Musings On The Unseen In Positive Psychology

(Some thoughts on Martin Seligman and Positive Psychology.)

He has come under increased scrutiny in the past few years by some critics of his work and the whole "Positive Psychology" movement, Duff. Sounds like he is trying to answer those critiques with such comments and statements. Maybe even putting an.... ahem, "positive" spin on those events. Irony?

I have noticed how the whole "Positive Psychology" movement has progressed along with his recent Presidency of the APA (and how that status allows him to push his agenda (and their underlying assumptions which informs his work/theses). It is as if "positive psychology" has become a new catechism and dogma within psychology as a whole. People are not looking for the holes and the blindspots in it. They are just jumping on board and Seligman has knowingly used his influence and weight to push his "baby."

For instance, the Corporate influence is huge in his work---both the money granted for studies to "prove" his theses and how Seligman then uses "positive psychology" to empower the individual (supposedly) within the Corporate structure.

My main beef is this: that Seligman derived from his studies on "learned helplessness" the exact opposite of what I personally would have.... or what I feel a sane person would. He did not look to environment. He looked to the individual and reinforced a sort of pathological individuality that I feel plagues Western Civilization and Culture as a whole. In his view it is about learning optimism in unhealthy contexts and holding to the optimism in spite of what is taking place environmentally or contextually.

Maybe this is going to far for some. Be that as it may, my view is that Seligman and the Positive Psychology movement, in general, have this faulty assumption at their CORE which makes a destructive and unhealthy environment an individual dilemma. Just learn optimism. Just gain some personal empowerment and learn optimism in a culture and civilization that randomly shocks you, that electro-convusively disempowers individuals in order to see who it is that can learn optimism and those who can't.

He did not seem to notice that it was and is the environment (it's health or toxicity) that was and is the larger and more glaring issue. It was not the monkeys that were the problem/solution.... it was the larger nexus created by the culture of the military-industrial-corporate complex. That a few random monkeys could learn a few tricks to seemingly thrive in a hellacious situation is meaningless. The fact that we perpetuate such climates and conditions and that we would think learning optimism would be the "solution" smacks of the worst kind of insanity I can imagine, Duff. It is an upside-down view of the world with an upside-down solution provided. That it works for a few random individuals, to me, is pointless and beside-the-point.