In 1999, scientist Seligman defined positive psychology as “the scientific study of positive experiences, positive individual traits, the institutions that facilitate their development, and the programs that they help improve the quality of life of individuals, while preventing or reducing the incidence of psychopathology”.
Likewise, this type of psychology is also defined as the scientific study of human strengths and virtues which allow us to adopt a more open perspective regarding human potential, its motivations and capabilities, favoring the development of positive emotions that influence health and well-being.
According to experts on the subject, a positive attitude towardsIncreases the intellectual, physical and social resources of people so that they can respond in the best way when unexpected or difficult situations arise.
Resilience, the key to positive psychology
Throughout this century, several studies have been carried out that have concluded that a person who has developed a positive attitude becomes more resilient and promotes through positive emotions the ability to face autonomously and effectively situations that cause stress or psychopathic damage in people with a pessimistic attitude.
In turn, this type of psychological treatment includes institutional civic virtues that guide individuals to take responsibility for the community and promote characteristics that improve coexistence in a group.
The director of the European Institute of positive psychology in Murcia and Cartagena indicate that positive psychology can help treat sadness and anxiety which occurs when a cycle ends. This is the case of the post-holiday syndrome, which is not a disease but a series of symptoms that prevent readjustment to daily life in full power.
In this case, positive psychology will act as a calming of thoughts that will allow the mind to gradually adapt back to the daily routine. One of the expert’s recommendations for this case is to return home a few days before the end of the vacation.
At the clinical level, one of the goals of positive psychology is to shift the intervention framework toward development of therapeutic strategies that favor positive emotional experience, helping to prevent and treat problems derived from negative emotions and thoughts such as anxiety, depression, aggression and stress.
The key concept of this tool is the resilience, since there are people who after a tragedy become obsessed with the disaster and acquire behaviors that prevent them from continuing with their daily lives.
In this case, resilience is a quality that can be developed through a learning process, the challenge will be to learn to overcome what happened and find the strength in the experience to move forward, through positive thoughts and different approaches to the pain produced by the tragedy.