############################Chris,
First let me acknowledge that I have a pretty unique and mixed view regarding psychology in general. Indeed, the first two chapters of my book represent a critical analysis of the institution and what I call “mainstream empirical psychology”. My critique of positive psychology would be similar. And, let me be clear that it is coming from a bit of an unusual “metapsychology” point of view.
A summary of my critique positive psychology is “empirical variable aggregate” psychology of a list of things associated with “the positive” in psychology. In other words, it studies well-being, life satisfaction, savoring, gratitude, various virtues like humility or courage, and prosocial attitudes and behaviors like kindness or generosity. Surely, these are interesting variables and we can gain knowledge studying them. But it is a deep and profound mistake to think about something like human virtue or foundational values or what really is the good (or positive) in the human condition by quantifying variables and studying how they generate a correlational matrix in a population of people. And then use that to offer simple things like the idea that people should have grit of a do a gratitude journal. (see here for a blog on why aggregate variable psychology is a problem if it is not also combined with a theory of the individual and a more general model of what a person is).
A short hand critique that gets at these issues is…if X is positive psychology, is the rest of the field negative psychology? This is a quip designed to get people to recognize that the field of psychology is a disjointed set of topics and paradigms rather than a coherently organized set of ideas.
Although not directly related to positive psychology, here is a chapter I did with fellow TOK member Steve Quackenbush exploring the complicated relationship between clinical psychology and politics and political values. The fundamental point is that there is a lot more than meets the eye when we are doing basic empirical investigations and making inferences about what is the good life.
Best,
Gregg
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Christopher Hadnagy
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 12:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: What mentally strong people do
Greg I am curious, you state – “you have mixed feelings about positive psychology” can you tell me why you have mixed feelings?
Chris
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of "Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 at 10:27 AM
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: What mentally strong people do
Hi List,
FYI, here is the most popular blog on PT.
As those who know the Unified Framework know, I tend to have mixed feelings about positive psychology and prescriptions for happiness. But I do think that the recent framing that is evident in this blog in terms of character adaptation that tends to be associate with anti-fragile resilience is reasonable. That is, I am generally fine with the basic frame of trying to teach people what “mentally strong” (i.e., resilient, anti-fragile, not overly reactive or easily overwhelmed). As such, I am sharing it here and welcome considerations.
Best,
Gregg############################
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