# 193: Positive Psychology and Resource-Orientation
Story behind the Passage
I cannot remember when exactly I got in touch with Positive Psychology. I think, it was in the U.S. Or it was when I read Flow by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi when I was a teenager (I still need to blog about this book, for sure). In any case, the minute I saw the name of the field, I was interested. Well, as you know, that is not difficitulr to achieve, i.e., getting me interested. But, as so often happens, I did not get the full picure of what Positive Psychology really means for one’s thinking. It is an attitude towards life, not just some field of research and/or practice — at least for me. Yes, I also read a lot about it back then after my initial discovery. Only now am I beginning to realize, however, how meaningful this fairly new “school” is for my own life, and possibly for society at large.
When I blogged about spirituality in my “Book of the Week post” on Sunday (# 191: BOOK OF THE WEEK — “Eine Reise von 1000 Meilen beginnt mit dem ersten Schritt“ | by Silke Schmidt | Apr, 2021 | Medium), I mentioned what a difference positive thinking can make. Actually, we hardly know what “positive” means when people use the term. Still, in Positive Psychology, there is a simple definition. Instead of seeing the glass half empty, you see it half full. It is a complete shift of perspective that you can train yourself in. I do not think it works every day, but just like spiritual practice, it all depends on training. The point is, and that is what I am wondering about today since I am dealing with the practice of reading so much again, I am not sure if there can be both at the same time — classical (“negative”) psychology and the positive one.
My Learnings
“It is a call for psychological science and practice to be as concerned with strength as with weakness; as interested in building the best things in life as in repairing the worst; and as concerned with making the lived of normal people fulfilling as with healing pathology.” “Strength” is the keyword here, obviously. In a society of constant growth and self-optimization, people tend to overlook the(ir) strengths. This particularly applies to the people who are struggling with perfectionism (I talk about this all the time, go figure…). One should not even say “struggle” because that already implies a negative judgement. What I mean is that looking at the strengths is not even “normal” for healthy people, let alone those who do have severe psychological problems. But that is the beauty of positive psychology — it works for all.
Of course, there is a lot of marketing involved, I think, and the authors do express their worries about this too. Psychology itself has always had a bad reputation, in Europe even more than in the U.S., I feel. In the U.S., having a weekly appointment with a “shrink” is almost courteous (yes, I know this is stereotypical). Well, things are changing, of course, but I just wanted to point out that there are cultural differences. Still, psychology has this reputation of only dealing with “sick” people. And the fact that positive psychology is about creating happiness instead of fighting sadness makes all the difference and might finally also get people to understand that psyschology is essential for human beings — it is like going to the dentist or the orthopedist.
“The value positive psychology is to complement and extend the problem-focused psychology that has been dominant for many decades.” Here I see the challenge. In theory, I totally understand. In practice, it is really hard for me to accept that both can be possible, i.e., having one complement the other. Yes, it was high time to have some counterweight to the dominance of the “problem-focused” and partly, I would say, self-referential approach. Still, “complementing” such a dominant school is very difficult, especially if you as a person (or psychologist) are the one practicing it. At least, I hardly ever manage. Either I am training myself to really be in the positive mode all the time or in the bad one. As soon as I start paying attention to mistakes, I get deeply into them and then everything else disappears. At least, this is what sometimes happens in conversations and then people think I only see the darf side of things. That is not true but my words revolve about this in these cases.
What differentiates the definitions of “negative” and “positive” is the significance of resources. That is the thing that is really just occurring to me now. I noticed how important this mindset was in my coaching training some years ago and I did link it back to what I had learned about positive psychology before. Still, he full magnitude of resource-orientation as a mental program is only unfolding now. If you really only see the potential and the resources, life really is full of miracles everyday, every minute. For me, the miracle of life and the beauty usally starts with the birds singing in the morning when I take a quick walk with the dog.
There is also the risk, however, that you start seeing resources where there really are none. I really mean, resources in people. I have this tendency to smell resources in people which they hardly know of themselves. But sometimes, I just get it wrong. I have no idea why. Or maybe, I do. I am probably too impatient. Maybe the resources are there but they take more time to make their way to the surface. And I get frustrated in-between and give up my belief in their existence. Still, I think that the same ability is behind this. What I mean is that, as someone who sees the strengths in people, you also see the weaknesses very well. By weaknesses, I do not only mean skills or character traits, I mean pain.
Maybe this is not a positive note I am ending on today but nevertheless: I think we have no idea yet how much pain and psychological baggage this pandemic will leave for people, particularly those working in the health and care sector. It would be a wonder if all this went by just like this. It will take a lot of positive psychology to help people see the bright side of life again. But the good thing is: We are all equal in the sense that we are all affected — not equally — but at least in some way. That at least can teach all people to take a different, more resource-oriented, approach to life as the most positive gift that has been given to us by nature.
Reflection Questions
1) What do you associate with “psychology”?
2) How do you think about the thesis that you can train yourself to see resources instead of weaknesses in people and things?
3) If you were to choose a completely different profession tomorrow, what would it be? Why?