Positive Psychology: How It Works & What to Expect

What Is Positive Psychology?

Positive psychology is a scientific approach to mental health, wellbeing, and optimal functioning that focuses on the strengths people possess that can be developed and used to create a life worth living.¹ Much more than a band-aid approach to fixing problems, positive psychology is a movement, a way of thinking about people and a set of beliefs and actions put in motion to help people thrive. Positive psychology seeks to help people live their lives to the fullest.²

A therapist using positive psychology will help you identify and enhance your own unique strengths and determine ways you can use them in your life. With a focus on building more of what is right, positive psychology equips people to live well and enjoy their lives despite problems.

Positive psychology isn’t fluff psychology that ignores the bad, and it doesn’t encourage people to avoid problems. It doesn’t pretend that mental health challenges like depression don’t exist, nor does it claim that wearing rose-colored glasses is all that you need to be happy. Even positive psychologists know that problems and suffering can and do exist. It’s the approach to the ups and downs of life that defines positive psychology and its core concepts.

The Origins of Positive Psychology

Positive psychology as a movement in the field of mental health and well-being is fairly new to the therapy scene. It officially began in 1999 with Martin Seligman’s presidential address to the American Psychological Association. He had just been elected as APA president and had high hopes for transforming psychology and encouraging a shift away from pathology and onto what’s promising in life.³

Seligman was met with both resistance and encouragement, and in the spirit of positive psychology chose to focus on the encouragement. He gathered prominent supporters and planned for a new movement that they called positive psychology. Years of relentless research has led to a reputable and credible approach to mental health that emphasizes “the good life” full of purpose, optimism, gratitude, flow, and other positive elements.³

How Is Positive Psychology Different from the Rest of Psychology?

The founders of positive psychology believed that too much energy had traditionally been spent on identifying what goes wrong and too little on what goes right.^2,3 What we pay attention to is what grows, and a focus exclusively on the negative keeps us stuck. While still acknowledging that life does throw us curve balls and difficulties, positive psychology involves a fundamental shift away from a problem-oriented approach to mental health to one that identifies what makes a good life and how to create more of it in order to flourish.

Positive psychology differs from other approaches to mental health therapy in that it seeks to balance the emphasis on “pain and pathology” with a focus on strengths and virtues.⁵ The field even has its own version of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), a tome that classifies and describes in detail the full range of mental illnesses and personality disorders as currently understood.

Instead of classifying pathologies, positive psychology catalogs the inherent character strengths and traits that allow people to blossom and succeed. Chris Peterson and Martin Seligman spent years researching the strengths inherent in all human beings, across time and cultures, and classified them in Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification.⁶ A therapist who employs the tenets of positive psychology is as likely to have this reference handy as a more traditional therapist is to have the DSM-5.

Levels of Positive Psychology

The science of positive psychology functions on three different levels:⁷

• Subjective level: This level is characterized by topics such as life satisfaction, well-being, personal happiness, optimal human experience, and states of flow (total involvement) and how these experiences can bring a feeling of prosperity.
• Individual level: This level focuses on enhancing positive personal traits, character strengths, achieving our potential, and feeling like there is meaning and purpose in life and that we are part of something greater than ourselves.
• Group level: This level emphasizes civic responsibilities, social virtues, positive interaction with one’s community, and other societal factors that promote collective growth and improve someone’s quality of life.

Theory & Concepts Behind Positive Psychology

Positive psychology is part of the science of happiness, the scientific study of what makes people happy.⁸ The theory behind it is heavily based on research, and asserts that people can achieve well-being despite difficulties and hardships.

Three Paths to Happiness

• Pleasant life: This route entails attaining and living a life that’s full of pleasurable experiences and learning the necessary skills to create and sustain those “feel good” emotions.
• Good life: This trail consists of knowing and capitalizing from personal strengths to engage positively and genuinely in life tasks, which is often called “flow.” Someone with high flow may feel challenged by a task, but not overwhelmed.
• Meaningful life: This path involves using your personal strengths for something that’s bigger than yourself. This means living a life that has purpose and is enriched by impacting the life of others in a meaningful way.⁸

Surviving Vs. Flourishing

Surviving can be thought of as continuing to just exist or live. It is living for the mere purpose of staying alive, pursuing goals that bring no joy or purpose, or being in miserable relationships, which eventually feels exhausting and wears people out. Flourishing is about attaining a satisfying existence and feeling like life is worth living. This multifaceted concept can entail finding purpose in daily tasks, getting better at something, using your strengths, bonding with others on a deeper level etc. Basically, it’s feeling good about life, yourself, and sensing value in anything you do.⁹

PERMA

According to positive psychologists, well-being is made up of elements summarized by the acronym PERMA:™¹⁰

• Positive emotions
• Engagement
• Relationships
• Meaning
• Accomplishment

Some researchers in the field would add physical health and a sense of control over one’s self and life to these fundamental elements of well-being, but Seligman, who created the PERMA™ acronym, acknowledges their importance but hasn’t conceded to modifying the acronym.³

Therapists using positive psychology help clients enhance these building blocks of well-being by developing the key concepts mentioned above: Character strengths, embracing a full life, optimism, resilience and grit, purpose, and flow. Each of these concepts work in harmony to contribute to deep well-being.

Here’s a look at the concepts underlying PERMA™ that we can use to deepen our mental health and well-being:

Character Strengths

Researchers in positive psychology have identified 24 character strengths and grouped them into six categories, called virtues.¹¹ These are stable across all cultures and have been documented through history. We all possess these 24 strengths, but we each have our own unique combination of top strengths.

If you work with a therapist who practices positive psychology and uses a strengths-based approach, quite likely you will work to identify your own top strengths and then develop ways you can use them every day to enhance the quality of your life. People can use their strengths to overcome mental health challenges as well as to make their lives better even if they aren’t facing such difficulties.

Embracing a Full Life

Positive psychology isn’t about ignoring the bad or denying that problems exist, it’s about learning to live well despite problems. You learn how to use your strengths, sense of purpose, and experiences of flow to move forward despite your obstacles, and optimism, resilience, and grit help sustain you through hardship. Positive psychology is about creating realistic hope that the bad in life doesn’t take away the good.

Optimism

In positive psychology, optimism is both a mindset and a skill. The premise is that we can change our outlook and attitude about ourselves and the world by recognizing and changing our negative self-talk.¹² This is a concept similar to what underlies cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). In positive psychology, emphasis is placed not just on thoughts but on behaviors and how you do have the power to effect positive, meaningful change in your life by using your strengths to take small, life-improving actions.

Resilience and Grit

You have the ability to bounce back from even extreme setbacks, and positive psychologists help you see that and build skills to overcome whatever obstacles you face. Resilience is an attitude that setbacks are temporary and limited to situations (rather than completely dominating your entire life).¹³ Grit is similar and adds passion and perseverance as key components of dealing with problems.¹⁴ Both involve actions and skill sets you can learn. Positive psychologists help you develop these qualities.

Purpose

Purpose is the notion that you can use your character strengths to create a meaningful life. Identifying purpose in what you do and in the daily moments of your life helps you withstand hardships and overcome mental health challenges like anxiety and depression. People can develop and hone a sense of purpose at any time of life, and it’s never too late to start taking actions that build a life of meaning.

Flow

Flow is a state of experience in which you are fully immersed in what you are doing. You are so engaged with what you’re doing that all other thoughts drop away and you simply are present in the moment.¹⁵ Flow occurs when you are calm and focused on the activity at hand and in the context of something you deeply enjoy doing and actively using one or more of your strengths to do what you’re doing. In working with a positive psychologist, you identify your passions and strengths so that you may purposefully create opportunities to experience flow.

What Can Positive Psychology Help With?

As a complement to traditional psychotherapy, positive psychology can help people overcome many obstacles. It’s often used in combination with other approaches, such as CBT, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), or other therapies that seek to help people alleviate problems. Because positive psychology goes beyond what is wrong to building more of what is right, it strengthens and enhances traditional therapeutic approaches.⁵

The core concepts of positive psychology are applied in places such as:

• Therapy offices for individual, family, and group counseling
• Schools, both workshops teachers and administrators and in classrooms with students
• Hospitals and other health service locations
• Industrial and organizational counseling settings to create thriving workplaces

Positive psychology can be used whenever anyone or any organization seeks to improve psychological well-being and to not only address problems but enhance meaningful, fulfilling lives.

Positive Psychology Examples

In counseling, a therapist using the principles of positive psychology balances both the negative and the positive, helping clients build and use strategies to deal with challenges like depression, anxiety, and stress disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As such, positive psychology adds useful strategies and concepts to people seeking to overcome mental health challenges.

Here’s how positive psychology could be applied to a few different mental health concerns:

Depression

People living with depression tend to have a very negative view of themselves and are bombarded by constant negative self-talk that keeps them mired in this mood disorder. Positive psychology interventions that can help counter this and help people break out of depressive thinking include:⁵

1. Identifying their top strengths and brainstorming with the therapist small ways they can use at least one strength every day
2. Journaling every night before bed, jotting down three positive things that happened that day, no matter how insignificant they might seem
3. Writing a gratitude letter to someone who has been important in their lives and either visiting them in person to share the letter or calling them and reading the letter to them to foster connection and counter the isolation so often caused by depression

Anxiety

Anxiety tends to keep people stuck, unable to live freely from worries and fears. It prevents people from being as active as they would like to be and connecting with others in meaningful ways. Positive psychology interventions can help people overcome worry and fear and begin to become more engaged in their lives. Some examples include:¹⁷

• Taking charge of your downtime and preventing negative thoughts from overpowering you when your mind isn’t occupied by discovering meaningful activities that you enjoy and induce a state of flow and committing to engaging in them regularly
• Recognizing and remembering positive thoughts by noticing when your thoughts aren’t full of worries and fears, and tracking them in a journal or on your phone in order to realize that anxiety doesn’t completely dominate your thoughts
• Creating rituals to start and end your day in a calm, positive fashion, such as reflecting on things for which you’re grateful, setting an intention for your day, or logging positive people and moments from the day

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Martin Seligman spearheaded a program with the U.S. Army to enhance the mental health and well-being of officers, soldiers and veterans, including those suffering from PTSD. Seligman and positive psychology emphasize post-traumatic growth, the ability people have to not just deal with trauma but to grow through it to flourish and prosper.^3,18 Therapists helping clients with PTSD use the core concepts of positive psychology to help them:

• Find new meaning and shape their actions to live a life in accordance with values they identify
• Grow spiritually (in a way that is significant to them, be it religious or otherwise)
• Enhance and solidify connections and relationships
• Regain or further enhance physical health

Whatever mental health challenge you may be facing, working with a therapist who applies positive psychology can help you shift your focus and attention to what’s good in your life (away from pessimism and problems to optimism and potential), identify your strengths and discover ways to use them, and create a life of purpose and meaning.

How to Find a Positive Psychologist

Finding a positive psychologist is similar to the process of finding any therapist. While you can use a therapist finder specifically dedicated to positive psychology, you can also broaden your search by locating therapists in your area through an online directory and then, when checking their bio and/or calling them for information, asking if they use positive psychology with their clients.

Many therapists who use positive psychology don’t do so exclusively but instead work the concepts into their time with clients to help them build wellbeing in addition to reducing problems like depression or anxiety.

Who Is Able to Provide Positive Psychology?

Mental health professionals with advanced degrees, and who are certified or licensed to practice in their state, can typically practice positive psychology. Counselors, therapists, social workers, and psychologists receive rigorous education and training in all major counseling approaches; therefore, they are equipped to help people in multiple ways.

Not every professional program, though, teaches positive psychology. If you are interested in a therapist but they don’t specify that they use positive psychology, you can ask them how much they know about and use this approach in their work.

The Cost of Positive Psychology

The cost of any therapy varies greatly among providers. Mental health professionals with doctorate degrees and/or numerous licensures and certifications are typically more costly than those with less education or experience. When choosing a therapist, consider your budget and mental health insurance, the education and credentials of the therapist, and your personality and how it fits with a therapist.

Positive psychology is very well-researched, but much of the research has been conducted by people in the field rather than by neutral third parties. Accordingly, it may be difficult for a practitioner who only offers positive psychology to receive approval to accept some insurance plans. It’s important to ask whether a therapist accepts your insurance and to secure approval as required by your company. Once your therapy has been approved, any work you do with that therapist is covered.

Key Questions to Ask a Therapist When Considering Positive Psychology

You want to feel confident that your therapist will help you address the topics you want to work on, whether it’s focusing on some problem areas, building positive experiences and perspectives, or both.

Some questions you might ask when considering a therapist who uses positive psychology might include:

• Do you believe in addressing specific problems like depression, anxiety, etc.?
• How do you balance working on problems with building the concepts of positive psychology?
• Can you help people become more optimistic?
• How do you help people identify their unique strengths?
• Do you help people learn ways to use their strengths once identified?
• Can resilience be learned, and if so, how do you help people develop it?
• What skills can I expect to gain when working with you?
• Will you help me learn ways to overcome problems now and down the road?

Think of things that excite you personally about positive psychology, and be sure to ask if your therapist addresses them. Likewise, consider any problems you want to work on and make sure your therapist is open to addressing them with you.

How to Apply Positive Psychology to Your Life

While seeing a therapist can be extremely beneficial for any mental concern there are also ways you can apply positive psychology to your everyday life, like:⁸

• Identifying your strengths: According to positive psychology, if you can recognize your signature strengths and know how to use them regularly, you’ll likely improve your self-esteem, feel happier, and be more likely to reach any objectives you’ve set for yourself.
• Practicing gratitude: Regardless of how you chose to practice gratitude, being consistent with this practice can help to appreciate the positive things in your life that you might otherwise take for granted and in turn boost your mood and overall well being.
•  Offering forgiveness: It’s normal to feel upset if someone has hurt you but if this feeling lingers, your overall health may be at stake. Forgiving can help you reduce negative emotions and improve your physical and mental health wellbeing.
• Meditating: Meditation is known to mitigate the harmful effects of stress and negative emotions helping increase the frequency of positive feelings. Regardless of which meditation type you choose, with consistency you’ll start to feel more at peace and less reactive.
• Seeking professional treatment: Entering therapy can be combined along with the strategies mentioned above. Engaging in therapeutic work is an act of self-care that can bring about personal growth while also providing you with the necessary tools to healthily deal with life-problems.

Risks of Positive Psychology

Positive psychology is not designed to help people in crisis. While the concepts can be embraced in the aftermath of a mental health crisis to help instill well-being and overcome serious challenges, they are not designed to be used as interventions when someone is suicidal or otherwise harming themselves or others. In the event of a crisis, call 911, go to the nearest ER, or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255

Criticisms of Positive Psychology

People who have not examined the depths of positive psychology often dismiss it as mere fluff, as glossing over problems rather than addressing them and dealing with them. However, in reality, positive psychology is focused on understanding the complete range of human experiences, negative and positive.²

Positive psychology is not designed to help people experiencing psychosis or other serious effects of mental illness like dissociation. Its use for personality disorders hasn’t been extensively studied and is thus limited.

Research has shown that happiness is both a cause and an effect of success in areas of your life such as work, relationships, and health. Building optimism, resilience, and grit; finding purpose and flow; and using your character strengths to live a full life with the spectrum of ups and downs is what creates happiness and contentment. Happiness and contentment can then lead to more positive actions. PERMA™ and happiness are part of a self-perpetuating cycle. Positive psychology helps you create and sustain that cycle.

History of Positive Psychology

Scholars and philosophers throughout history, including religious and secular traditions in Eastern and Western civilizations and spanning from ancient times through today, have studied human potential, fulfillment, meaning, outlook, strengths, values, and more.¹⁶

In our modern era, humanistic psychologists such as Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, and existentialists like Viktor Frankl, emphasized the importance of becoming one’s best self and finding purpose in life. It wasn’t until the turn of this century, though, when Martin Seligman elevated the concepts to a concerted movement, that the unified field of positive psychology was born.

As the study and application of such positive human capacities as strengths, optimism, gratitude, resilience, positive psychology can equip you to live your best life despite difficulties and challenges.