Big Think Interview with Tal Ben-Shahar | Tal Ben-Shahar | Big Think: "Question: What distinguishes the field of positive psychology?
Tal Ben-Shahar: Positive psychology essentially focuses on what works. So it applies to research; most research in psychology looks at schizophrenia, depression, anxiety; whereas, positive psychology says let's look at the things that work in life. Let's look at love, let's look at happiness, let's look at joy, job satisfaction, and so on. Positive psychology also focuses on what works when it comes to practice. So for instance, a therapist, the first implicit or explicit question that he or she would ask, the client would be what's wrong, what's not working in your life. A positive psychologist would first ask what is working, what is going well in your life and then build on that and then deal with what is not working based on what is working. Same in organizations; a consultant would usually ask what's the problem in your organization, what do we need to improve. A positive psychologist coming in to a company would first ask what is working well in their organization, what are the companies strengths, what are the virtues and then build on that."
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