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Well-Being - A New Understanding

Well- Being - A New Understanding

Shortly after World War II the focus of psychology shifted to treating abnormal behavior and mental illness when humanist thinkers such as Carl Rogers, Erich Fromm and Abraham Maslow developed theories that focused on happiness and the aspects of human nature. Then in 1996, Martin Seligman was elected President of The American Psychological Association and promoted Positive Psychology as the theme of his term. The first International Conference on Positive Psychology was held in 2002; then in 2009, the first World Congress on Positive Psychology took place in Philadelphia featuring talks by Martin Seligman and Phillip Zimbardo.

Seligman’s foundational experiments and theory of “learned helplessness” began at the University of Pennsylvania in 1967 as an extension of his interest in depression. He and his colleagues discovered that the conditioning of dogs led to outcomes that were opposite to predictions of B.F. Skinner’s behaviorism, which had been the leading psychological theory.  

Seligman writes in the 2000 American Psychologist, “The field of Positive Psychology at the subjective level is about valued subjective experiences: well-being, contentment  and satisfaction (in the past), hope and optimism (for the future) and flow and happiness (in the present). At the individual level it is about positive individual traits: the capacity for love and vocation, courage, interpersonal skill, aesthetic sensibility, perseverance, forgiveness, originality, forgiveness, future mindedness, originality, spirituality, high talent, and wisdom. At the group level, it is about  the civic virtues and the institutions that move individuals toward better citizenship: responsibility, nurturance, altruism, civility, moderation, tolerance and work ethic”.  

Mental Health professionals: Psychologists, LCSW, Mental Health Counselors, Marriage and Family Therapists and Addiction Professionals will find Dr. Seligman’s latest book, Flourish: A New Understanding of Well-Being a helpful and meaningful resourse.

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