What is positive therapy?

We focus on the positive aspects of a person’s life and on the understanding that we can all learn to heal ourselves through positive thoughts, goals, and hope. This explanation comes from the Positive Psychology website.

According to PositivePsychology.com

Positive Psychotherapy (PPT) is a relatively new therapeutic approach, influenced by both the humanistic and psychodynamic approaches towards diagnosis and treatment. Its core focus is to move away from what’s ‘wrong’ or the negative aspects of an individual, and instead towards what’s good and positive.

Seligman, Rashid, and Parks (2006) offer the following definition for PPT concerning depression:

Positive psychotherapy (PPT) contrasts with standard interventions for depression by increasing positive emotion, engagement, and meaning rather than directly targeting depressive symptoms.

PPT often uses a range of interdisciplinary psychotherapy approaches, including multicultural stories, ideas, and metaphors, to help individuals develop a more positive view of their mental health. Therapists using PPT often invite the individual to place themselves in the stories, so they become active in their healing process in an empowered way and, in so doing, become the ‘therapist’ of their own recovery.

While the emphasis is on positivity and positive outcomes, the overall theory of PPT also asserts that three core principles need to be addressed to allow this to happen:

1. Principal of Hope

2. Principle of Balance

3. Principle of Consultation

                1. observation

                2. inventory

                3. situational support

                4. verbalization

                5. development of goals