The Dream of Flow and Flourishing*
A Declaration of Love to Positive Psychology
In our last blog post, we actually were in search of reasons why positive psychology can be annoying. You can read about it here: link to previous blog post. At first glance, positive psychology can come across as superficial, self-centered and detached beauty. Through our research, we have gotten to know this beauty better and have taken a closer look.
3 reasons why positive psychology attracts us:
- The community around positive psychology is open and has a strong open-source mindset..
At https://www.dgpp-online.de the German Society for Positive Psychology even offers free courses that are easy to take part in.
- Positive psychology is both scientifically sound and application-oriented..
The best-known representative in Austria is Dr. Markus Ebner with his PERMA-Lead concept, which focuses on leadership. The model is intuitive and clearly shows leaders of all kinds which framework conditions they can create to promote goal-oriented and satisfied cooperation. You can find it at https://www.ebner-team.com/positive-leadership/. - Topics such as growth, happiness and flow address our dreams and we enjoy focusing on them.
Have you ever more or less secretly filled out a pseudo-psychological questionnaire in a magazine? You're a little embarrassed of yourself because you know it can't have a scientific basis, but you do it anyway because psychological tests have a magical attraction. Positive psychology is a feast for the professional, rational parts of us, who now have a sound basis in their search for happiness, satisfaction, meaning, commitment, etc. and can breathe a sigh of relief because they don't have to leave the field to magazine psychology. We are also fans of the methods of positive psychology, because the debate is simply good and enjoyable.
Here is a classic for beginners, the 4 bedtime questions (reflect on them in writing for 2 weeks before going to bed and see what they do to you):
(1) What brought me joy today?
(2) Where did I feel alive today?
(3) What can I be grateful for today?
(4) What strengths was I able to live out today?
A scientific analysis and background information can be found here:
https://www.dgpp-online.de/home/themen-der-positiven-psychologie/4-evening-questions/
AUTHOR: Alexandra Hahn
*If you've never heard the term before, you can read about it here: https://lexikon.stangl.eu/2970/flourishing
