Caution About Positive Psychology

[Guest guest]

I think this gratitude journal you guys are talking about is great.  But I suggest everyone be cautious.  When I use the words Positive Psychology, I'm talking about the branch of psychology credited to Seligman as the originator in the 1990s and includes Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Barbara Fredrickson as a couple of the leading thinkers in the field.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychologyI think most of the stuff on positive thinking you can find on web or in the self-help section at your local bookstore is garbage and can even be harmful.  So I would be careful with any kind of positive thinking or " positive psychology " .  For any positive psychology you come across make sure it's scientific-evident-based stuff.

Really most of psychology and medicine is about pathology - about what is bad or negative or abnormal or disease.   Seligman et al simply ask, why not study the positive? - what makes for a healthy and thriving life?  Not just how to avoid the negative.  (I know I write sentence fragments for any of you who are language teachers and feel a strong urge to get your red pen out to corrent my emails)

A large part of ACT is positive psychology.  Identifying your values and moving your feet to live those values is positive psychology.Cheers,