The grumpy cynic within me rebels against an unhealthy move that has occurred in psychology in the past 20 years or so. This “revolution”, championed by annoyingly cheerful people, rejects the historical focus on misery and how to work with it and instead suggests we should “accentuate the positive”.

So-called positive psychology focuses on the radical idea that we could think a little more about happiness and how to promote it, rather than waiting for people to get depressed and anxious enough to seek professional help. For example, sometimes a student will say in all earnestness ...

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