The Science of Living Well - Positive Psychology
"Happiness is not a goal...It is a by-product of a life well lived". - Eleanor Roosevelt
Unlike traditional psychology, positive psychology is a field that prioritizes increasing the individual's psychological capital by focusing on what is healthy instead of diagnosing and solving mental illnesses, discovering their own values and strengths and focusing more on these areas, and conducting research on the psychological well-being of the individual. Although it was brought to mass popularity by Martin Seligman during his APA Presidential speech in the 2000s, the concept of positive psychology was first coined by Abraham Maslow in 1954.
Positive psychology basically asks the following question: "What makes life worth living?", and therefore its areas of interest include wellbeing, life satisfaction, meaning in life, self-actualization, character strengths and virtues, psychological resilience, authentic self, gratitude, mindfulness, and flourishing. The World Health Organization (1995) stated that mental health is not only the elimination of negative symptoms. Of course, positive psychology does not ignore the problems, suffering and clinical problems experienced by individuals; it recognizes their reality and importance. It also recognizes that the only role of psychology is not to eliminate problems and it is necessary to focus on the strengths of individuals as well as their weaknesses and pursues scientific research with this perspective. In this sense, positive psychology does not conflict with traditional psychology, but complements it. Especially in the last two decades positive psychology has been the subject of many scientific researches and has developed various tools. It has made strong contributions not only to therapy and counseling but also to education, workplace and family.
Positive Therapy; The use of positive psychology in therapy involves the discovery of the client's values and strengths and virtues, as well as the review and support of psychological resources within the framework of positive affect, self-compassion, hope and resilience. Positive psychology cannot replace the therapeutic model used, but it can be used as a support. It focuses not only on the elimination of the problem, but also on the individual’s progress, development and living a meaningful life. Positive psychology techniques do not necessarily require psychological problems, they allow the person to lead a more productive, meaningful and happy, fulfilled life, therefore they can be used with people who do not have a clinical diagnosis.
Positive Workplace; Positive organizations are continuously developing organizations where employees can have positive experiences. The concepts that are particularly emphasized here are positive work culture and positive work design. Although today's corporations work with a competitive, oppressive and controlling culture and benefit from it in terms of sales and profitability, they ignore some hidden costs. Especially the cost of health expenditures and job loss caused by workplace stress is quite high. In addition, there is a serious risk of losing the health of their employees. It is known that the incidence of heart diseases is higher in employees working under managers who adopt a stress management style. Studies have also shown that working in a pressurized environment decreases the engagement of employees, and therefore productivity and profitability decrease in the long term. Stress-induced turnover also creates a very high cost for companies. Positive psychology's answer to these problems has been positive workplace culture. Without this, increased salaries or various fringe benefits alone cannot ensure employee loyalty. In short, it is based on characteristics such as employees caring for each other, showing compassion, respecting, trusting, helping and supporting each other when necessary, avoiding blame and being forgiving. A manager's empathy, concern for their employees' problems and trust in their employees are crucial for strengthening this environment.
Positive job design refers to an environment in which employees can do their work autonomously without needing the approval of others and receive social support. Similarly, there should be a balance between job demands and the resources available to the employee. Positive psychology has developed many tools to create and strengthen these environments.
