Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character Seligman, M. E. P., & Yellin, A. (1987). What is a dream? strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Behavior Research and Therapy, 25, 1–24. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association and Oxford University Press. Positive Psychotherapy Seligman, M. E. P. (1970). On the generality of the laws of learning. Psychological Review, 77, 406–418. Martin E. P. Seligman, Tayyab Rashid, and Acacia C. Parks Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania Seligman, M. E. P. (1971). Phobias and preparedness. Be- havior Therapy, 2, 307–320. Seligman, M. E. P. (1975). Helplessness: On depression, development, and death. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman. Positive psychotherapy (PPT) contrasts with standard interventions for depression by increasing positive emotion, engagement, and meaning rather than directly targeting Seligman, M. E. P. (1991). Learned optimism. New York: depressive symptoms. The authors have tested the effects of Knopf. these interventions in a variety of settings. In informal student and clinical settings, people not uncommonly Seligman, M. E. P. (1993). What you can change and what reported them to be “life-changing.” Delivered on the you can’t: The complete guide to successful self-improve- Web, positive psychology exercises relieved depressive ment. New York: Knopf. symptoms for at least 6 months compared with placebo interventions, the effects of which lasted less than a week. Seligman, M. E. P. (1996). Science as an ally of practice. In severe depression, the effects of these Web exercises American Psychologist, 51, 1072–1079. were particularly striking. This address reports two preliminary studies: In the first, PPT delivered to groups significantly decreased levels of mild-to-moderate Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Authentic happiness: Using the depression through 1-year follow-up. In the second, PPT new positive psychology to realize your potential for last- delivered to individuals produced higher remission rates ing fulfillment. New York: Free Press. than did treatment as usual and treatment as usual plus medication among outpatients with major depressive Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Posi- disorder. Together, these studies suggest that treatments tive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, for depression may usefully be supplemented by exercises 55, 5–14. that explicitly increase positive emotion, engagement, and meaning. Seligman, M. E. P., & Hager, J. (Eds.). (1972). Biological Keywords: positive psychology, depression, psychotherapy, boundaries of learning. New York: Appleton-Century- strengths Crofts. For over 100 years, psychotherapy has been where clients go to talk about their troubles. In addition to trying many Seligman, M. E. P., & Maier, S. F. (1967). Failure to es- brands of psychotherapy, every year hundreds of thousands cape traumatic shock. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 74, 1–9. Editor’s Note Seligman, M. E. P., Reivich, K., Jaycox, L., & Gillham, J. Martin E. P. Seligman received the Award for Distin- (1995). The optimistic child: A proven program to safe- guished Scientific Contributions. Award winners are invited guard children against depression and build lifelong resil- to deliver an award address at the APA’s annual conven- ience. New York: Houghton Mifflin. tion. A version of this award address was delivered at the 114th annual meeting, held August 10–13, 2006, in New Seligman, M. E. P., Schulman, P., DeRubeis, R. J., & Hol- Orleans, Louisiana. Articles based on award addresses are lon, S. D. (1999). The prevention of depression and anxi- reviewed, but they differ from unsolicited articles in that ety. Prevention & Treatment, 2, Article 8a. Available at they are expressions of the winners’ reflections on their http://content.apa.org/journals/pre/2/1/8a.html work and their views of the field. 774 November 2006 ● American Psychologist of people attend retreats, workshops, camps, and courses Fredrickson & Losada, 2005; Haidt, 2006; Joseph & Lin- where the focus is nearly always on repairing negatives— ley, 2005; Seligman, 2002; Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peter- symptoms, traumas, wounds, deficits, and disorders. These son, 2005). In doing so, positive psychology has drawn on activities are based on a bold (but largely untested) axiom traditional scientific methods to understand and treat that talking about troubles is curative. Be that as it may, psychopathology. positives are rarely the focus of therapy, and never are they Although we believe that PPT may be an effective treat- systematically so. ment for many disorders, depression is our primary empiri- In its emphasis on troubles, psychology has done well cal target now. The symptoms of depression often involve in ameliorating a number of disorders but has seriously lack of positive emotion, lack of engagement, and lack of lagged behind in enhancing human positives. Mental health felt meaning, but these are typically viewed as conse- in the hands of talk therapy is all too often seen as the quences or mere correlates of depression. We suggest that mere absence of symptoms. Although notions such as indi- these may be causal of depression and therefore that build- viduation, self-realization, and peak experiences (Maslow, ing positive emotion, engagement, and meaning will allevi- 1971), full functioning (Rogers, 1961), maturity (Allport, ate depression. Thus PPT may offer a new way to treat and 1961), and positive mental health (Jahoda, 1958) dot the prevent depression. literature, these are mostly viewed as by-products of symp- tom relief or as clinical luxuries that, in this rushed age of Anecdotal Evidence and Exploratory Research managed care, clinicians cannot afford to address head on. We began by developing pilot interventions over the past Indeed, therapies that attend explicitly to the positives six years with hundreds of people, ranging from undergrad- of clients are few and far between. The first we know of uates to unipolar depressed patients. Martin E. P. Seligman was created by Fordyce (1977), who developed and tested taught five courses involving a total of more than 200 un- a “happiness” intervention consisting of 14 tactics, such as dergraduates, with weekly assignments to carry out and being more active, socializing more, engaging in meaning- write up many of the exercises described below. These ful work, forming closer and deeper relationships with seemed remarkably successful. Seligman cannot resist men- loved ones, lowering expectations, and prioritizing being tioning that he has taught psychology, particularly abnor- happy. He found that students who received detailed in- mal psychology, for 40 years and has never before seen so structions on how to do these were happier and showed much positive life change in students: Life-changing was a fewer depressive symptoms than a control group (Fordyce, word not uncommonly heard when students described their 1977, 1983). More recently, Fava and colleagues (Fava, experience with the exercises. The popularity of the Posi- 1999; Fava & Ruini, 2003) developed well-being therapy tive Psychology course at Harvard (855 undergraduates (WBT), which is based on the multidimensional model of enrolled in spring 2006; Goldberg, 2006) is likely related psychological well being proposed by Ryff and Singer to the impact of this material on the lives of students. (1998). It consists of building environmental mastery, per- In the next phase of piloting interventions, Seligman sonal growth, purpose in life, autonomy, self acceptance, taught more than 500 mental health professionals (clinical and positive relations with others, and is provided after psychologists, life coaches, psychiatrists, educators); each patients with affective disorder have successfully com- week for 24 weeks, “trainees” heard a one-hour lecture and pleted a regime of drugs or psychotherapy. Similarly, then were assigned one exercise to carry out in their own Frisch (2006) proposed quality of life therapy, which inte- lives and with their patients or clients. Once again, at the grates a life satisfaction approach with cognitive therapy. anecdotal level, we were astonished by the feedback from Both Fava’s and Frisch’s approaches explicitly target faulty mental health professionals about how well these interven- cognitions, troubling emotions, or maladjusted relation- tions “took,” particularly with their clinically depressed ships, offering a well-being component as a supplement. patients. This feedback was not entirely surprising, and, This article narrates the story of our using positive psy- indeed, the application of a positively focused therapy for chology to relieve depression. We call this approach posi- depression is a natural extension of the work that success- tive psychotherapy (PPT). PPT rests on the hypothesis that fully builds optimism to treat and prevent depression depression can be treated effectively not only by reducing among children and young adults (Buchanan, Rubenstein, its negative symptoms but also by directly and primarily & Seligman, 1999; Gillham & Reivich, 1999; Gillham, building positive emotions, character strengths, and mean- Reivich, Jaycox, & Seligman, 1995; Seligman, Schulman, ing. It is possible that directly building these positive re- DeRubeis, & Hollon, 1999). These pilot endeavors yielded sources may successfully counteract negative symptoms so many powerful “case histories” and testimonials that we and may also buffer against their future reoccurrence. In decided to try out positive