What is the good life? Positive psychology and the renaissance of humanistic psychology.

Abstract

Positive and humanistic psychology overlap in thematic content and theoretical presuppositions, yet positive psychology explicitly distances itself as a new movement, despite the fact that its literature implicitly references its extensive historical grounding within humanistic psychology. Consequently, humanistic psychologists both celebrate diffusion of humanistic ideas furthered by positive psychology, and resent its disavowal of the humanistic tradition. The undeniably close alignment of these two schools of thought is demonstrated in the embracing of eudaimonic, in contrast to hedonic, conceptions of happiness by positive psychology. Eudaimonic happiness cannot be purely value-free, nor can it be completely studied without using both nomethetic and idiographic (i.e., quantitative and qualitative) methods in addressing problems of value, which identifies positive psychology clearly as a humanistic approach, despite its protestations.In the late 1990s, positive psychology was conceptualized as having three major concerns: First, positive psychology takes an interest in positive subjective experiences, such as subjective well-being, flow, joy, optimism, and hope. Second, it has an interest in studying the personality traits of thriving individuals, with a particular focus on character strengths and virtues, such as courage, perseverance, open-mindedness, and wisdom. Finally, at the social psychological level, positive psychology is intent on identifying, studying, and enhancing those qualities of social institutions that sustain and enhance positive subjective experiences and adaptive personality traits of individuals (Gillham & Seligman, 1999; Seligman & Czikszentmihalyi, 2000).

The Relationship Between Mental Health and Resilience: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Nowadays, more attention is paid to the positive aspects of health so that people can use their strengths as a protective shield against mental disorders (1,2). Health is characterized by compatibility and selfmanagement in response to challenges (3).…”

Joy, Wisdom and Virtue—The Confucian Paradigm of Good Life

“…Satisfaction is also to be defined, and as far as an individual is concerned, it may be examined from three interconnected perspectives in connection with psychology and social psychology: the internal perspective concerning whether or not one would feel satisfied (for example, with oneself and with one's way of life), the external perspective concerning whether or not one would feel satisfied with sufficient and adequate means to meet one's needs (for example, wealth and friendship), and the ultimate perspective concerning whether or not one would feel satisfied with the realization of one's nature and destiny (for example, in terms of wisdom or faith). 3 The three perspectives combined would normally be taken as the prime criterion for measuring living well qualitatively or quantitatively, and therefore determines the characteristics of different philosophies concerning the good life.…”

An Hermeneutic Analysis of Transpersonal Education: Policies, Principles and Practices

“…'flow', joy, optimism, well-being, contentment, happiness, satisfaction), the personality traits of thriving individuals (e.g. character strengths and virtues), also the enhancement of social institutions to sustain and develop positive subjective experience [20], or what Seligman refers to as the 'three pillars' of positive psychology [21]. Although positive psychology and humanistic psychology may appear synonymous [22], Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi criticise humanistic psychology as lacking an empirical research tradition which they assert is required for any psychological approach, given the positivist nature of the psychology [23].…”