Problematic Positive Psychology

If you have interacted with psychologists, psychotherapists, or anyone touting “resilience” in the last decade or so, there’s a good chance you have run into positive psychology:  “Just over 20 years old, this field has captivated the world with its tantalizing promises — and drawn critics for its moralizing, mysticism, and consequential commercialization.”1

Training courses on resilience and happiness are built on positive psychology. The people I talk to who have been through resilience training have loved it. That is a sample size of two people, but more think like them, I’m sure. And what’s not to love about so much yummy positive re-enforcement and unending encouragement to follow one’s bliss?  Improving a sense of pleasure is more important than managing depression and anxiety—that’s the core message of positive psychology.

If you have a mental illness, however, you might not be enjoying these moments of puppy dogs and rainbows quite as much as others think you should. I know non-mentally ill people are scratching their heads: “Wait: aren’t you the ones who should embrace positive psychology the most? Shouldn’t you try to be resilient?” I’ll let renowned sociologist Dr. Eva Illouz elucidate such criticism Martin Seligman, the founder of the movement, would likely level at us. She writes, “If hopelessness, depression, pessimism can be corrected by adequate training, their existence and persistence point to a lack of adequate mental training. This lack of mental training becomes a moral failing.”2

Therapists may try to argue that it’s not believed that “this lack of mental training becomes a moral failing” and therefore this is not a real argument. I will state from the point of view of one who feels failure all the time, and no more so than when an entire academic field has overtly abandoned helping me, that positive psychology enthusiasts can take a flying leap into their positively lovely toilets. Please remember to flush.

Some of us have spent years training our minds, yet still somehow can’t hop aboard the Positivity Express …because we have a bloody mental illness…, and don’t need some MFT beaming at us radiantly and telling us that we can reach nirvana if we just think happy thoughts and work at it hard enough. Because I work plenty hard enough. Someone like me does not spend over two decades in therapy and not learn a whole lot about multiple modalities and how to apply them.

And then there are the people who are simply mentally ill and don’t have the ability to aim for stability. They are unable to retain a positive affect, feeling even worse now because they can’t change the way they feel and are without any voice to shout their exceptionality. No amount of meditation, mindfulness, and gratitude projects can make up for serotonin and dopamine levels that are truly shot to Hell.

Hormonal imbalances also wreak havoc with finding your happy place,  a challenge frequently encountered by women. My schizophrenic friend was once a pianist prodigy, even mentioned in the paper. Now, it’s hard for her to just get by day-by-day. Was she “learning helplessness” the times I picked up her medication for her instead of forcing her to get a 20 minute bus ride to somewhere a few miles away? After all, she couldn’t walk due to comorbid illnesses, something I too understand.

Illouz explains, “All this amounts to creating a new way of stigmatizing those who lack in self-sufficiency and in positive thinking. Not only is lack of self-worth not viewed as an effect of social structure but it is viewed as self-inflicted.”3 She hits the nail on the head: This is yet another stigmatization. Those without positivity are viewed as only being in that mental state out of their own doing or their own laziness. Seligman hasn’t just abandoned us; he’s sold us out.

Congratulations, psychology, on lurching to the opposite direction from pathology. Might I make a modest proposal though? How about instead of how can you be happy? , ask how can you be your best? I think that should be the next incarnation of this social psychology. It seems I have some support: Initially, Seligman went all out on selling happiness. In his more recent book Flourish he suggests that perhaps happiness is not the single goal mankind should pursue after all. He recognized that the purpose of life is to flourish, to be well.

Is that pendulum slowing down again? For Seligman, the path to flourishing is taking moral action. He invites readers of Character Strengths and Virtues to identify their top strengths and integrate them further into their lives. A stretch strength can be added. Some have said Character Strengths and Virtues is the “antidote to the DSM.” I have no love for the DSM. I think psychiatry is still in a relatively primitive form in our early 21st century. Gene markers will likely be used for diagnosis someday, or brain scans. Even though I think a lot of the DSM is bunk, I can’t conceive of an “antidote,” however.`

Let’s take a quick look at the history and current status of positive psychology. For some reason positive psychologists want their own separate field — a “distinct science.” 4  We’ll ignore for the time being what is sure to become a recurring theme: social psychology is not a science. It is in the definition of science as, “a systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular subject”; but in terms of “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment,” well, no social science is truly “science.” , The word has been appropriated by the humanities to provide extra gravitas.

Because that’s really what all this “science” posturing is about—a desire “to be taken seriously”.  Everything is a science now. Except calling something science doesn’t make it science. When scholars talk about psychology or other fields as a science, they are referring to that body of knowledge that has been supported rigorously through replicated empirical examination and significant (typically) quantitative analysis. Notice the replicability requirement. In other words, if you want to be a science, act like a science. If you aren’t following the scientific method, you’re not a science.

Positive psychology can find roots in to Maslow’s 1954 book, Motivation and Personality. However, it has history going back to 1908 when William James challenged his peers of the American Psychological Association, asking why some people live engaged, happy lives, and others don’t.

Of course, all the famous Greek philosophers have asked some version of this question, so the “origin” date can be as early as antiquity if you like. Today, scholars follow American Psychological Association (APA) board president Martin (Marty) Seligman, who is credited with inventing modern, “practical,” positive psychology, which he first unveiled in his inaugural address of the annual APA conference. After this, psychologists left behind a pathology approach to ask instead of “what’s broken?”; “what works?”

Positive psychology sounds more like a cult than a “scientific” branch of a long-standing discipline. After all: a charismatic leader with now a multitude of adoring followers just happened to have an epiphany  right before his first APA meeting as president  so he would have something grand to unveil?  “I have no less mystical way to put it,” Seligman wrote in Flourish: “Positive psychology called to me just as the burning bush called to Moses.” The philosopher Mike W. Martin (Chapmen University) has responded that this psychology has taken leave of science and is now in the realm of ethics.5

The shift in psychology focus came in Seligman’s reaction to the focus on pathology, on mental illness, that had up until recently consumed the field:  “During this time, both fields independently recognized that their work was focusing disproportionately on illness and pathology, with scholars in psychology calling for the scientific study of the phenomenon of human flourishing.”6         

To be fair, in the 1990s, many healthcare insurers and managed care providers slashed their coverage of mental health benefits, especially talk therapy. It is thanks to past extensive talk therapy (and medication) that I do as well as I do. But my husband and I pay for these privileges dearly by forking out for the top tier of PPO insurance his company offers. Many psychologists want to help people, and they need to find a new source of income. Becoming a coach cuts through all the tape and becomes a top career option.

However, I was a coach in the Bay Area of California for ten years, working with technologists. I’ve attended two different coaching schools for a time, and they both stressed that when someone is psychologically unwell, they should go to a psychologist for help; when someone is healthy, then it’s the coach’s turn to elevate that wellbeing into the best version of who the client wants to be.

In reality, of course, few people are perfectly healthy. And those that seek out help from a psychotherapist or a coach are seeking help for a reason. I never professed to offer mental healthcare; but if I turned away everyone who “wasn’t healthy,” I would have had no clients. In general the standard should hold, however: if you are unwell, seek behavioral healthcare; if you are well, here’s a fourteen-session coaching plan with the goal of making your improved habits and behaviors generative. I can’t stress enough that former line separating Church and state has now been broken by positive psychology.

Fate has dealt those with serious mental illnesses (SMIs) a terrible blow. Sometimes we can find work. It’s often a struggle. And if we choose to react with negativity to the tremors, dry mouth, and sexual dysfunction antipsychotics can offer, or the fact that we haven’t slept in days, yet can’t get out of bed, that’s simply how it is. Positivity involves looking on the bright side. When all you know lately is the dark side of the moon, you aren’t quite in a place of preparation for basking in the sun’s happy glow. Positive Psychology has its own dark side, as other scholars have noted. (In fact, it played a large role in my divorce.)

Mike Savage discusses his colleague Michèle Lamont’s account of the collective trauma, concerns and quandaries in the early 21st century, and how she dissects the neo-liberal self, which Savage finds is triply disabling:

Firstly, it is corrosive for the middle and upper classes who have previously been its principal beneficiaries, but now succumb to the stresses that its insistence on performance and striving poses to their mental health and well-being. Secondly, it is also problematic for ‘the bottom half’ of Americans, who had previously embraced ordinary identities but are now feeling the deleterious effects of escalating inequality, and are increasingly marginalized. And thirdly, it stigmatizes and locks out ethnic minorities and immigrants. The result is a toxic intersection of classism and racism (gender is not greatly discussed) which is having potentially dystopic effects on American society.7

Lamont and Savage make it clear that changes in society of late have not been all that productive. Healthcare and insurance companies have been dropping coverage while people are busy watching NCIS. Meanwhile, inequality is rising. Increasingly marginalized people have the most to lose from the positive psychology movement.

Being caught in an endless loop of brief happiness at the “coach’s” office, followed by the inevitable let-down as your life sinks into your body again, then chased with feelings of inadequacy and disappear for not maintaining a positive affect…. This tends to make the client feel worse.                 

It’s not only the fact that the mentally ill get a new stigmatization because they can’t be happy with the demons in their heads, the voices, the compulsions, the cruel doubts. No, it’s not only that. It’s that it’s amoral to suggest that everyone should just follow whatever makes them happy at all times. Life doesn’t make you happy at all times. Please try to tell me how to reframe my dog’s recent death into something positive?  We “shouldn’t be ‘ruled’ by negative emotions,” we hear all the time. We shouldn’t be “ruled” by happy ones either. Not if you want to truly bear witness to life, to live authentically.

I do know incredibly optimistic people, and I simply cherish the way they think—my husband is one of them, my mother another. But we wouldn’t have the music from Beethoven we have today if there had been a big positivity movement through Europe in the 1820s.

Not that I can imagine positive psychology originating in any country other than the infant-aged USA, hooked on fast cures and quick fixes. Positive psychology may be worldwide, but it is undeniably an American product. I understand building on strengths and minimizing weaknesses. But positive psychology can be plainly detrimental to many.

Yes, there are a proliferating number of companies, coaches, and private enterprises looking to cash in on the positive psychology trend. Take this one—we’ll look at the section on Aristotle: https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/aristotle/. According to the website, “More than anybody else, Aristotle enshrines happiness as a central purpose of human life and a goal in itself.” And he even “introduced the idea of a science of happiness in the classical sense.”  (A “classical” science of happiness?)  Notice the banner on the top: “Happiness is Understandable, Obtainable, and Teachable…” And if you click “view our courses” next to the banner, you will learn there are all sorts of classes, and tiers of classes, you can take. You can become proficient. You can become a teacher. All for a little $$$.

But back to Aristotle. Is he the rubber stamp of approval on positive psychology? (From what is said about Seligman, he hardly thinks he needs a rubber stamp beyond his own.) But no, Aristotle is not the father of positive psychology. Although he did discuss happiness and recognized that we need to bring our own happiness, he suggested several different ways of living he would consider fulfilling for people. The acquisition of happiness is actually not one of those pathways, virtue is. One becomes virtuous by… being virtuous! And here the playing field between the mentally ill and the non-mentally ill is significantly leveled. The woefully malcontent can still be virtuous.

Aristotle gives a rough general taxonomy of the moral virtues, dividing them into those concerned with feelings or passions (courage and temperance), those concerned with external goods (e.g., generosity, magnificence, magnanimity), and those concerned with social life (e.g., mildness, truthfulness, wittiness, friendliness), and justice.8

Ultimately, Seligman, who began his career electrocuting dogs into submission until the concept of learned helplessness entered the psychology text books, would have us believe that if we are dissatisfied with our lot, we’re simply not resilient. Resilience training has been part of Army training for years now, and has been reviewed favorably by many who take the course. It’s not clear there is any actual science to support resilience, however.

The popular CSF courses were launched by the Army in 2007. After Seligman saw what may or may not be significant statistical evidence for resilience interventions, he launched a center for kids to learn resilience, attached to his University of Pennsylvania. The army came knocking, looking for a way out of their horrible PTSD and suicide record of those who returned home.

Staving off PTSD by taking a proactive course in resilience seems ridiculous given the complex nature of PTSD, a condition concocted through a level of fear and anguish from facing down some of the most extreme events that any  person could witness. What cute metaphor from CFT are you going to trot out as your buddies get slaughtered in front of you? Will you “hunt for the good stuff?”9 Will your “resilience training” be of any use at all, in fact?

According to Seligman, the army did indeed contract him for CSF. He wanted to run a pilot, but the army insisted on a full-scale rollout. Popular, of course, is not the same thing as empirically-backed. In fact, the improvements seen in the Penn resilience programs for kids, when measured, are tiny.10

Seligman writes that the changes are statistically meaningful—small, but meaningful. I would counter that since your goal is to prevent depression and anxiety, a change of 0.3% is not clinically meaningful. To get to even those data, you have to wade through meta analyses of all kinds of tests, many not “resilience” but perhaps “resilience-related.” But resilience and CSF are related topics for another time.

Meanwhile, in 2018 a quarter of all Yale undergraduates enrolled in courses on happiness.  This “field” of positive psychology has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in grant money. “It inspires tens of thousands of research papers, endless reams of popular books, and supports armies of therapists, coaches, and mentors.”11

Seligman’s focus on “flourishing” has come under fire from some for his focus on material achievement. “He has theorized that people who have not achieved some degree of mastery and success in the world can’t be said to be flourishing.12 This may or may not be true. Does a monk in a monastery experience “success”? He might indeed be flourishing.

Those who have not found any success in the world perhaps are unlikely to consider themselves “flourishing,”  depending on their outlook and other events, traditions, and practices in their lives. Seligman once described a thirty-two-year-old Harvard University summa  in mathematics who is fluent in Russian and Japanese and runs her own hedge fund as a “poster child for positive psychology” (in Flourish). This makes “flourishing” seem unattainable for even the average human, let alone the fully abandoned person with mental illness (PMI)

Seligman’s new version of psychology is out of touch with true reality. You may have heard that there is a replicability crisis in social psychology. It would certainly behoove researchers in this area to replicate positive psychology tests. The replicability crisis has even got its own wiki page.13  Some psychologists regard the crisis as “overblown” and suggest, for example, that ‘conceptual reproduction’ is even more meaningful than direct replication. Pashler and Harris shut this line of thinking down.14

The fact is, there is little to no empirical evidence that positive psychology does what it says it does. Now, it does marginalize people who have negative affect due to serious illness, poverty, or other systemic factors; those who have suffered tragedy, and those with serious mental illness.  Illouz admonishes, “[the] contemporary capitalist economy makes exacting psychic demands on the self and that personality is evaluated according to the self-esteem, self-worth, and self-confidence it displays.”15 

In the end, however, positive psychology is a powerful fad that, unleashed two decades ago, has had time to establish itself… and flourish. I don’t see positive psychology disappearing any time soon—far from it, I would wager that resilience courses will be on the menu all over corporate America and academia within a few years. There will be some chains, maybe some franchises.

When my ex–husband left me for another woman after almost ten years of marriage, I did everything I could think of to win him back. I loved him. I still love him, even though I’ve been happily remarried for over ten years. I thought we would be together forever. I cried streams, rivers, oceans, and searched for any signs of hope that I could reach him. I suggested activities with him, like accompanying him on his hockey games; I engaged him in conversation, showed him how much I loved him. Yet he moved out of our house into a little apartment, and started seeing a new therapist.

His parents, with whom I was extremely close, as was my entire family, became alarmed at the content of this new therapy, and they called my parents to discuss it. My parents called me. The more I listened, the angrier I became. This therapist was telling my husband that he should do whatever it was that made him feel happy. She worked on looking for the most positive side. I was livid, but there was no way I could intervene. My ex-husband, a typically sensible, rational man, seemed to hang on this therapist’s every word. And so his girlfriend became pregnant and we divorced. Yes, in that order.

That was my introduction to positive psychology therapy, and I was furious. And devastated. Our two families were enmeshed. My husband and I had been trying for children for years. Yes, I had been distant of late, because I was running a satellite engineering office in Phoenix, making money for us. I was even accepting of him seeing someone on the side. (Emphasis on side.) A responsible counselor would have told my husband to go back into marriage counseling with me. We only had one and a half sessions: during the second one he announced he was moving out, I started crying uncontrollably, and we left.  We really needed to talk through this. And I knew we could. And if we couldn’t come together again?  I wanted to know we actually tried to work it out!

My in-laws had lobbied hard, but they sadly relayed that my husband had bought into the idea of “what makes me happy?”, and what was making him happy was his new girlfriend. Of course she was. The deeper fulfillment my husband and I should have felt due to the shared memories and missions could have been surfaced above the shallow “this makes me happy now” siren call.  The positive psychology therapist was thoroughly irresponsible.

The full story of my divorce is for another time, but you should know what role positive psychology played in the demise of my marriage. If positive psychology was the reaction to pathology-focused psychology, then let me say that positive psychologists are all idiots who missed the obvious notion that the pendulum rests in the middle. Again, it’s not, “what’s wrong?” neither is it “what works?” It’s “What do you need to be the psychologically healthiest you?”

Even true believers might admit there is a dark side to happiness. Many good personality traits quickly become maladaptive when they are extreme. Gruber et al. inquire:

First, is there a wrong degree of happiness? Second, is there a wrong time for happiness? Third, are there wrong ways to pursue happiness? Fourth, are there wrong types of happiness? Cumulatively, these lines of research suggest that although happiness is often highly beneficial, it may not be beneficial at every level, in every context, for every reason, and in every variety.16

Incidentally, their study findings were: (1) happiness is not always good; (2) It is possible to have too much happiness; (3) happiness can be pursued in the wrong ways and at the wrong times; (4) there are wrong kinds of happiness. In other words, as desirable as the pursuit of happiness may be, it can be completely dysfunctional.

You will never convince me that positive psychology has a place in life unless it’s empirically proven to work. Yes, there have been many studies on positive psychology, but if you look at the meta-studies, positive psychology’s claims start to fall apart. In an article, Seligman states:

In 2020, The Journal of Positive Psychology published the meta-analysis of the positive-psychology interventions, or PPIs, that went into the CSF package. The authors reviewed 347 studies involving over 72,000 participants from clinical and nonclinical child and adult populations in 41 countries. The effect of PPIs, with an average of 10 sessions over six weeks, offered in multiple formats and contexts, was evaluated. The positive-psychology interventions had a significant small to medium effect on well-being (g = 0.39), strengths (g = 0.46), quality of life (g = 0.48), depression (g = −0.39), anxiety (g = −0.62), and stress (g = −0.58). (G is the effect size; 0.39 is midway between small [0.20] and medium [0.5]). Gains were maintained at three months’ follow-up.17

Seligman is quick to explain the analysis, and that these “small to medium” gains are to be celebrated, not scorned at. If these numbers are right, then they should indeed be acknowledged academically. But are there any clinical improvements? We’re trying to save people from PTSD and suicide. Clinically-meaningful gains should be the bar. There is no peer-reviewed study that show any gains that might be considered clinically useful.

As noted, it’s likely that positive psychology, or Seligman’s strange interpretation of “flourishing” psychology, are not going away any time soon. But I worry about the younger crowd. Gen-Z is already self-reportedly more depressed and socially anxious than previous generations,18 and likely to engage with behavioral health professionals at a higher rate than other generations.19 It would be a shame if too many of them got caught up in the “net of happiness.” Although all indications at the moment is that the persistent mental health stigma is still preventing Millennials and Gen Z from getting the care they need. (See my piece on mental health stigmatization.)

Gen-Z is also more emotionally open; they feel the world in a way that is harder for older adults to understand. They would be easy bait for resilience courses. I’d wager many of them would like to be more resilient. So would I. But I fear for a generation of people sensitive enough to address the ills of the world all ending up in a mindless soup of manufactured cheeriness and drained parental wallets in addition to their own. For positivity is a booming business.

But let me ask you – if something negative happens in your life, do you always reframe it towards positivity? Let’s face it, when your father dies, you want a therapist, not a coach. You want someone who knows how to walk with you in your deep level of grief and pain. The (actual) psychologists who moved into this field have a choice to make at times like these. Personally I would include impending divorce as one of these rather major stressors that require a lot more depth and dexterity than a cheerleader can provide.

What about the children? On positivepsychology.com there is an opinion piece on the splash page from a “Catherine Moore, Psychologist, MBA.” I didn’t know you could claim to be a psychologist without having any appropriate degree or credentialing, but these days anything goes in social psychology. (Just slap the word “science” after it, and it’s all good.)  Moore’s intro is pure Seligman: “All parents want the best for their children. They want their children to be happy and to flourish. They want them to live out their dreams and reach their innate potential.”20

Then comes the problem statement: “The challenge, however, is finding the right education model. One that doesn’t stifle their potential nor produce cookie-cutter pupils.”21 And finally the solution: “An excellent option to consider is positive education, which combines traditional education principles with research-backed ways of increasing happiness and wellbeing.”22  Research-backed? Oh I’d like to see that research! Anything that is about positive psychology is currently built on smoke and mirrors, not science. I don’t care that the needle moved up 0.3% According to Jesse Singal, author of The Quick Fix: Why Fad Psychology Can’t Cure Our Social Ills, there is no empirical data that supports positive psychology.

By all means send your kids to these positive classroom environments. It might appeal to that nostalgia for the psychology self-esteem movements of well, not too long ago, which, by the way, were also bunk. 23  Hmm…how about we help those young adults be as mentally healthy as they can? Healthy is not the same as happy, by the way. As psychologically healthy as possible should be the goal. And for those like me who will fail that goal because we have a serious brain illness? We still need to be the best that we can be too—only we can’t beat ourselves up if that best falls shy of our expectations.

People with SMIs shouldn’t compare themselves with those who received all the right brain chemicals and genes when they were born. But we should try our best to “flourish” as much as possible. Given the right stimuli I too can be happy! But I’m not about to try to program my brain to write over everything that isn’t happy. I’d prefer to be authentic.

I have chronic pain. It’s difficult to be cheery when you’re in literal tears over the morning’s pain level. And I imagine anyone else in serious chronic pain finds it hard to be happy much of the time. So let’s talk about your pain instead of how to make you happy? Let’s talk about options for managing the pain psychologically? Let’s talk about your other stressors too, so at least you’re not overburdened with those and pain? Let’s talk about what emotions pain elicits? Let’s do proper therapy instead of URresliliant,™inc.? Let’s take care of you!

In their book Manufacturing Happy Citizens, Professors Edgar Cabanas and Eva Illouz criticize positive psychology for progressing a “Western, ethnocentric creed of individualism.” Additionally, “at its core is the idea that we can achieve well-being by our own efforts, by showing determination and grit.”24 This is simply not true, as the authors explain. It is important to simply be the best version of yourself as possible, even if that possibility seems very small sometimes, and knowing that changing circumstances will affect your mood.

If you can become a “resilient” person, that’s great. Is it preferable to being non-resilient? In the army it is. Other jobs can require a certain degree of resilience. But resilience isn’t the pathway for everybody; it’s no panacea, it’s dubious as an intervention, and nobody should feel bad because they hurt too much (in any fashion) to feel positive. Also, the notion of strength through “grit” is nicely debunked by Jesse Singal. 25

Dr. Nico Rose in Germany believes we need whatever optimism we can get: “we would all be wise not to lose our nerves (and our humor) right now. To put it in a more positive way: These days, an upbeat spirit, hope, self-efficacy and optimism are not ends in themselves, but may be vital for our wellbeing, and even: survival.”26 I can’t really argue with this, not being an oracle. And Seligman has done okay for himself—he is the father of an entire genre, and widely known as a grouch.27 I don’t know his true views or disposition, of course. I wonder who does?

The fact that 25% of Yale undergraduates enrolled in “happiness” courses speaks volumes to the state of affairs in our cruel modern world filled with corruption and bad actors. Lying and pandering are the preferred modi operandi of today’s politicians, public figures and heads of state. Are we supposed to bury our heads in the sand and be “happy” when we learn of genocide or air raids? The activist inside me wants to fight, but the realist knows it would be tilting at windmills. Perhaps the issue of Yale students wanting the secret to happiness is a different issue for a different day. Those who take the course say they got something out of it.

I’m not cynical towards everything regarding positive psychology. After all, I was once a coach, and in leadership positions prior to that. I used cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to aid my clients all the time. I know I had successful coaching sessions. But let’s not fool ourselves: positive psychology is not a science. It does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. Right now psychology is experiencing a credibility crisis. This mess stems from the fact that many of the articles published in academic journals contain studies that are not replicable. (This crisis is also known as the replicability crisis.)

Let’s be very careful with what is published for positive psychology going forward. In terms of intervention use, that needs all eyeballs possible, as multi-million dollar grants rest on those results. I rather suspect CSF is like my coaching sessions: they are a hit, and they might even help some soldiers. But the program is not going to prevent something as complicated as PTSD.  The army is gambling that it will.

Seligman himself says “The Army reasoned that these interventions would be useful to improve thriving and growth, as well as to reduce depression, anxiety, and stress, frequent problems after combat trauma.”28 He also said, “The same study showed that 4.44 percent of soldiers in the resilience-trained group were later diagnosed with PTSD or panic disorder or depression, as compared with 5.07 percent of the controls.”29 Color me unimpressed. Yes, the gains are statistically meaningful, but they don’t appear to be clinically meaningful, as mentioned.

Why don’t we replace positive psychology with holistic psychology—and treat pathology and maximize “flourishing,”—taking care of each person as he or she shows up? Or if you want to make an easy, quick buck off unsuspecting others yearning for a brighter outlook in their bleak lives, set up your own “happiness workshops,” I suppose. It’s certainly a much easier job to help people “look on the bright side” than to address their complexities and provide a more helpful (and honest) service.

There’s nothing wrong with helping others see the positive side—my husband does this to me all the time—but don’t dismiss others’ lived-in negative experiences. Is it really too much to ask for a comprehensive approach? Oh, and in case you are curious about what a psychologist is, here’s the answer from medicinenet.com:

Psychologist, clinical: A professional specializing in diagnosing and treating diseases of the brain, emotional disturbance, and behavior problems. Psychologists can only use talk therapy as treatment; you must see a psychiatrist or other medical doctor to be treated with medication. Psychologists may have a master’s degree (MA) or doctorate (Ph.D.) in psychology. They may also have other qualifications, including Board certification and additional training in a type of therapy.

This definition was last updated this March (2021) by an MD. There are no restrictions, nor is experience required to be a life coach. You don’t have to go to a special school like I did. You can simply hang up a shingle.

This rather brings me back full circle. Psychology has abandoned the mentally ill in favour of resilience workshops and positivity training. Yes, the pendulum has swung from pure pathology all the way to pure fad psychology. I argue that there are many reasons for this hard swing to be considered detrimental, and once again call for a compromise. Just as long as the studies supporting the changes are meaningful and, of course, replicable.

Reading

Seligman, M. E. P. (2002a). Authentic happiness: Using the new positive psychology to realize your potential for lasting fulfillment. New York:Free Press.

Seligman, M. E. P. (2002b). Positive psychology, positive prevention, and positive therapy. In C.R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 3-9). New York: Oxford University Press.

Seligman,M. E.P.,& Csikszentmihalyi,M. (2000).Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55, 5-14.

Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2001). Reply to comments. American Psychologist, 56, 89-90.

Seligman,M.E.P.,& Peterson,C. (2003).Positive clinical psychology. In L.G. Aspinwall & U.M. Staudinger (Eds.), A psychology of human strengths (pp. 305-317).Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Sheldon, K. M., & King, L. (2001). Why positive psychology is necessary. American Psychologist, 56, 216-217. Snyder,C. R.,& Lopez, S. J. et al. (2002). The future of positive psychology: A declaration of independence. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 751-767). New York: Oxford University Press.)


References

[1] https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/13/20955328/positive-psychology-martin-seligman-happiness-religion-secularism

[2] DOI: 10.1111/1468-4446.12667

[3] Ibid.

[4] ISBN-13: 978-1557989314; ISBN-10: 1557989311

[5] https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/13/20955328/positive-psychology-martin-seligman-happiness-religion-secularism

[6] https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029897

[7] DOI: 10.1111/1468-4446.12667

[8] https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/180/nicomach.htm

[9] https://www.army.mil/article/144353/commentary_take_time_to_go_hunting_for_the_good_stuff

[10] https://www.chronicle.com/article/effectiveness-of-positive-psychology

[11] https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/13/20955328/positive-psychology-martin-seligman-happiness-religion-secularism

[12] Ibid.

[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

[14] DOI:10.1177/1745691612463401

[15] DOI: 10.1111/1468-4446.12667

[16] DOI: 10.1177/1745691611406927 (p. 222)

[17] https://www.chronicle.com/article/effectiveness-of-positive-psychology

[18] https://www.ualberta.ca/folio/2020/01/millennials-and-gen-z-are-more-anxious-than-previous-generations-heres-why.html

[19] https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/gen-z

[20] https://positivepsychology.com/what-is-positive-education/

[21] Ibid

[22] Ibid

[23] ISBN:9781250829467, 1250829461

[24] https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/13/20955328/positive-psychology-martin-seligman-happiness-religion-secularism

[25] https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Quick_Fix.html?id=gm2HzQEACAAJ

[26] https://mappalicious.com/

[27] https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/magazine/article/844/why-is-this-man-smiling

[28] https://www.chronicle.com/article/effectiveness-of-positive-psychology

[29] Ibid.