Positive psychology versus the medical model?: Comment.

Comments on "Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions" by Seligman, Steen, Park, and Peterson (see record 2005-08033-003). Seligman and colleagues provided a progress report on positive psychology, reviewing the impressive developments over the past five years. We wholeheartedly support the positive psychology movement and believe its success is a testimony to Seligman's vision and leadership. However, in looking back over the past five years, we are mindful of what the next five years may hold and are concerned over the future direction and development of the positive psychology movement. Positive psychology as a movement largely continues to operate within the medical model and thus to implicitly condone the "medicalization" of human experience. If positive psychology is seen only as a supplement, then a limited view is offered in which positive psychology may only be relevant as an "extra" for those who are already capable and well-functioning rather than as a useful guide for people wherever they are on the continuum of functioning. Our vision is that positive psychology should stand in contrast to the medical model and its impetus toward the medicalization of human experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)