Negative Reflections About Positive Psychology: On Constraining the Field to a Focus on Happiness and Personal Achievement

“Positive” psychology has gained a dominant voice within and outside the field of psychology. Although critiques of this perspective have been rendered, including by humanistic psychologists, psychology scholars have offered minimum space for critical reflections of this movement in contrast to its critiques existing inside and outside the academia in other fields. Therefore, this contribution seeks to explicate emerging systematic critiques of positive psychology by scholars and practitioners from within mental health fields as well as from philosophy, medicine, education, business, and cultural studies and to highlight sociocultural discussions of positive movement by the culture critics. Last, we offer reflections on positive psychology as immigrant professionals from non-Western backgrounds with an emphasis on existential and humanities-based perspectives. We also highlight that the tenets and experiments based on “positive” psychological practices may have especially detrimental effect on marginalized individuals and communities. This contribution seeks to invite a critical dialogue in the field regarding positive psychology within and outside humanistic psychology and psychology in general.

Psychotherapy and the Idea of Meaning

A number of influential theorists in psychotherapy and psychology rightly argue that meaning is central to psychology. However, they ground this insight on further claims that persons autonomously create meaning and reality; and that a constructivist, anti-realist, postmodern philosophy offers justification for the centrality of meaning. These further claims are mistaken. They confuse symbolic meaning with meaning as salience. The latter, the meaning usually of concern to psychotherapy, is a relation between a person (specifically motives) and objects. It results from the interaction between persons and objects relevant to their motivational interests. It is part of the real, determinate world and in principle scientifiically investigable. The argument that meaning is part of autonomously created realities is incoherent. Further, anti-realist, postmodern constructivism depends on the realist assumptions about facts, truth and objective knowledge that it denies. The genuine insights of the meaning-making movement require a realist account of knowledge, truth and objectivity.

Improving access to psychological therapies (IAPT) and treatment outcomes: epistemological assumptions and controversies

Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is recommended as a primary treatment choice in England, for anxiety and depression, by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). It has been argued that CBT has enjoyed political and cultural dominance and this has arguably led to maintained government investment in England for the cognitive and behavioural treatment of mental health problems. The government programme 'Improving Access to Psychological Therapies' (IAPT) aims to improve the availability of CBT. The criticism of the NICE evidence-based guidelines supporting the IAPT programme, has been the dominance of the gold standard randomized controlled trial methodology, with a focus on numerical outcome data, rather than a focus on a recovery narrative. RCT-based research is influenced by a philosophical paradigm called positivism. The IAPT culture is arguably influenced by one research paradigm and such an influence can skew services only towards numerical outcome data as the only truth of 'recovery'. An interpretative paradigm could assist in shaping service-based cultures, alter how services are evaluated and improve the richness of CBT research. This paper explores the theory of knowledge (epistemology) that underpins the evidence-based perspective of CBT and how this influences service delivery. The paper argues that the inclusion of service user narrative (qualitative data) can assist the evaluation of CBT from the user's perspective and can understand the context in which people live and how they access services. A qualitative perspective is discussed as a research strategy, capturing the lived experience of under-represented groups, such as sexual, gender and ethnic minorities. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) has enjoyed political and cultural dominance within mental healthcare, with renewed government investment in England for the'Improving Access to Psychological Therapies' (IAPT) programme. The criticism of the evidence-based guidelines, published by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which supports the IAPT programme has been the dominance of the gold standard randomized controlled trial methodology. The definition of 'recovery' used by IAPT is based on a positivist position, with a focus on numerical outcome data garnered through psychometric measures. An interpretative perspective of recovery, which would include a subjective individual patient/service user narrative and would include a collaborative qualitative dialogue, is arguably absent from the IAPT programme. The challenge inherent in the IAPT programme is the high demand/high turnover culture, and psychometric measures are quick to administer; however, this culture is driven from one research paradigm. An interpretative paradigm may assist in shaping service-based cultures, alter how services are evaluated, and improve the richness of CBT research.

Moving beyond the blame game: toward a discursive approach to negotiating conflict within couple relationships

The concept of discourse is an important tool in negotiating conflict and facilitating conversations within therapy. This article offers a useful framework for negotiating conflict in a couple relationship by highlighting the manner in which individual's expectations are mutually emergent from particular discursive positions. Specific discursive practices and approaches that make more visible the cultural production of conflicts are presented via a case illustration. These practices provide more freedom to couples in relationships to explore conflicts with less totalizing descriptions of the other as blameworthy. In addition, a discursive analysis of conflict invites therapists to be more intentional, reflexive, and socially responsible in their work.

Sociopolitical activist or conversational partner? Distinguishing the position of the therapist in narrative and collaborative therapies

In this article, we explore the similarities and differences of two contemporary family therapy approaches: narrative and collaborative therapies. These therapies are contrasted by describing positioning of the narrative practitioner as sociopolitical activist and the collaborative practitioner as conversational partner. The article begins with a brief overview of the two therapies. Subsequently, we outline their epistemological genealogies and the practice similarities that arise from the theoretical assumptions underpinning these therapies. The remainder of the article addresses the theoretical and therapeutic differences in narrative and collaborative approaches reflected in the positioning of therapist as either sociopolitical activist or conversational partner. While narrative and collaborative approaches share more similarities than differences in relation to their emphasis on the constitutive characteristics of language, focus on sociorelational contexts, and critique of singular objective truths, prominence is given to the starker contrasts in narrative and collaborative understandings of politics, power, dialogue, and discourse. It is proposed that by outlining some provocative contrasts between narrative and collaborative approaches, new conversations and generative practices will emerge in the therapy room.