Positive Clinical Psychology: A new vision and strategy for integrated research and practice
Introduction
We suggest the development of a Positive Clinical Psychology in which the understanding and treatment of clinical levels of distress is based on a balanced and equally weighted focus on the positive and negative aspect of life. We argue that a focus on the positive must equally compliment a focus on the negative in clinical psychology because positive characteristics (a) can predict disorder above and beyond the predictive power of the presence of negative characteristics, (b) buffer the impact of negative life events on distress, potentially preventing the development of disorder, (c) can be promoted in non-clinical populations to promote resilience, (d) can be fostered to treat clinical disorder, (e) offer opportunity for clinical psychologists to use their unique skills in new domains of life, and (f) have the potential to rapidly expand the knowledge base of clinical psychology.
We draw a distinction between previous positive psychology research (which has huge implications for understanding distress) and the now decade old positive psychology movement (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) (which has separatist implications and has attracted criticism). We suggest that positive psychology research can best impact on the scientific knowledge base of psychology, and be utilized to improve people's lives, if it avoids becoming embroiled in a movement and rather becomes fully integrated with the daily research and practice of mainstream disciplines (so that positive functioning is included alongside negative functioning in research designs, and increasing the positive is as important a focus of therapy as decreasing the negative). Clinical psychology is uniquely positioned to both take advantage of this integration (thorough improved understanding of disorder and the use novel treatments), and to become a vehicle through which positive psychology research can contribute to psychological science and practice. Clinical psychology contains the infrastructure that the positive psychology movement lacked, and can achieve an integrated focus on both the positive and the negative in a way that the positive psychology movement could not, due to an exclusive focus on the positive. The positive psychology movement has made a great contribution to psychology through increasing the focus on the positive (see Linley, Joseph, Harrington, & Wood, 2006). However, if the impact is to last, a second wave of research and practice is needed which addresses the criticisms leveled at the movement. Clinical Psychology is ideally placed to implement this second wave and we suggest a distinct agenda through which this can happen. To clarify what is meant by Positive Clinical Psychology; we do not in any way suggest that positive characteristics are emphasized over negative ones, or that a focus on the negative is removed. Quite the converse, we suggest that the field fully integrates the study and fostering of positive and negative characteristics equally; the positivity comes from developing a better and more integrated field rather than narrowly focusing on only one domain of life. This mirrors clinical practice in which new positive behavioral repertoires are created to displace behavior and affect associated with psychopathology.
In making this call we draw on the excellent contributions to this special issue, which have highlighted the relevance to clinical psychology of positive emotions (Garland et al., 2010-this issue), positive affect (Watson & Naragon-Gainey, 2010-this issue), psychological flexibility (Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010-this issue), optimism (Carver, Scheier, & Segerstrom, 2010-this issue), and gratitude (Joseph & Wood, 2010-this issue), as well as how positive functioning can be conceptualized, measured, and assessed (Joseph & Wood, 2010-this issue). Such research is at the forefront of the study of positive functioning and clinical distress and offers a sound bedrock from on which Positive Clinical Psychology can stand.
Section snippets
Benefits of a Positive Clinical Psychology
We argue there are five key benefits of a Positive Clinical Psychology. First, this would involve a more balanced research field, with a more thorough understanding of clinical disorder and distress. Second, the field would be better able to predict, explain, and conceptualize disorder. The absence of positive characteristics has been shown to be a robust risk factor for distress (Wood & Joseph, 2010a), with longitudinal evidence suggesting this relationship may be causal (Brissette et al., 2002
Integration with and separation from the Positive Psychology Movement
In developing a Positive Clinical Psychology, much can be learnt from the positive psychology movement (see Gable and Haidt, 2005, Linley et al., 2006, Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000, Sheldon and King, 2001). Many of the messages of this now decade old movement are as relevant to clinical psychology today as they were to psychology in 2000. Whilst the movement aimed to take its message equally to all areas of psychology, the impact appears to have been concentrated on personality/social
A research, practice, and political agenda for Positive Clinical Psychology
We suggest that Positive Clinical Psychology builds on many of the messages and successes of the positive psychology movement, but remains a separate entity, existing as part of clinical psychology. Specifically, we are not suggesting the development of a new fragment of clinical psychology, but rather a change or reorientation of clinical psychology itself, so that positive and negative functioning are considered equally when predicting, understanding, and treating distress. Thus we avoid many
Conclusion
Studying positive functioning has great potential to improve the prediction, understanding, and conceptualization of psychological distress. It is not logical to study either negative or positive functioning in isolation, as (a) this reduces the prediction of important outcomes (as in the prediction of the development of disorder), (b) positive and negative functioning can interact to predict outcomes (as in the buffering of negative life events and disorder), (c) any designation of a
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