Positive psychology is a sub-discipline of psychology that emerged at the turn of the millennium, founded by Martin Seligman and Mihaly Czikszentmihayli. It focuses on positive human functioning and flourishing (or eudaimonia – the axial Greek term for flourishing), on promoting optimal psychological well-being through scientific research. It is a reaction against the general focus of psychology on mental illness, and instead of focusing on helping people to move from mental ill heath to a neutral / ‘normal’ state (from -10 to 0), it strives to facilitate a move from 0 to 10: to optimal mental and psychological health. It draws on humanistic psychology (e.g. Abraham Maslow, Erich Fromm and Carl Rogers) and emphasises both Mihaly Czikszentmihayli’s notion of flow (or being in ‘the zone’) and the fostering of character strengths and virtues.
Its approach to human nature combines notions from Aristotle and humanistic psychology, seeing individuals as possessing innate ‘virtues’ or potentials that can be cultivated and expressed or actualised – an innate developmental tendency that leads to well-being when given expression and ill-being when thwarted. Although it falls short of embracing the deeper essence and truer nature that both the contemplative core of the axial religions and recent developments in psychotherapy (IFS) all speak of, it is compatible with the general developmental approach of a new axial vision. We particularly draw on its focus on the cultivation of virtues and character strengths, which was embraced by the three great Axial Age sages – Socrates, Confucius and Buddha – and the traditions they inspired, and also the phenomenon of flow, which the new axial vision sees as involving a nondual state.