Positive psychotherapy (PPT) contrasts with standard interventions for depression by increasing positive emotion, engagement, and meaning rather than directly targeting depressive symptoms. The authors have tested the effects of these interventions in a variety of settings. In informal student and clinical settings, people not uncommonly reported them to be "life-changing." Delivered on the Web, positive psychology exercises relieved depressive symptoms for at least 6 months compared with placebo interventions, the effects of which lasted less than a week. In severe depression, the effects of these Web exercises were particularly striking. This address reports two preliminary studies: In the first, PPT delivered to groups significantly decreased levels of mild-to-moderate depression through 1-year follow-up. In the second, PPT delivered to individuals produced higher remission rates than did treatment as usual and treatment as usual plus medication among outpatients with major depressive disorder. Together, these studies suggest that treatments for depression may usefully be supplemented by exercises that explicitly increase positive emotion, engagement, and meaning. ((c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

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Mainstream psychotherapy has made huge strides in treating symptoms and disorders, but it has largely overlooked happiness as a therapeutic goal despite frequently hearing from clients, "Doctor, I want to be happy." This issue of Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session describes a number of positive interventions for specific clinical problems, such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, loss, grief, and relationship distress. Although the name may suggest it, positive interventions do not imply that rest of psychotherapies are negative. Neither are negatives denied nor minimized. Distinct from self-help recipes proffering instant changes, positive psychology interventions refer to systematic approaches to overcome challenges by using clients' strengths and assets. A hybrid psychotherapy-coaching model and strength-based assessment can ask a client "What is right with you?" All articles are supplemented with rich case illustrations.

Strength-based assessment can enhance clinical clarity, improve the range of information, and provide a more complete picture of clients and their circumstances. Deficit-oriented assessment has improved the assessment and treatment of a number of disorders but, at the same time, has created a negative bias, considered strengths as clinical peripheries or by-products, tended to reduce clients to diagnostic categories, and created a power differential, which could be counterproductive to clinical efficacy. Strength-based assessment explores weaknesses as well as strengths to effectively deal with problems. We present a number of strength-based strategies for use in clinical practice. These strategies, we hope, will help clinicians to operationalize how strengths and weaknesses reverberate and contribute to a client's psychological status, which is comprehensive and guards against negative bias.