yourself falsely of not deserving your job, which is just the content of the automatic thoughts of pessimists, you will not dispute it.  If it issues from inside, we tend to believe it. So in “learned optimism” training programs, we teach both children and adults to recognize their own catastrophic thinking and to become skilled disputers This training works, and once you learn it It is a skill that is self-reinforcing. We have shown that learning optimism prevents depression and anxiety in children and adults, roughly halving their incidence over the next 2 years  Building a strength, in this case, optimism, and teaching people when to use it, rather than repairing damage, effectively prevents depression and anxiety. Similarly, I believe that if we wish to prevent drug abuse in teenagers who grow up in a neighborhood that puts them at risk, the effective prevention is not remedial. Rather, it consists of identifying and amplifying the strengths that these teens already have. A teenager who is future-minded, who is interpersonally skilled, who derives flow from sports, is not at risk for substance abuse  To prevent schizophrenia in a young person at genetic risk: I would propose that the repairing of damage is not going to work. Rather, I suggest that a young person who learns effective interpersonal skills Who has a strong work ethic, and who has learned persistence under adversity is at lessened risk for schizophrenia.  This, then, is the general stance of positive psychology toward prevention. It claims that there is a set of buffers against psychopathology: the positive human traits. By identifying, amplifying, and concentrating on the strengths in people at risk, we will do effective prevention  No longer do the dominant theories view the individual as a passive vessel “responding” to “stimuli” Rather, individuals now are seen as decision makers, with choices, preferences, and the possibility of becoming masterful, efficacious, or, in malignant circumstances, helpless and hopeless. Science and practice that relies on the positive psychology worldview may have the direct effect of preventing many of the major emotional disorders.  It also may have two side effects: making the lives of our clients physically healthier, given all we are learning about the effects of mental well-being on the body; and Reorienting psychology to its two neglected missions, making normal people stronger and more productive, as well as making high human potential actual.  Michaelangelo David Chip away the fear guilt shame Lao Tzu, "In pursuit of knowledge every day something is acquired. In pursuit of wisdom, every day something is dropped."  Psychology of positive human functioning will arise that achieves a scientific understanding and effective interventions to build thriving individuals, families, and communities. One may think that it is pure fantasy, that psychology will never look beyond the victim, and the remedial.  There are several possible explanations. Negative emotions and experiences may be more urgent and therefore override positive ones. This would make evolutionary sense. Because negative emotions often reflect immediate problems or objective dangers, they should be powerful enough to force us to stop, increase vigilance, reflect on our behavior, and change our actions if necessary.  When we are adapting well to the world, no such alarm is needed. Experiences that promote happiness often seem to pass effortlessly. So, on one level, psychology’s focus on the negative may reflect differences in the survival value of negative versus positive emotions. Like the fish that is unaware of the water in which it swims, we take for granted a certain amount of hope, love, enjoyment, and trust because these are the very conditions that allow us to go on living  They are the fundamental conditions of existence, and if they are present, any amount of objective obstacles can be faced with equanimity, and even joy. Camus wrote that the foremost question of philosophy is why one should not commit suicide. One cannot answer that question just by curing depression; there must be positive reasons for living as well  There also are historical reasons for psychology’s negative focus. When cultures face military threat, shortages of goods, poverty, or instability, they may most naturally be concerned with defense and damage control. Cultures may turn their attention to creativity, virtue, and the highest qualities in life only when they are stable, prosperous, and at peace. Athens during the 5th century B.C., Florence of the 15th century, and England in the Victorian era are examples of cultures that focused on positive qualities  Athenian philosophy focused on the human virtues: What is good action and good character? What makes life most worthwhile? Democracy was born during this era. Florence chose not to become the most important military power in Europe but to invest its surplus in beauty. Victorian England affirmed honor, discipline, and duty as important human virtues  The prevailing social sciences tend to view the authentic forces governing human behavior as self-interest, aggressiveness, territoriality, class conflict, and the like. Such a science, even at its best, is by necessity incomplete. It would then have to proceed to ask how humanity can achieve what is best in life.  Positive psychology will come to understand and build those factors that allow individuals, communities, and societies to flourish. Such a science will not need to start afresh. It requires for the most part just a refocusing of scientific energy. In the years since psychology and psychiatry became healing disciplines, they have developed a highly useful and transferable science of mental illness  They have developed a taxonomy, as well as reliable and valid ways of measuring schizophrenia, anger, and depression. They have developed sophisticated methods—both experimental and longitudinal—for understanding the causal pathways that lead to such undesirable outcomes. Most important, they have developed pharmacological and psychological interventions that have moved many of the mental disorders from “untreatable” to “highly treatable” and, in a couple of cases, “curable.”  Future on understanding and building those characteristics that make life most worth living As a side effect of studying positive human traits, science will learn how to better treat and prevent mental, as well as some physical, illnesses. As a main effect, we will learn how to build the qualities that help individuals and communities not just endure and survive but also flourish