Traditional psychology is FLAWED.
It’s about time we take the focus away from psychopathology, DSM & negativity, and start giving more emphasis on what makes people happy and flourishing.
Yes, it is, but lets make sure that we don’t reach an oversimplification. Traditional and specifically clinical psychology possesses great value and has provided us with valuable tools to understand human psychopathology and find appropriate treatment methods for people who are struggling.
Nevertheless, clinical psychology has devoted too much time and money in researching “deviant” and “abnormal” behavior. The reasons that led to this situation today are complex, and only a thorough overview of the history of science, medicine and psychology of the last 100 years could provide us with a complete answer — but we don’t have time for that.
The question that concerns us the most in this article is not how did we get here, but rather where do we go from here?
First of all: Why is this way of thinking problematic?
Clinical psychology developed as a branch of medical treatment and as a result, it’s a science that is based on the following assumptions:
- Since it has followed the paradigm of the medicine/disease model, its focus is on the psychopathology of humans, thus separating the clinical population with the non-clinical.
- There exists normal and abnormal behavior.
- The tasks of clinical psychologists are to identify “disorders” and treat them accordingly.
How?
For this exact reason, the American Psychiatric Association has been publishing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is basically the bible for all psychologists and psychiatrists.
DSM is now in its 5th edition and although it has been a powerful tool used to identify symptoms and categorize disorders, it is not enough. The truth is that for the “clinical” population, the sole elimination of “symptoms” does not guarantee happiness.
Clinical psychologists always have been “more heavily invested in intricate theories of failure than in theories of success” (Bandura, 1998: 3)
Just because one does not suffer from panic attacks does not mean that he/she is content and happy with his/her life.
And what about the non-clinical population? What about all the people who don’t have any kind of symptomatology? What does psychology offer them?
The lack of interest that traditional psychology has shown for the things that make humans develop, grow and flourish has lead us to adopt an alternative approach.
An approach which focuses on all the things that make us happy, unique, able — the things that makes us use our potential, deploy our natural talents, flourish and grow.
…this is what we call “Positive Psychology”!
As the founders of Positive Psychology, Seligman and Czikszentmihalyi stated: “psychology is not just a branch of medicine concerned with illness or health; it is much larger. It is about work, education, insight, love, growth, and play” (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000, p. 7)
One of the most important aspects of getting away from the psychology of illness is to re-evaluate the relationship that professionals have with the DSM.
“With each revision, the DSM has had more to say about how people should live their lives and about what makes life worth living. The number of pages has increased from 86 in 1952 to almost 900 in 1994, and the number of mental disorders has increased from 106 to 297. As the boundaries of “mental disorder” have expanded with each DSM revision, life has become increasingly pathologized, and the sheer numbers of people with diagnosable mental disorders has continued to grow.” (Snyder & Lopez, 2015: 17)
Undeniably, traditional psychology is valuable. But it has some flaws…
But we don’t have to leave it to the professionals to make the world better. Each and everyone of us can take small steps in order to make ourselves better…
Don’t forget that “happiness is a lot of small things done well, day by day”
Workout for Happiness aims to help each and every one of us make our lives worth living. Following the paradigm of positive psychology, we put emphasis on our strengths and our ability to constantly change and adapt and improve.
Moving away from the psychology of illness, we are promoting a psychology of flourishing. For everyone. Because every one of us deserves and, most importantly, can be happy.
Starting today. Starting at this moment.
(…or maybe starting at our next Workout on the 11th of December!)
Written by N.L.
Join us now in our quest to make ourselves and the world a better place…
