Positive Psychology or The Science of What Makes Life Worth living
Positive psychology is about achieving the things that make life worth living. It is a science which focuses on the achievement of happiness, life satisfaction, well being, and maximal participation in processes which support creativity, meaning, hope, future-orientation, autonomy, and self-regulation. It is about individual subjective experience, traits and actions as well as family, community and workplace structures and practices. It is the study of how the individual and institutions interact and synergise to create flow and peak experience.
Whilst we know a great deal about how human beings survive adversity, and we know much about how to work with pathology and how to heal; our knowledge of the science of well being, health and happiness, is less well developed. Theories of “flow” or peak experience have been advanced for quite some time, but traditionally, western human scientists have operated from problem saturation, rather than from a preventative, positive future orientation. We have been less rigorous in our study of how, why and when individuals thrive and flourish.
Positive psychology then, breaks with tradition because it is not about fixing what is broken, it is about building on the strengths, resilience, optimism, hope, positive individual traits, positive behaviours and choices to create institutions and structures which will enable more of what works well to increase the conditions which make life worth living.
Positive psychology is about
- Positive subjective experience of health, well-being, autonomy and self-regulation, love forgiveness, artistic and vocational capacity, interpersonal skills, originality, talent, spirituality, future-mindedness and wisdom
- Positive individual traits such as the range of intelligences, hope, courage ,perseverance, wisdom, creativity, responsibility, future-mindedness and kindness
- Positive individual choices and actions which are self empowering and self-regulation to allow peak experience
- Positive institutions and structures which improve quality of life and prevent pathologies which arise from unfulfilling meaningless lifestyle decisions and behaviours. It is about strong community values and more active community members enacting a work ethic, participation, nurturance, altruism, moderation, tolerance and civility.
- Systems of meanings which contribute to individual well being, to family patterns and to community processes which allow participation, challenge and support sufficient for mastery, self-actualisation and flow
- Positive relationship between positive emotions, mindfulness and physical health
Human strengths unfold over the lifespan so we can look forward to ongoing growth and development, so that all experiences are transient and can be enhanced over time.
Read more >> What is Flow
