Moving Toward Your Strengths

Ask yourself a simple question: Would you rather know a huge pile of information about your problems, or instead know specific solutions, how to change and improve upon them? The question really does sound foolish and simplistic, but for some reason the field of psychology has long been focused upon pathologizing, that is, labelling and describing to a "T" every type of mental health concern. It has created neat little categories in its book, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), its categories include disorders of mood, personality, anxiety, dissociation, adjustment, the list goes on and continues to grow with each new revision.

In many senses understanding problems is useful, and is one side of the healing and well-being equation. However, the truth is that the mental health field has not been very good at finding solutions to problems. Overall, it hasn't learned much about enhancing and amplifying well-being, identifying peoples' strengths or identifying ways of putting strengths into action. Finding resolutions to problems is an important aspect, says psychologist and accepted founder of the positive psychology movement, Martin Seligman. Seligman, though, say that the fields of counseling and psychology in the 21st century largely left out the most important side of the well-being and health equation, better questions that include: what makes people well? How do we increase happiness? How can one flourish? What will it take to make people's lives deeper and more meaningful? How can we increase the level of passion and engagement in life activities and in interpersonal relationships?

This new field of positive psychology founded by Seligman is not really a new field at all, but had been studied and researched for many years prior in the field of psychology by luminaries including Abraham Maslow, who coined the terms, "peak experience" and "self-actualization," and by Carl Rogers who taught that human growth and change happens within, not something transfered by an expert or professional. Carl Jung, former prized pupil of Sigmund Freud, also said that this change process is primarily an inner journey, and is about the harmonizing of unconscious and conscious psychic energies, there were numerous other influences as well. Additionally, the new, scientific study of positive psychology draws heavily from work of ancient cultures and religious philosophies.

A foundational treatise of the new positive psychology -- ideally, one that mental health professionals will begin turning to with increasing frequency -- is a book developed by Seligman and Chris Peterson titled the Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. This book lists 24 identified character strengths grouped in 6 categories. Other researchers in the field and in related fields are examining additional strengths-based metrics as well. Hopefully, psychology has turned a corner toward becoming more enlightened particularly in terms of how it views change and the human personality, toward strengths instead of deficits.