The 5 benefits of Positive Psychology
Until not so long ago, it was assumed that psychology was a scientific field aimed at correcting what is wrong. Thus, it was practically an extension of the sanitary disciplines, especially psychiatry and neurology, and strategies of "correcting" the behavior of children.
However, the development of this discipline was showing that that conception of psychology seen as "the arrangement of what is broken" was extremely limited (and generating stigmas). Why settle for using what we are learning about the human mind only to help those who consider that they are in a bad situation compared to other people? Why can not we use that knowledge not only to lose less, but to earn more?
Positive Psychology has its reason for being in these two questions , and intends to help us change to get closer to the way we would like to be to promote the most ambitious personal or professional projects of our lives. In this article we will see what its benefits are and how it contributes to personal development.
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The main benefits of Positive Psychology
Positive Psychology starts from the philosophical current of humanism, which points out that subjective experiences, what we feel and can not express in words, can have as much or more value than our observable behavior. Therefore, psychologists working from this paradigm seek to achieve effects that go beyond the objective, and that connects with the motivations and the true needs and concerns of the people .
Let's see a brief summary about the benefits of Positive Psychology and how it brings us closer to this kind of goals related to the emotional and what is truly meaningful for our lives.
1. It makes us improve in the regulation of emotions
From Positive Psychology it is understood that what we feel is not the fruit directly of what happens around us, but how we interpret and perceive what is happening around us. That is why it is important to know how to manage our emotions, given that In many cases an inadequate regulation of these makes us see problems where there are not .
Anger, for example, is capable of making us sacrifice many things in order to do something that not only does not bring us any benefit, but also harms us more than we were when we began to feel that way.
With this objective, the psychologists who start from the Positive Psychology paradigm train people to be able to adjust their emotions in the best possible way and make them play in your favor, and not against you. Ultimately, if our emotional side exists is because most of the time is useful to a greater or lesser extent, although there are always cases in which this is not so and it is worth learning to minimize its harmful effects.
It is not about suppressing them, but about making emotional states not eclipse the influence of others that should have a modulating role over the former.
2. It helps us to have a realistic self-concept
Self-concept is the set of beliefs about oneself that constitutes all we know about who we are. Depending on how it is, we will feel more or more capable of performing certain tasks or to be well integrated in a certain social circle.
Positive Psychology helps us to have a self-concept that fits our abilities and real qualities and our ability to improve in certain tasks, and this translates into a good self-esteem.
This is done by putting our apparent failures in perspective and showing us the way in which a good part of its existence is due to elements of our environment that we could not control, but that we can choose how they affect us.
- Related article: "Self-concept: what is it and how is it formed?"
3. Give guidelines to initiate projects and transform habits
Starting a new project requires leaving our comfort zone. That is, assume a certain degree of discomfort that will reach the beginning, but that over time will fade while we see the fruits of our efforts (fruits that we would not have reached if we had not strived to get out of the routine ).
Thus, Positive Psychology immerses us in dynamics that force us to put ourselves at the controls of our lives and not let limiting beliefs restrict our true freedom .
4. It allows us to develop leadership
Not everyone can be a leader 24 hours a day, but we all have the ability to lead groups in certain contexts and types of work.
As Positive Psychology not only focuses on the individual but also takes into account the social element of psychology It gives us the tools to adopt a style of leadership that suits us well in a certain aspect of our lives, whether personally or professionally.
5. Invites us to develop our own philosophy of life
As we have seen so far, the benefits of Positive Psychology have to do with the empowerment of people: to allow them to be people who make important decisions and who know how to assume their consequences in the most constructive way possible.
Therefore, an effect derived from all this is that thanks to these dynamics we are generating our own philosophy of life, a chain of principles and values that allows us to make sense of what we experience , instead of just following the ideas of others who have never been in our situation.
How to train in Positive Psychology?
There are more and more options to be trained in this field of psychology. In fact, there are learning programs that are specifically tailored to specific objectives.
The European Institute of Positive Psychology , for example, has several options for those who seek to deepen in Positive Psychology. Its Practical Self-esteem Course, online format and that offers the possibility of learning from audiovisual content, is a good way to discover how we can influence self-confidence and how to have it open the doors to many opportunities .
On the other hand, the Master Course in Applied Positive Psychology has the possibility of learning and understanding how Positive Psychology is used in people's accompaniment processes, which is especially useful for psychologists, managers, coaches and educators .
The IEPP also offers other interesting courses in online format, such as the Mindfulness and Emotional Management Course. As we have already seen, emotional management is crucial in Positive Psychology, and Mindfulness is one of the most useful tools in this sense, since it helps us to put into perspective what happens to us.
To learn more about these courses, you can find the contact details of the European Institute of Positive Psychology by clicking on this link.
