First Day of Class

Group 5 Board for explaining "What is Positive Psychology?"

   The focus of positive psychology is on the balance between wellness and happiness versus the traditional psychology view of focusing on the negatives and mental illnesses. Traditional psychology is centered around the negatives aspects of life such as challenges and illnesses impacting mental health. Positive psychology has taken an approach looking at how to improve and achieve true happiness with the self by focusing on one's strengths.
    There are three nodes in positive psychology: subjective, individual, and group. The subjective focuses on not only the experiences of the present, but of the past and future as well. The tendency would be to focus on the negative experiences as these stand out in the mind, but to achieve happiness there needs be emphasis on the happy memories of the past and the present and what positive events are in the future. The individual has focus on oneself, but does not look at flaws or other parts of the self. It focuses on virtues such as courage, love, and bravery which are all seen as characteristics of a good person. The group node emphasizes the positive relationships in a group. These involve things such as citizenship and work ethic. The group works hard together and have a sense of belonging to the group.
  Martin Seligman had a leading role in the development of positive psychology. He focuses on well-being coming from five areas and represented by the acronym PERMA. This stands for positive emotion, engagement, relationships (of a positive type), meaning, and accomplishment. Positive emotions keep the mind focused on the happiness and satisfaction you experience and not emotions like anger or sadness that bring a person down. Engagement is becoming so ensconced in a task that one is no longer self-conscious and fully focused on a task. The relationships are positive when they make someone happy or add to their happiness because strong relationships bring genuine happiness to people. Meaning is referring to finding a purpose in life not for oneself but for the greater good. IT is finding religion, family, or other construct to focus on to benefit others without doing it for yourself. Accomplishment does not refer to winning in itself. A person can gain happiness from meeting a goal or finishing a task in the manner in which they wanted to and not for only the sake of winning a competition.
  With Seligman's five parts of well-being, the individual can flourish and obtain genuine happiness.This happiness leads to a healthier mental state, an increase in self-esteem, stronger self-determination, more optimism, and a more resilient person. Flourishing allows an individual to enjoy life and make the most of their life. Positive psychology in a newer concept but is continually being researched and built up to help move away from the focus on mental illness and towards mental well-being.