Author: Dipanjana Chatterjee

(Rehabilitation Psychologist, Assistant Professor, Dept of Psychology, Amity University Kolkata)

“We are good as individuals but become better, when we meet and blend with right people”. The essence of positive psychology is clear from the quote itself. With the advent of the science of happiness, or positive psychology, a significant shift in the focus of mental health research and practice has been noticed. As a composite of clinical psychology, positive science helps in understanding how we can work on enhancing our internal capabilities and make the best of our present. Rather than focusing on symptomatic therapy and treatment, positive psychology centers around emotional stability, expectation management, and fruitful thinking, which is why it is referred to as the ‘study of ordinary strengths and virtues’ (APA, 2001). Positive psychology is a recent branch of psychology on which important research that has been taking place for the past 20 years & there are two important people to discuss about positive psychology are Martin Seligman & Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. These are the two important individuals who have been working with positive psychology related concepts. Positive psychology is science which discusses about the way to good life. When we say good life it is the positive aspects of the individual.  Martin Seligman has asserted that there is some human strength which helps the individuals to deal with various mental illnesses. So what are these various strengths? Positive psychology generally discusses about the subjective experience. When we say subjective experiences it is the individual experiences. We cannot generalize certain emotional/ social/ psychological experiences to each and every individual because they were subjective in nature. Therefore positive psychology is at the subjective experiences of the individual deals with well being, contentment, happiness, hope &optimism for the future. Apart from all these factors there is another important aspect of positive psychology that talks about perseverance, courage & optimism which helps the individual to go through his life. Therefore the aim of positive psychology is to strengthen the various positive aspects and also manage the weakness of the individual. The basic goal of positive psychology according to Martin Seligman is to understand various weaknesses of the individual & work towards optimism & hope and perseverance so that these mental illnesses can be dealt effectively through positive psychology. Positive psychology has an enormous impact on both the reduction of mental illness and the improvement of mental health of an individual. The WHO declaration about mental health is: it is “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community “. There is a huge amount of research that has been conducted in case of depression wherein treatment methods vary from different approaches and in particular positive psychology approach has been effective in dealing with depression. Positive psychology can be discussed in different levels one is individual level & the second one is group level. When we talk about positive psychology is at the individual level it’s refers to the individual’s courage, individual’s assertive skills, interpersonal skills and all other personality factors related to the individual. This also includes spirituality, mindfulness, high talent and wisdom that talks about the individual in particular. Therefore various important personal characteristics are also attributed in the positive psychology at the individual level that helps in early recovery and delayed illness.  At the group level it is very important that various civic virtues that concerned in the social world those are very essential and there are certain institutions where the individuals move towards citizenship, the individual needs to be accepted, even the society needs to accept the individual. So there is a need of coherence between the individual as well as the social groups, there is a need to group cohesiveness, there is need to understand one another in the society. Therefore positive psychology is also essential at the group level. Here we discuss about the various characteristics of a mentally healthy person which are also related with positive psychology. Erick Fromm, a renowned social psychologist said that the mental health of the individual is something to do with love & to create. During the same period Marie Jahoda (1958) another pioneer in social psychology talked about personal attitude which comprise of individual’s psychological readiness, favorable & unfavorable attitudes, self acceptance & acceptance towards life as few conditions of mentally healthy person.  If an individual has some mental illness he should accept that, if an individual has some relationship issue he should also accept that there might be some problem with the individual or family members. In continuation with self acceptance self esteem of the individual is also important. Self esteem is the unique potentialities of a person. In addition to this, the accuracy of self perception, pursuit of one’s potentials, focused drive ie., the intense need to finish a particular task, identity or values that contribute to self and autonomy, happiness, certain world percept that are not distorted  by subjective needs & the mastery of the environment are few more characteristics of a mentally healthy person. Because when we talk about positive psychology it is the happiness, hope, well being, pleasant emotional experiences, social & emotional well being which is also important in the mental health of a person. Overall happiness results from striking a balance in all aspects of your life. Lastly it can be said thar happiness occurs in moments, not in hours, days, weeks, months, or years. The trick is to enjoy the moment, to relish the experience, and to be mindful that it’ll be gone before you know it…