Humble Opinion On Positive Psychology

Positive psychology was a movement in psychology field that started in the United States at the end of20th century. This dissertation held that the movement was a reflection of the harsh reality that modern men were under the deep crisis in ecology, economy, society and psyche. The movement is a deliberate endeavor of psychology to offer a tentative solution to these problems. Viewed from the perspective of the history of psychology, the movement was an embodiment and fruit of the persistent conflict and interim reconciliation between natural-scientific psychology and human-scientific psychology.On the one hand, positive psychology endorsed the research agenda of human-scientific psychology, particularly that of humanistic psychology and existential psychology, leveling its criticism at the rotten-to-the-core dogma on human nature held by "psychology as usual" in general, and the medical model and disease ideology of clinic psychology in particular. On the other hand, it distinguished itself from lay or popular psychology by juxtaposing its positivist epistemology with caricatures of humanistic psychology as too closely intermingled with the popular countercultural movements of the1960s, blaming the failure of the humanistic psychology on its eschewal of science. It was in part through active demarcation of the boundaries of legitimate intellectual activity that the positive psychology intended to defeat competing fields and become established.Positive psychology proposed that psychology should study the positive subjective experiences, positive personal traits and positive institutions via scientific methods, helping people live a pleasant life, good life and meaningful life. Furthermore, positive psychology not only decried the disease ideology of DSM, but also developed VIA, enabling people to think and assess their character strengths and virtues. Besides, the happiness therapy and positive psychotherapy offered by positive psychology not only relieved the distress of people, but also help them enhance their well-being. The achievement of positive psychology lied not in its new therapy techniques, but in its new language which made it more convenient for people to think about and measure happiness, virtues and the meaning of life, and consequently improved the images both of human being and psychology.However, viewed from the perspective of philosophical hermeneutics, there were many limitations of positive psychology. On the one hand, the value-free stance it claimed to held was untenable; on the other, it smacked of individualism ideology, ethnocentrism, relativism, nihilism and the tyranny of positive attitude. Positive psychology tried to offer a prescription for the malaise of modernity in the post-modern context, which was an instructive and admirable endeavor that contributed a lot to the well-being of human society. Nevertheless, no theory in psychology inclusive of positive psychology could cure the malaise completely on its own due to the complexity and variability of the problem. Therefore, it was recommended that positive psychology engage constructive dialogues with human-scientific psychology and other human and social sciences, in order to have a more promising future。This dissertation tapped into the philosophical and psychological origins of the positive psychology movement and elaborated on its ecological, societal, psychic contexts. Having formulated the framework of positive psychology, it presented a searching critique upon the value-free stance held by the founder of positive psychology. This dissertation concluded by commenting on the major achievements had been by positive psychology as well as shedding some light on its possible future.