Positive Psychology Essay

Title: Positive Psychology and its Effectiveness
Evaluate Psychology’s attempts to treat mental disorder and aid in personal development of individuals?

Psychology
Mr.Basnight
Block: E
May 14th 2014 word count:

“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude” by Oprah Winfrey which shows the power that people have over their minds and their actions. Recently there have been numerous developments in the field of positive psychology. Positive psychology depends on how we decide to frame the world around us as well as, can be controlled by how we choose to see our lives and everything around us in a positive light or a negative light. Additionally, this process of reframing things to reflect everything in a positive manner is important for people to thrive and be motivated to achieve their goals. However, when it comes to mental disorders there is only so much a person can do as abnormal mental states are definite in their diagnosis and understanding of the mental disorder whereas, in positive psychology whether or not a person is ill does not play a factor rather positive psychologists try and better society as a whole. As a result, a person can be diagnosed with a mental disorder through observed symptoms whereas, in positive psychology it is more difficult as diagnosing true happiness is a challenge.
Mental disorders which falls under the umbrella of Abnormal psychology can be attributed to the ability to treat and diagnose mental disorders. Based on advances such as the development of the scientific method psychologists are now able to fully and efficiently attribute the causes of mental disorders to physical and unphysical traits. The process i...

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...ed and accepted. This is because not only does it aid those who are have mental illnesses but it is also designed for the betterment of society as a whole. Additionally, there are also medical treatments such as drugs for these kinds of mental diseases and although both have had successes both also have limitations. As drugs come with side effects, have high relapse possibilities and there are also dosage problems whereas, in positive psychology the debate over how happiness is measured in the first place is controversial. As a result, using past experiences like in ww2 psychologists have designed positive psychology so that it is helpful of all people in society and not only those in need of help. All in all, it can be said that although there are limitations to both of these fields under psychology both also have numerous success and benefit society as a whole.