Positive Psychology
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Positive Psychology
Positive Psychology is a modern Psychological Framework and colonially adopted Healing Framework that emerged in the late 20th century, spearheaded by figures like Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It focuses on the empirical study and promotion of positive human functioning. Core concepts include happiness, well-being, optimism, gratitude, resilience, and personal strengths. Rather than emphasizing pathology and dysfunction, Positive Psychology encourages individuals to cultivate "positive emotions" and "flourishing" lives through deliberate cognitive and emotional practices.
<glossary> **Positive Psychology** is a modern healing framework focused on cultivating positive emotions, strengths, and subjective well-being. From a Lightning Path perspective, it functions ideologically to maintain the status quo, dilutes deeper spiritual practices, and individualizes responsibility for systemic suffering. </glossary>
Concept Map
Key Terms
Human Development > Human Development Framework > Healing Framework > Mindfullness, etc. to be added
List of Healing Frameworks
Related LP Terms
Non-LP Related Terms
Overview
Positive Psychology is grounded in several key principles:
- Focus on Strengths: Emphasizing individual talents and strengths rather than weaknesses and deficits.
- Positive Emotions: Cultivating joy, gratitude, hope, and other uplifting emotional states.
- Engagement: Encouraging deep absorption and engagement in meaningful activities ("flow states").
- Relationships: Valuing strong, supportive interpersonal connections.
- Meaning: Helping individuals find purpose and significance in their lives.
- Achievement: Encouraging goal setting and accomplishment as pathways to satisfaction.
The Positive Psychology movement has influenced educational programs, workplace wellness initiatives, therapy practices, and even public policy, especially in Western nations seeking to enhance quality of life and subjective well-being.
Prominent tools associated with Positive Psychology include gratitude journals, mindfulness meditation (in a secularized form), character strengths inventories, and happiness interventions.
Limitations (LP Perspective)
From the perspective of the Lightning Path Human Development Framework, Positive Psychology, while offering useful practices, suffers from several serious limitations:
- Status Quo Preservation Positive Psychology operates largely within the parameters of the existing Regime of Accumulation. It deliberately sidesteps critical analysis of systemic exploitation, inequality, and the socio-economic conditions that cause widespread human diminishment and dysfunction. By focusing exclusively on internal positivity and emotional self-regulation, it effectively gaslights individuals into believing their suffering is personal, psychological, and manageable through attitude adjustments, rather than recognizing systemic injustice as a root cause. Positive Psychology thus functions ideologically to stabilize and normalize toxic systems, rather than challenge or transform them.
- Colonial Appropriation and Dilution Many of the "innovations" of Positive Psychology, particularly mindfulness and gratitude practices, are appropriations from Buddhist, Vedic, and other ancient spiritual traditions. However, in the process of secularization and Westernization, these practices have been sanitized and stripped of their original depth and transformative goals. In traditional systems, mindfulness was a means of awakening, alignment, and connection to higher Consciousness. In Positive Psychology, it is reduced to a stress management tool or a productivity hack. The deeper aims of spiritual awakening, systemic compassion, and reconnection with authentic Self are lost, replaced by superficial emotional regulation techniques designed primarily to maintain functionality within toxic environments.
- Individualization of Responsibility Positive Psychology places the burden of healing solely on the individual, without recognizing the need for collective healing, systemic change, or supportive environments. It promotes the illusion that individuals can "positive-think" their way out of structural violence, thus deepening isolation and potentially exacerbating feelings of failure when systemic barriers remain unmoved.
- Commercialization and Commodification The tools and techniques of Positive Psychology have been rapidly commodified into self-help products, workplace programs, and therapeutic services marketed to consumers. In this commercial form, the goal often shifts from genuine well-being to maximizing productivity, profitability, and compliance with existing institutional structures.
Notes
Substantive Criticisms of Positive Psychology https://positivepsychology.com/critiques-criticisms-positive-psychology/
Ideological Function: Positive Psychology is an example of how healing and connection frameworks can be co-opted to serve elite interests. By encouraging individuals to focus exclusively on internal emotions and self-improvement, it discourages critical examination of the broader Regime of Accumulation and systemic violence, thereby stabilizing toxic environments.
Appropriation and Dilution: Positive Psychology borrows heavily from Buddhist and Vedic traditions, particularly mindfulness and gratitude practices. However, these practices are stripped of their deeper transformative and connection-oriented purposes, reducing them to superficial emotional regulation tools that prioritize personal adjustment over authentic awakening and alignment.
Individualization of Responsibility: Positive Psychology reinforces the neoliberal idea that individuals are solely responsible for their suffering and healing. This framework ignores the crucial role of systemic, structural, and collective factors in human diminishment, thus increasing isolation and often exacerbating feelings of personal inadequacy when systemic barriers remain unchallenged.
Commodification: The rapid commercialization of Positive Psychology into self-help products, workplace wellness programs, and consumer services reflects its alignment with capitalist accumulation processes. Healing is reframed as a commodity to be bought and sold, rather than a sacred, collective, and transformative process.
Partial Utility: Although heavily compromised, some Positive Psychology techniques (such as gratitude practices or strengths identification) can still be useful if integrated carefully into a larger framework aimed at authentic healing, reconnection, and systemic transformation.==Citation and Legal== Treat the SpiritWiki as an open-access online monograph or structured textbook. You may freely use information in the SpiritWiki; however, attribution, citation, and/or direct linking are ethically required.