An Analysis of Positive and Traditional Psychology Approaches

This essay provides a comprehensive comparison between positive and traditional psychology, highlighting their fundamental differences and similarities. It begins by defining the core principles of each approach, emphasizing that traditional psychology focuses on addressing mental disorders and past traumas, while positive psychology prioritizes the enhancement of well-being, happiness, and the development of individual strengths. The essay traces the origins of positive psychology to Martin Seligman and the humanistic movement, discussing its focus on subjective experiences, individual qualities, and community-level factors. It contrasts the methodologies of traditional and positive psychology, noting the former's tendency towards a 'blame culture' and the latter's emphasis on personal empowerment. The essay also addresses criticisms of positive psychology, such as its perceived neglect of historical psychological contributions and its potential for overemphasis on the self. Ultimately, it concludes by underscoring the significance of both approaches in the field of psychology and their distinct contributions to understanding and improving human mental health.

POSITIVE AND TRADITIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Positive and Traditional Psychology
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

1POSITIVE AND TRADITIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
There are primarily two approaches to psychology, one is positive psychology and the
other is traditional psychology. Currently, the approach that is becoming more and more familiar
with the psychotherapist’s is the approach of positive psychology. The major difference that
exists between positive and traditional psychology is that the focus of traditional psychology is
the problems that people face whereas the focus of positive psychology is the wellness of the
human mind (www.centreforconfidence.co.uk, 2019). Positive psychology is the approach which
the focuses on the inner strength of the individual using the more proactive ways to help the
individual so that he/she can us their abilities in a positive manner and help towards to the
benefit of the society (MacIntyre, & Mercer, 2014). Traditional psychology’s primary focus is
on the problems that the individual face and they develop methods to deal with those problems
(Scorsolini-Comin et al., 2013). The approach of traditional psychology delves into the past
traumatic experiences of the individual and how these stressful events have contributed to the
mental development of the individual (Vella-Brodrick, 2019). This approach of traditional
psychology is helpful when it comes to dealing with people with significant psychological
disorders, but when it comes to dealing with people who do not have any diagnosed mental
disorders, this approach fails. This essay will identify the similarities and differences between
traditional and positive psychology.
The movement of positive psychology was first initiated by Martin Seligman, he was a
psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania and was the president of the American
Psychological Association (Seligman, & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). He was the first person to
point out the psychologist should deal with the factors that contributes to the betterment of the
life of an individual rather than focusing on the problems that an individual faces. The main

2POSITIVE AND TRADITIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
opposition that the approach of traditional psychology faces is from the approach of traditional
psychology.
Positive psychology is one of the fastest growing professional psychological movements,
the scope of positive psychology mainly deals with the factors that contribute to the well-being
of the individual. The goal of the approach of positive psychology is to make sure that the
individuals achieve happiness, well-being and satisfaction in life. Philosophers have focused
their research on the natures and the various causes of happiness; from 1998 onwards scientists
started focusing on exploration of happiness and mental well-being, with the help of systematic
research by applying scientific methods (Mruk, 2013). One of the major areas of difference
between traditional psychology and positive psychology is the blame culture that is associated
with the traditional approach. The traditional approach encourages the clients to vent out the
negative feelings that they have experienced throughout their life (Magyar-Moe, Owens &
Scheel, 2015). This affects the client by encouraging them to harbor hate that they might have
towards a person, this negative feeling affects the mental well-being of a person. When
compared to the positive approach, this approach focuses on building the strength and positive
emotions in a person. This approach encourages the client to focus on their strength and build
that area which the client believes is a strong point for them. The second negative aspect of the
traditional approach is the fact that this approach encourages the client to play the role of a
victim and make them believe that every situation is beyond their control. On the other hand,
positive psychology emphasizes on the fact the client has the capability to control his or her life
and every situation in their lives can be handled by them. Positive psychology encourages the
clients to live their life to the fullest and not play a victim in every scenario. These areas are the
main points of difference between traditional and positive psychology.

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The field of clinical psychology is of prime importance while applying psychology to
practice. The focus of clinical psychology has prioritized their focus on the behaviors of the
individual that are labeled ‘deviant’ and ‘abnormal’. This is the reason that the focus of the
traditional approach has been limited to the problems and issues of a person with mental
disorders. The traditional approach does not take into consideration the individuals who do not
have specific mental health problems but need the assistance of a professional. This is the major
drawback of the traditional approach. The main area of interest of positive psychology is the
‘science of optimal human functioning’. The focus of positive psychology is the success that
human beings achieve and not the failure and weaknesses in their life. Compared to this
traditional psychology is motivated by the negative emotions in a person’s life such as hatred,
jealousy and other self-harming emotions.
The origins of positive psychology can be traced back to ‘Humanistic Psychology’ (Rusk
& Waters, 2013). In a narrower way, it is referred to as the scientific study of happiness in
human beings. As mentioned earlier, the primary focus of psychology has been the field of
mental illness, which encouraged the traditional approach to develop, with the development in
the scope of clinical psychology, the positive approach came into being, and the focus of this
approach is the mental wellness of the individual rather than illness. Positive psychology is a
rapidly growing field of clinical psychology. It deals with the empirical study of human
happiness. The efforts in the field of positive psychology have focused on developing the
methods and techniques that will help foster happiness in human beings. However, there are
criticisms of positive psychology as well. The positive method has been criticized by saying that
psychologists like Seligman have ignored the work of humanistic psychologists such as Carl
Jung, Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, they were the most influential psychologist in

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the1960s, and their work on the human potential will also fall under the scope of positive
psychology. The humanistic approach in psychology lacks any adequate empirical research and
it also lacks the basic scholarly standards to form a proper approach or a theory. Based on the
positive approach, there are many books that have been published, which are popularly known as
‘self-help’ books. These books lack any intellectual integrity because of the lack of scholarly
research in the field of positive psychology. Another criticism of the humanistic psychology is its
tendency to focus on the self and the growth of the self and personal growth at the cost of the
well-being of the collective. The positive approach delves obsessively with the self without
focusing on the group or the collective. According Seligman, the constant and one point focus on
the self, does not help the individual; it prepares the person for meaninglessness which results to
depression.
The development of positive psychology has its origin in the phenomenology and
existentialism (Kristjánsson, 2013). Phenomenology was a bigger influence because of the fact
that existentialism was considered as ‘overly pessimistic’. Majority of the psychologists were
frustrated with the model of traditional psychology that focuses only the problems of the human
being. Psychologists hold the view that when psychology is discussed, there should be focus on
love, happiness and courage and the discipline should not only deal with the disease solving
model. These were the factors that gave birth to the idea of positive psychology. These ideas led
towards a more detailed understanding of the human existence and development. According to
the humanistic approach, a man is a sum total of his parts and the only way to study a man is by
considering the whole. Psychologists such as William Jones, G.Stanley Hall and John Dewy
were few of the psychologists who talked about the humanist approach (Lambert, Passmore, &
Holder, 2014). The Humanistic and the Positive approach bear some resemblance to one another

5POSITIVE AND TRADITIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
but they arenot exactly the same. The primary difference between these approaches is their
research methodologies. A qualitative method is adopted by the humanistic approach, as their
primary focus is on the whole human being, while the positive psychologist tends to follow a
rigorous, reductionist and quantitative method (Conley et al., 2015).
The approach of positive psychology functions on three types of different levels: the first
level is the subjective level, the second level is the individual level and the third level is the
group level (Schrank et al., 2014). The first level of positive psychology includes the emotions
like joy, satisfaction, personal well-being, happiness, contentment, flow and optimism. This level
involves feeling good about oneself, rather than being good or doing good. The next level of
positive psychology is the individual level. At this level, the objective is to identify the
components of a ‘good life’ and the various personal qualities that are required for being a ‘good
person’ (Seligman, & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). This can be achieved by focusing on the
strengths, virtues, capacity for care and love, future-mindedness, wisdom, originality, giftedness
and interpersonal skill. Finally, the last level is the group or community level, this level
emphasizes on the virtues of civic sense, social responsibilities, altruism, nurturance, tolerance,
positive institutions, work ethics and other issues that contribute to the development of
communities and citizenship (Cohrs et al., 2013). The importance of positive psychology can be
mainly found in the area of mainstream psychology.
Prior to the beginning of the Second World War, the main functions of psychology was to
cure any kind of mental illness, improve the lives of the normal people and the final goal was to
nurture and identify the individual with high talent (Kristjánsson, 2013). However, when the war
ended, the last two goals got lost and the field of psychology’s main concern was to deal with the
mental illness of the people (Pluskota, 2014). This is what the approach of traditional psychology

6POSITIVE AND TRADITIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
dealt with. For year before Seligman spoke about the positive approach, the main focus of
psychology was to deal with people who were suffering from major mental health issues and the
wellness part of the psychology was left out. The reasons why the last two goals of psychology
disappeared from the scenario are because of the scarcity of resources after the Second World
War, and any researches heavily depended on the funding of the government bodies. In the light
of this, many funding’s were cut and this hampered the researches and the treatment that could
have been given. Most of the government resources and funding were given to the learning and
the treatment in the field of psychopathology and psychological illness. This is the reason why
psychology operated with the disease model, before the coming of the positive psychology; this
was the most useful model.
As mentioned earlier, the humanistic approach focuses on the perspective of psychology
that deals with the study of the whole individual and not the parts. Humanistic psychologist
observes the behavior of the individual not only from the point of the view of the observer but
also from the perspectives of the person who is behaving (Johnson & Wood, 2017). The
humanistic approach believes that the behavior of an individual is associated with the self-image
of the person and the inner feelings that he/she has. This approach believes that each individual
is responsible for their own mental wellbeing and happiness. As the humanistic approach focuses
on the individual and his/her personal experience, they regard the scientific method of studying
psychology as inappropriate for studying the behavior of the individual.
This essay concludes that the major approaches of psychology are positive and
traditional. The traditional approach of psychology grew after the end of the Second World War.
When the Second World War ended, the government resources were mainly focused in studying
about the various psychological illnesses and no money could be spend on the factors that dealt

7POSITIVE AND TRADITIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
with the well-being of the individual, hence the traditional approach of psychology grew. The
traditional approach is a disease solving model, it mainly focuses on curing the illness that an
individual has. As opposed to this, the positive model focuses on the mental well-being of the
individual, the positive model deals with the factors that contribute to the happiness and overall
mental well-being of the individual. The positive approach is the approach that is being used in
abundance. Every model psychologist focuses on the individual, the ways to develop the
individual as a whole. The positive model focuses on the strengths of the individual and the ways
a person a grows overall, while the traditional model focuses on the problems that a person has
faced throughout their lifetime, this process is mostly about venting out the problems and not
about focusing on the good parts of the existence.

8POSITIVE AND TRADITIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
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Annotated Bibliography
Effect of Positive Emotions
Gloria, C. T., & Steinhardt, M. A. (2016). Relationships among positive emotions, coping,
resilience and mental health. Stress and Health, 32(2), 145-156.
This article talks about the build and broaden theory of positive emotions. It also talks
about the range of activities that help in coping up with stress and anxiety. There are studies that
have focused on the factors such as high levels of stress significantly contribute towards the
development of anxiety and depression. This report studies 200 post-doctoral research fellows to
study whether positive emotions affect the resilience of an individual. The results showed that
positive emotional influence helps in coping up with stress and anxiety. However, stress is
unavoidable and although positive emotions help deal with stress but does not help remove it.
The report suggests that various programs that deal with the inculcating positive influence on
individual helps deal with stress.
Fredrickson, B. L. (2013). Positive emotions broaden and build. In Advances in
experimental social psychology (Vol. 47, pp. 1-53). Academic Press.
This report is a result of a research that lasted for 15 years. The research describes 10
factors of positive emotions along with the approaches for assessing them. It also deals with the
broaden and build theory. The 10 aspects of positive emotions as descried by this report are joy,
gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe and love. The research has
been empirically analyzed with the help of the positive emotions via the self-reports of te

11POSITIVE AND TRADITIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
individuals own psychological experiences. The report concludes with saying the effect that the
first 4 positive emotions that have on the individual.
Subjective well-being
Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, D. S., Lin, N., ... & Ybarra, O. (2013).
Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults. PloS one, 8(8),
e69841.
The report deals with the subjective well-being of the individual who uses Facebook on a
daily basis. By the use of experience sampling, the behavior and psychological effect of a person
who Facebook were measured. The researcher’s text-messaged people 5 times a day for a two
whole weeks to find out the way in which Facebook influences the subjective well-being of the
individual. The results of the report concluded that Facebook ahs a negative effect on the
emotional well-being of the individual. Rather than promoting the well-being o an individual,
Facebook undermines it.
Stevenson, B., & Wolfers, J. (2013). Subjective well-being and income: Is there any
evidence of satiation?. American Economic Review, 103(3), 598-604.v
This report studies the connection between emotional well-being of an individual to the
monthly income. Whether both of the variables are related or not. According to this reseach,
recent reports have claimed that there is a positive relationship between the monthly income of a
person their emotional wellbeing. They have based their claims on the research done by Easterlin
Paradox. He claimed that income does not affect the subjective well-being of a person and this
research has developed from this notion and tried to disprove his clams. The research comcludes