A Critique of Martin E.P Seligman, Acacia Parks, and Tracy Steen’s
“A balanced psychology and full life”
After World war II ended the main priority of Psychology was to fund research for mental illness. With the Veterans Administration act of 1946 in place Psychologists were able to support themselves by treating patients, as plenty of people had been affected by the effects of the war. It only made sense to look into treating those that has suffered the most. This proved to be a well worth investment. Since then we are now able to cure and treat disorders through Psychotherapy or Pharmacology. In his attempt to bring awareness to those that are left behind, he argues that the field of Psychology is preoccupied with the study of mental illness…show more content… Acacia Parks is a Psychology teacher and conducts research on happiness at Hiram College. Tracy Steen makes a career as a personal coach on the principles of positive psychology. In his research, Seligman notes the importance and great accomplishments that the field has had with mental illness research with classifying mental illness and identifying with accuracy symptoms that were originally difficult to recognize. Seligman fails to identify their mission as Psychologists and argues that the downside of the accomplishment has taken its toll on society. Further on, he conducts interventions that find that the 3 components of happiness are pleasure, engagement, and meaning. The interventions attempt to help the participants by engaging with something larger than themselves in utilizing their strengths. When testing the interventions, they provided placebo control and the result demonstrated that we have the capability to boost levels of happiness and that the effects do not fade immediately as they do with the placebo. To conclude they believe that when psychology no longer needs to differentiate between positive psychology and psychology it will be more representative of their mission, to understand the things that affect us as humans while also attempting to promote the things that give life
