Existential Positive Psychology

Positive Psychology (PP) is the scientific study of optimal human functioning and what makes life worth living. In other words, it is the psychology of the characteristics, conditions and processes which lead to flourishing. Initially when it was launched about a decade ago, it distanced itself from other branches of psychology. However, it has its roots in the works of William James in the late 19^th century, and humanistic psychology in the mid 20^th century. It also borrows from the ancient philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato. As a science, it focuses on discovering the empirical evidence for thriving.

PP originated from the University of Pennsylvania in the USA. The founders are psychology professors Martin Seligman, who is well known for his pioneering work on learned helplessness and later on learned optimism, and Mihalay Csikszentmihalyi best known for his work “Flow: The psychology of optimal experience”. The PP movement began in 1998 and since then new research articles and books on the subject have been written. The vast majority of psychology studies carried over the past 40 years have focused on the negative side of life such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, PTSD etc. PP redresses this imbalance by focusing on the human traits and circumstances which lead to thriving. The field is still holding sway over the researchers as is evident from the number of research papers, articles, bogs etc., that are being published over the past decade or so.

PP deals with well-being and happiness. Happiness, from ancient times, has been classified into Hedonic well-being and Eudaimonic well-being. The former refers to the happiness you get from feeling pleasure in the moment while the later is a broad term used by positive psychologists to refer to the happiness we gain from meaning and purpose in our lives, fulfilling our potential and feeling that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. These definitions have their own pitfalls and the positive psychologists had a number of reservations about them. Hence they went ahead and defined a new term “Subjective Well-Being (SWB)” which is expressed in the following formula:

SWB = Satisfaction with life + Positive Emotion – negative Emotion

Quite simple, right?

Just to give an idea of PP and its components, we can briefly look at the PP model of well-being postulated by Martin Seligman. It is defined as the PERMA model where

P – Positive Emotion – the experience of positive mood and feelings that are uplifting

E – Engagement – well-being you get from being totally absorbed in the task in hand

R – Relationships – Good, supportive and caring inter-personal connections are essential

M – Meaning – provides a stable foundation and sense of direction in life.

A – Accomplishment – includes everything from achievement, success and mastery at the highest level possible to progress towards goals and competence

However, there emerged another school of thought that felt the PP ignored the black reality of human existence. They also saw that Existential Psychology (EP) with its focus on death anxiety, meaninglessness and alienation is dark, because it does not focus on the joy of living. PP without existential insights and phenomenological analysis is full of adolescent exuberance but lacking depth. EP without rigorous research on human strengths and positive affects is full of wisdom but lacking in youthful vitality. Therefore it makes sense to bring the two domains of psychology together resulting in Existential Positive Psychology (EPP). 

EPP is a natural amalgam between PP and EP. The EPP psychologists, led by Dr. Paul Wong, discuss these 6 ultimate questions about human existence which deserves psychological investigation.

1.    Who am I? – What defines me? Who am I when everything is stripped away from me and I am reduced to a naked lonely soul? Is there anything unique and special about me?

2.    How can I be happy? – Why am I bored? Why am I so dissatisfied with life? What is the good life? Why is happiness so illusive? Is this all there is to life?

3.    What should I do with my life? – How should I then live? How could I live in a way that my life counts for something? What is my calling? To what should I devote the rest of my life?

4.   How do I make the right choices? – How do I know that I am making the right decisions regarding career and relationships? How can I tell right from wrong? What do I know what is the responsible thing to do in complex situations with conflicting moral standards?

5.    Where do I belong? – Why do I feel so alone in the world? Why don’t I feel at home in this planet Earth? Where is my home? Where do I belong? How do I develop deep and meaningful relationships? Where can I find acceptance?

6.    What is the point of striving when life is so short? – Why should I struggle when life is transient and fragile? What is the point in building something only to see it swallowed up by death?

All of these questions are related to the human quest for existential understanding. It is the spirit of asking tough questions and rejecting pre-packaged easy answers that characterizes existential psychology. EPP is open to insights, wisdoms and research on all aspects of human existence from all sources regardless of the paradigm of knowledge claims, thus providing a richer research agenda. In short, EPP broadens the definition of PP as “the qualitative and quantitative study of what enables people to survive and flourish individually and collectively in the totality of life circumstances” What qualifies EPP as positive psychology is its emphasis on the uniquely human capacities for resilience and positive change.

References:

1.    Positive Psychology – A practical Guide – By Bridget Grenville-Cleave

2.    www.ExistentialPsychology.Org