Positive Psychology Therapy

What is Positive Psychology?

Do you want to learn the habits and techniques that will move you to thriving and flourishing in life? Quite simply Positive psychology is what it says on the tin, it is the science of what makes a person’s mind positive. Instead of studying what makes people unwell mentally, positive psychologists have studied what will make you well. So instead of surviving in life you will learn to flourish and thrive. Or as Peterson, 2008 said: “Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living”.

To further elaborate for you, positive psychology is a scientific approach for studying human thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, with a focus on strengths instead of weaknesses, building the good in life instead of repairing the bad, and taking the lives of average people up to “great” instead of focusing solely on moving those who are struggling up to “normal” (Peterson, 2008).

The Main Focus of Positive Psychology therapy is to utilise what resources and experience you already have and to nurture and create even more resources and habits to help you create a better mindset and outcome in your life. Some of these resources are:

  1. Positive experiences (like happiness, joy, inspiration, and love)
  2. Positive states and traits (like gratitude, resilience, and compassion)
  3. Positive institutions (applying positive principles within entire organisations and institutions including countries like Bhutan)

Positive Psychology at character strengths, optimism, life satisfaction, happiness, wellbeing, gratitude, compassion (as well as self-compassion), self-confidence,  and hope to name a few. These topics are studied in order to learn how to help people flourish and live their best lives.

It has been a privilege to study Positive Psychology under the Tadgh MacIntyre at Masters Level at the University of Limerick, and Barbara Fredrickson and founder Martin Seligman online.