At his President’s inauguration speech to the American Psychological Association in 1998, Dr Martin Seligman spoke of the need to balance the tendency in the field of psychology to focus on illness, deficit and what is wrong, by researching what causes people to flourish. Additionally, Dr Seligman’s focus has notoriously been to examine human character strengths, in order to provide a language of strengths. This new focus in the field of psychology was termed, Positive Psychology.
“Positive psychology should not only have as a useful side effect the prevention of serious mental illness, but it also holds the potential to create, as a direct effect, an understanding and a scientifically informed practice of the pursuit of the best things in life and of family and civic virtue.” – Dr Martin Seligman, 1998
Since the inception of the field of Positive Psychology in 1998, there has been a surge of research into what makes life worth living, how people thrive and may lead meaningful lives. It has led to a wealth of studies and interventions on topics such as positive emotions, strengths, hope, resilience, happiness and well-being and flow, amongst others. The Positive Psychology People intend for this website to bring you the history behind Positive Psychology, as well as the latest findings that will be of interest to newcomers, students and experienced people to the subject.
If you would like to read some articles about Positive Psychology, please follow this Link