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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.
Table 1
Week-by-Week Summary Description of Group Positive Psychotherapy Exercises
Session Description
1 Using Your Strengths: Take the VIA-IS strengths questionnaire to assess your top 5 strengths, and think of ways to use
those strengths more in your daily life.
2 Three Good Things/Blessings: Each evening, write down three good things that happened and why you think they
happened.
3 Obituary/Biography: Imagine that you have passed away after living a fruitful and satisfying life. What would you want
your obituary to say? Write a 1–2 page essay summarizing what you would like to be remembered for the most.
4 Gratitude Visit: Think of someone to whom you are very grateful, but who you have never properly thanked. Compose a
letter to them describing your gratitude, and read the letter to that person by phone or in person.
5 Active/Constructive Responding: An active-constructive response is one where you react in a visibly positive and
enthusiastic way to good news from someone else. At least once a day, respond actively and constructively to
someone you know.
6 Savoring: Once a day, take the time to enjoy something that you usually hurry through (examples: eating a meal, taking
a shower, walking to class). When it’s over, write down what you did, how you did it differently, and how it felt
compared to when you rush through it.
Note. VIA-IS = Values in Action Inventory of Strengths.
Time point N M SD N M SD df F p d
Study 2: Individual Positive Psychotherapy With Unipolar depressive disorder (MDD), (c) having a score of at least
Depression 50 on the Zung Self-Rating Scale (ZSRS; Zung, 1965), and
Participants in our individual PPT pilot study were 46 cli- (d) having a score of at least 50 on the Outcome Question-
ents seeking treatment at Counseling and Psychological naire (OQ; Lambert et al., 1996). Exclusion criteria in-
Services (CAPS) at the University of Pennsylvania. Inclu- cluded (a) current treatment for depression (b) substance
sion criteria were as follows: (a) being between 18 and 55 abuse disorder for the last 12 months, panic disorder,
years old, (b) fulfilling DSM–IV (fourth edition of the Di- manic or hypomanic episodes (past or present), or psy-
agnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; chotic disorder (past or present); and (c) refusal to partici-
American Psychiatric Association, 2000) criteria for major pate in a 10 –12-week individual psychotherapy treatment.
Figure 1
Mean Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) Scores for Group Positive Psychotherapy (PPT) and Control Participants at All
Time Points
20
16
BDI Scores
12
PPT
Control
8
0
Baseline Posttest Three-month Six-month One-year
follow-up follow-up follow-up
5: Pleasure/engagement Forgiveness
Forgiveness is introduced as a powerful tool that can transform anger and bitterness into feelings
of neutrality or even, for some, into positive emotions.
Homework: Clients write a forgiveness letter describing transgression, related emotions, and
pledge to forgive transgressor (if appropriate) but may not deliver the letter.
6: Pleasure/engagement Gratitude
Gratitude is discussed as enduring thankfulness, and the role of good and bad memories is
highlighted again with emphasis on gratitude.
Homework: Clients write and present a letter of gratitude to someone they have never properly
thanked.
should trump happiness. Emergencies have first call in sur- more likely to end her day remembering positive events
vival selection. What kind of brain survived the ice ages? and completions rather than her troubles and her unfinished
The one that assumed the good weather would last, or the business. The gratitude visit, similarly, may shift memory
one that was strongly biased toward anticipating disaster away from the embittering aspects of the client’s past rela-
any moment now? tionships to savoring the good things that her friends and
Human beings are naturally biased toward remembering family have done for her.
the negative, attending to the negative, and expecting the The mechanism of other PPT exercises is likely more
worst. Negative emotion is most proximally driven by neg- external and behavioral. For example, increasing clients’
ative memories, attention, and expectations, and depressed awareness of their signature strengths likely encourages
individuals exaggerate this natural tendency. They strongly them to more effectively apply themselves at work by ap-
gravitate toward attending to and remembering the most proaching tasks in a way that better uses their abilities.
negative aspects of their lives, and several of our exercises Having more flow at work and doing better work can lead
aim to re-educate attention, memory, and expectations to an upward spiral of engagement and positive emotion.
away from the negative and the catastrophic toward the Similarly, teaching clients to respond in an active and con-
positive and the hopeful. For example, when a client does structive manner to good news from co-workers, friends,
the “three good things” exercise (“Before you go to sleep, and family teaches a social skill that likely improves most
write down three things that went well today and why they relationships (Gable, Reis, Impett, & Asher, 2004).
went well”), the depressive bias toward ruminating only Another possible mechanism is PPT’s sustained empha-
about what has gone wrong is counteracted. The client is sis on strengths as a way to have more engagement and
10
8
6
4
2
0
PPT TAU TAUMED
Treatment Groups
meaning in life. Throughout therapy, PPT clients are en- Although we do not ignore clients’ concerns about their
couraged and assisted in identifying their signature “deficiencies,” lest as therapists we may seem unfeeling
strengths: Near the onset of the therapy, clients are asked and unsympathetic toward troubles, we emphasize identify-
to introduce themselves through a real-life story about their ing, attending to, remembering, and using more often the
highest character strength. Then the client takes the Values core positive traits that clients already possess. This may pro-
in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS; Peterson & Se- duce “end-runs” around their perceived faults, faults they
ligman, 2004; see www.authentichappiness.org), a well- know all too well. One newspaper article headlined this ap-
validated test that identifies clients’ signature strengths. proach as “You already have a life, now use it.” In addition,
Therapist and client collaboratively devise new ways of we emphasize using signature strengths to solve problems.
using clients’ signature strengths in work, love, friendship, In addition to increasing clients’ general awareness of
parenting, and leisure. Further, we ask clients to tell us strengths, we coach them on how to explicitly employ their
detailed and rich narratives about what they are good at. signature strengths to counter depression. For example, one
client devised several new, specific ways of using her sig-
nature strength of appreciation of beauty to manage nega-
Table 5 tive moods. She rearranged her room in the way that she
Characteristics of Clients With Major Depressive found to be most aesthetically pleasing and decorated her
Disorder Receiving Individual Positive Psychotherapy
(PPT), Treatment as Usual (TAU), or TAU Plus wall with a print by her favorite artist, so that she woke up
Antidepressant Medication (TAUMED) to beauty. She had always wanted to do poetry but never had
PPT
time for it, and she was able to find a poetry club. For one
TAU TAUMED
(n = 11) (n = 9) (n = 12) week, she wrote three experiences of beauty every day in her
n % n % n %
journal; some of her entries were watching the sunset at the
Schuylkill River near Fairmont Park, noticing beauty on the
Women 8 73 7 78 7 58 face of a child, and seeing how happy and beautiful her dog
Caucasians 6 55 6 67 5 42 looked while they were playing. She also loved hiking, and so
Undergraduates 5 46 6 73 9 75 she took a hiking trip and climbed Mount Washington.
Previous episodes of
depression 7 64 2 18 5 42 Another client used his signature strength of love to
Comorbid diagnosis 9 82 3 27 8 67 undo his depression: His girlfriend was away in Europe for
Previous treatment 6 55 2 18 7 58 the spring semester, and he was quite depressed on Valen-
tine’s Day. He decided to arrange a long-distance Valen-
Symptomatic
ZSRS (Higher is more depressed)
Pre 63.91 7.71 64.33 9.10 63.83 11.07 ns
Post 43.27a 11.21 54.67b 9.85 55.50b 9.86 5.02* 1.12 1.22
HRSD (Higher is more depressed)
Post 5.13a 3.89 13.00b 6.80 10.08a 5.90 5.28* 1.41 ns
Overall functioning
OQ (Lower is better functioning)
Pre 76.27 12.86 72.44 29.92 63.83 21.07 ns
Post 45.82a 25.15 63.67a 25.15 55.50b 9.86 3.81* ns 1.13
GAF (Higher is better functioning)
Pre 61.18 6.60 63.00 6.60 60.58 5.43 ns
Post 75.73a 9.05 67.67b 7.78 69.00a 7.05 3.79* 1.16 ns
Well-being
SWLS (Higher is more satisfaction)
Pre 19.22 5.02 20.00 5.00 17.50 4.32 ns
Post 21.91 4.76 19.00 7.71 18.50 4.25 2.21
PPTI (Higher is more happiness)
Pre 28.27 6.45 29.33 9.14 27.67 6.11 ns
Post 35.00a 8.11 28.33b 7.14 28.75b 5.43 4.46* 1.26 1.03
Note. Posttreatment significant differences and effect sizes were adjusted for pretreatment scores. Significant differences between pretreatment OQ scores were explored
by mixed-model analysis of variance, because data did not meet the assumption of homogeneity of variance, Levene F(2, 29) = 4.51, p < .05. The HRSD was administered
only at the end of treatment. Pretreatment scores on the ZSRS for Depression were entered as a proxy covariate. Posttreatment HRSD and ZSRS, controlling for pretreatment
ZSRS, correlated .54 (p < .01, two-tailed). Within each row, means with different subscripts differ at the .05 level of significance. Because of the exploratory nature of
the study and the small sample size, pairwise correction was not applied. ZSRS = Zung Self-Rating Scale for Depression; OQ = Outcome Questionnaire; GAF = Global
Assessment of Functioning (DSM–IV Axis V) clinician rating; SWLS = Satisfaction With Life Scale; PPTI = Positive Psychotherapy Inventory, PPT outcome measure (details
regarding its psychometric properties are available by e-mail from Martin E. P. Seligman).
*
p < .05.
tine’s dinner. They each independently acquired their fa- preliminary, and we urge caution on several grounds. First,
vorite foods and talked via internet phone as they ate together, both therapy trials had small samples, but we note that our
listened to their favorite songs together, and each talked about sample size is on a par with those of most psychotherapy
their appreciation for the other’s character strengths. Then outcome studies. For example, in a meta-analysis con-
during spring break, he traveled to Europe, took her to a sur- ducted by Kazdin and Bass (1989), the median sample size
prise dinner at her favorite restaurant, and read out his grati- was 12. Similarly, Shapiro and Shapiro (1982) included
tude letter. At the end of the therapy, their relationship, which only 28% studies that contained 13 or more clients. Sec-
had been on the brink of break-up, was flourishing. ond, the clients in both of our studies were university or
Although the exercises presented on the Web with no hu- professional students. This may well limit the generaliz-
man hands are efficacious, we suspect that individual PPT for ability of PPT to other populations varying in age, ethnic-
severe depression is much more effectively delivered with the ity, socioeconomic status, and IQ. Currently, Lisa Lewis
basic therapeutic essentials: warmth, empathy, and genuine- and her colleagues at the Menninger Clinic are comparing
ness. Hence, when these “nonspecifics” are integrated with PPT with a traditional psychotherapy with a larger inpa-
PPT exercises and are supplemented with documented tech- tient sample (N = 100). We hope that such endeavors will
niques such as CBT, interpersonal therapy, and antidepressant
help us to unearth important questions regarding PPT’s
medication, we expect that efficacy will be better.
generalizability, specificity, and response rate. Third, we
Conclusions and Limitations doubt that the effects of PPT are specific to depression,
Although PPT led to clinically and statistically significant and we expect that increasing positive emotion, engage-
decreases in depression, we view these results as highly ment, and meaning promote highly general ways of buffer-
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