Positive psychology, virtue, and flourishing in psychotherapy

Abstract

The field of mental healthcare in the United States largely promotes a view of the human person as "clusters of negative symptoms" and focuses predominately on reducing these negative symptoms in individuals rather than on additional pathways towards social and relational well being. This dominant approach, based on the medical disease model of mental illness, includes certain strengths and efficiencies. However, the large body of positive psychology research since the 1990s has advanced scientific understan dings of human strengths and virtues with related investigations of individual and communal flourishing. By "virtue," we mean embodied traits of character that tend to promote resilience and the integration of ethics and health toward the ultimate goals of both personal and communal flourishing (e.g., humility, forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, and justice among others; Hill & Sandage, 2016). A goal of "flourishing" moves beyond hedonic or subjective forms of well being, and each of the research teams in this panel are informed by eudaimonic or developmental theories of well being characterized by relational maturity, meaningful purpose, integrity and the pursuit of virtue, and communal concern through prosocial behavior (Boettscher, Sandage, Latin, & Barl ow, 2019; Waterman, 2013). To date, efforts at integrating positive psychology into psychotherapy have tended to involve the development of new "positive psychotherapies," however we will consider the possibilities (and challenges) of integrating positive psychology into mainstream psychotherapy approaches. Drawing on work from a multi site Templeton grant, this panel will describe ways these complex topics of virtue and flourishing can be engaged in psychotherapy research and practice.Published versio