Neuroscience
Martin Seligman: "For one hundred years psychotherapy has been where you go to talk about your troubles. Looking over hundreds of controlled outcome studies, it is a moderately effective process. But does the troubles part matter?
We have recently been looking at a process—called Positive Psychotherapy—in which talking about what is good in your life is the central focus: strengths, virtues, flow, meaning, positive emotion, gratitude, hope and the like. We do not neglect troubles (depressed patients are socialized into the belief that troubles must be discussed and rapport would be undermined otherwise), but they are not the central focus and often form a segue into talking about strengths and meaning. Similarly trouble-focused psychotherapy does not wholly neglect the positive side of life, but damage and its repair are the central focus. Trouble-focused therapy, unlike strength-focus therapy, is not much fun (worse, sometimes patients unravel and cannot be ravelled up again), is stigmatizing, and has a considerable drop-out rate.
So let us finally test experimentally if it is troubles and repairing damage or building strength, meaning, and positive emotion that is the (more) active ingredient in psychotherapy: 200 depressed patients, randomly assigned to therapists, trained to deliver either trouble-focused or strength-focused psychotherapy. It could even be within subjects in an ABAB design. And how would these compare to medication or medication plus strength or trouble-focus?"
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Dr Martin Seligman is Leadership Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. He has written over twenty books and two hundred articles on motivation and personality.
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Neuroscience
Changing the focus of psychotherapy to what is good in your life
Martin Seligman: "For one hundred years psychotherapy has been where you go to talk about your troubles. Looking over hundreds of controlled outcome studies, it is a moderately effective process. But does the troubles part matter?We have recently been looking at a process—called Positive Psychotherapy—in which talking about what is good in your life is the central focus: strengths, virtues, flow, meaning, positive emotion, gratitude, hope and the like. We do not neglect troubles (depressed patients are socialized into the belief that troubles must be discussed and rapport would be undermined otherwise), but they are not the central focus and often form a segue into talking about strengths and meaning. Similarly trouble-focused psychotherapy does not wholly neglect the positive side of life, but damage and its repair are the central focus. Trouble-focused therapy, unlike strength-focus therapy, is not much fun (worse, sometimes patients unravel and cannot be ravelled up again), is stigmatizing, and has a considerable drop-out rate.
So let us finally test experimentally if it is troubles and repairing damage or building strength, meaning, and positive emotion that is the (more) active ingredient in psychotherapy: 200 depressed patients, randomly assigned to therapists, trained to deliver either trouble-focused or strength-focused psychotherapy. It could even be within subjects in an ABAB design. And how would these compare to medication or medication plus strength or trouble-focus?"
--
Dr Martin Seligman is Leadership Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. He has written over twenty books and two hundred articles on motivation and personality.
Return to menu for 'most important psych experiment never done.'
- Blogging For Mental Health
To coincide with the Mental Health Month Blog Party organised by the APA, I've collated some highlights from our coverage of mental health issues here at the BPS Research Digest. What is mental illness? In 2010 I reported on a Psychological Medicine...
- The Special Issue Spotter
We trawl the world's journals so you don't have to: The role of touch in marketing (Psychology and Marketing). International perspectives on stalking (Behavioural Sciences and the Law). Narrative and psychotherapy (Psychotherapy Research). Threat-Detection...
- What's The Most Important Psychology Experiment That's Never Been Done...?
To mark 100 email issues of the Research Digest - the British Psychological Society's free roundup of the world's best new psychology research - and to inspire the next generation of researchers, I asked leading psychologists and bloggers to write...
- Successful Therapists Focus On Their Clients' Strengths
Research is increasingly showing that the success of therapy depends not on the theoretical orientation of the therapist, but on key therapeutic processes that cross theoretical boundaries. Two such processes are ‘problem activation’ – helping...
- Thoughtful Talk About Positive Psychology
Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology ("a field of study that examines healthy states, such as happiness, strength of character and optimism") spoke at the Ted Conference back in 2004, and the video has just been made available online: ...