Charles Hackney - Positive Psychology in Christian Perspective: Foundations, Concepts, and Applications

The title of the first official positive psychology book is Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment (Seligman, 2002). Note the use of the word new to describe positive psychology. Similarly, Seligmans 2011 book is titled Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being. Much of the excitement about positive psychology is the sense that it is a new direction for psychology. However, positive psychologists are aware that this approach is new only in that it is a revitalization of ideas that have been around for as long as psychology itself.

The first positive psychologist was in fact the first North American psychologist, William James (Taylor, 2001). Jamess Principles of Psychology (1890) is primarily concerned with topics such as perception, memory, and the nature of thought, but James also discussed positive phenomena such as sympathy and altruism, the constructive drive, play, and aesthetic enjoyment. Jamess most extensive treatment of happiness and flourishing can be found in his volume on the psychology of religion, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Here, James describes the effect of religious devotion on peoples lives. His primary conclusion is that religion provides a new zest which adds itself like a gift to life and an assurance of safety and a temper of peace, and, in relation to others, a preponderance of loving affections (p. 401). We will discuss more recent work on the psychology of religion and flourishing in chapter twenty-one.

Gordon Allport is considered the patron saint of personality, having done more than any other scholar to establish the study of normal personality as a mainstream topic for psychological consideration (Nicholson, 2003). Early in his career, Allport found himself in Vienna and, in a fit of fanboyish enthusiasm, arranged for a meeting with the man himself: Sigmund Freud. Allport did not have anything prepared to talk about with Freud, so he tried to make conversation, including relating to Freud a story about a dirt-phobic boy whom Allport had seen on a train. Freud listened (I always imagine him stroking his beard as he did so), then asked, And was that little boy you? (Evans, 1971, p. 4). Allports impression of Freud was that the great psychiatrist tended to read far too much into things and interpreted far too many observations as indicators of unconscious pathology. As his career progressed and he became a leading figure in the study of personality, Allport (1937, 1955) continued to criticize psychoanalysis for overemphasizing illness and infantile neuroses. He sought to compensate for this tendency by developing the scientific study of the mature personality. His description of psychological maturity emphasized self-acceptance, connections to other people, dedication to higher ideals, zest, security, a well-developed philosophy of life, and an equally well-developed sense of humor (Allport, 1961).