Positive Psychology and Depression
Positive Psychology in the Treatment of Major Depression
Positive psychology is a strengths-oriented, positively focused approach to human behaviors and thoughts that is relatively recent to the overall field of psychology. Previous schools of thought had always focused on the abnormalities, weaknesses, and pathologies of people. Positive psychology is an exceptionally new branch of psychology and aims at making life more fulfilling, enjoyable, and happy instead of just tolerable; they wish to promote mental health and well-being instead of only treating disorders. This research paper will address the roles that hope, gratitude, forgiveness, resilience, optimism, and self-efficacy play in one’s life, and how these characteristics can be utilized in a way to maximize one’s positive affect.
One of the most common mood disorders is depression. Depression comes in many forms and there are also different depressive disorders such as major depression, bipolar disorder, and dysthymic disorder. (NIMH, 2009) For the sake of this paper, major depression will be examined. Symptoms of a major depressive episode include feelings of sadness or unhappiness, irritability or frustration, loss of interest or pleasure in normal activities, reduced sex drive, insomnia or excessive sleeping, changes in appetite, agitation or restlessness, angry outbursts, slowed thinking or speaking, fatigue, tiredness, loss of energy, trouble thinking or concentrating, frequent thoughts of death or dying including suicide, crying spells for no apparent reason, and unexplained physical problems such as pain (Mayo Clinic, 2012). One does not have to have every one of these symptoms, they must have at least five symptoms, they must persist for at least two weeks, symptoms cannot be caused due to drug or alcohol consumption, are not caused by bereavement or last longer than two months, and they must cause a significant amount of impairment in the person’s everyday life functioning (DSM-IV-TR,
Positive psychology is a strengths-oriented, positively focused approach to human behaviors and thoughts that is relatively recent to the overall field of psychology. Previous schools of thought had always focused on the abnormalities, weaknesses, and pathologies of people. Positive psychology is an exceptionally new branch of psychology and aims at making life more fulfilling, enjoyable, and happy instead of just tolerable; they wish to promote mental health and well-being instead of only treating disorders. This research paper will address the roles that hope, gratitude, forgiveness, resilience, optimism, and self-efficacy play in one’s life, and how these characteristics can be utilized in a way to maximize one’s positive affect.
One of the most common mood disorders is depression. Depression comes in many forms and there are also different depressive disorders such as major depression, bipolar disorder, and dysthymic disorder. (NIMH, 2009) For the sake of this paper, major depression will be examined. Symptoms of a major depressive episode include feelings of sadness or unhappiness, irritability or frustration, loss of interest or pleasure in normal activities, reduced sex drive, insomnia or excessive sleeping, changes in appetite, agitation or restlessness, angry outbursts, slowed thinking or speaking, fatigue, tiredness, loss of energy, trouble thinking or concentrating, frequent thoughts of death or dying including suicide, crying spells for no apparent reason, and unexplained physical problems such as pain (Mayo Clinic, 2012). One does not have to have every one of these symptoms, they must have at least five symptoms, they must persist for at least two weeks, symptoms cannot be caused due to drug or alcohol consumption, are not caused by bereavement or last longer than two months, and they must cause a significant amount of impairment in the person’s everyday life functioning (DSM-IV-TR,
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