Just focusing on the positive can be therapeutic

One of the best things about doing psychotherapy is that you are almost forced to think positively, that is, if you really want to help people. In other words, therapy is often therapeutic, even for the therapist.
This doesn’t mean that I will no longer charge for my services, but it is a terrific benefit.

There is a relatively new field in our business called “positive psychology.” If you read many of the old books on counseling, often there is a preoccupation with pain and suffering. Indeed, research on this topic has shown that less than 5 percent of the psychotherapy texts discuss positive feelings and outcomes. While it is important to be able to accurately diagnose emotional problems, moving on to more hopeful, happier ground should be the goal.

Positive counseling is about viewing emotional problems not as overwhelmingly dismal and negative, but assisting clients in finding new direction in thinking and feeling. Remember that it is not what happens that often makes you feel bad, but rather what you think about it.

Why do people who have faith live longer and, statistically, report to be happier than doubters? Because they have positive belief systems! I have no religious agenda in this article. However, in order to challenge beliefs and thoughts which consistently lead to negative feelings, it is important to be able to dispute prior thought patterns. This can be difficult, even painful, but the results are often good.

Even when experiencing divorce or family death, at the end of the day there are positives to be found. Challenging anxious and/or depressing thoughts (with or without medication) can lead to more positive, happier outcomes.

If this all sounds a little slushy, think of the alternatives. And if you’ve never tried to access positive psychological thinking, remember the quote “Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”

I am not attempting to convince you not to think rationally and make critical decisions. There are negative forces in our community, the state and the nation. There are certainly good decisions and bad ones. But even when you decide against an issue, it can be done in a relatively positive way — which is probably better for you and those you care about.

Martin Seligman, author of the book Authentic Happiness, talks about the value of acts of kindness as being one of the keys to feeling happier. He states that “Kindness is not accompanied by a separate stream of positive emotion like joy; it consists in total engagement and the loss of self-consciousness. Time stops. It is a gratification that calls on your strengths to rise to an occasion and meet a challenge.”

In short, kindness makes you and the recipient feel good. That is what it’s all about.