The main interrogation that takes place in this book is over the interiorization of well-being. The former is done by critical psychology and the latter by positive psychology. This type of interrogation is not new, and positive psychology is not the only suspect in the practice of interiorization, which is the tendency of psychologists to locate the source, signs, and strategies of well-being within the individual.
Nearly thirty years ago I published a paper in the American Psychologist called “Psychology and the Status Quo” (Prilleltensky, 1989). The paper examined various schools of thought within psychology and their complicity in upholding an unjust state of social affairs. The main mechanism for doing so was the redefinition of social and interpersonal problems into intrapsychic maladies. Fast forward to 2015 when Davies stated:
As positive psychology and happiness measurement have permeated our political and economic culture since the 1990s, there has been a growing unease with the way in which notions of happiness and well-being have been adopted by policy-makers and managers. The risk is that this science ends up blaming … individuals for their own misery, and ignores the context that has contributed to it.
(Davies, 2015, pp. 5–6)
In the interim, between my paper and Davies’s The Happiness Industry, the characters might have changed, but the plot remains the same: a profession at risk of losing sight of context. This is not a trivial threat, for there are epistemic, moral, and political consequences of such oversight.
From an epistemic point of view, our understanding of well-being is hampered when we ignore cultural and environmental circumstances surrounding the experience and expression of well-being. From a moral point of view, we risk descent into person-centered explanations of health and wellness, which often turn into victim-blaming accusations, as noted by Davies. From a political standpoint, individualistic accounts of behavior wittingly or unwittingly support the societal status quo, which benefits the few and harms the many. According to this logic, it is people who need to change, not the system. There is no question that on many counts positive psychology has enhanced these risks, but these threats are not new and we have rung alarm bells for quite some time now (Fox, Prilleltensky, & Austin, 2009; Prilleltensky, 1994).
While these are serious shortcomings of positive psychology, it’s important to distill the contributions that this movement can potentially make. The emphasis on strengths is an important corrective, as is the focus on well-being. The traditional focus on deficits and illness has resulted in pathological depictions of individuals who are otherwise doing their best to cope with adverse environments. From the perspective of an oppressed woman or employee, stigmatizing them as “troubled” or “troubling” can only add insult to injury. Our dignity is assaulted when we encounter professionals bent on labeling us, as opposed to understanding us. Critical psychologists, who usually align with the experience of minorities, can definitely build on the scholarship of strengths because it grants the communities we work with dignity and respect.
The emphasis on skills is another important contribution of positive psychology. Exhortations for social change and personal emancipation require competencies. It is certainly possible that most of the skills imparted by positive psychologists help people adjust to an unjust social system, but they do not have to be limited to that. Skills can help in promoting wellness and fairness, at home, at work, and in the community. Furthermore, the acquisition of these skills can be fun and engaging (Prilleltensky, 2016).
This pragmatic emphasis has important implications for critical psychology and critical scholarship in general. While I was a professor at Vanderbilt University, doctoral students and I conducted an analysis of power and action in critical theory across various disciplines (Davidson et al., 2006). We found an interesting paradox. While community psychology, for example, was found to be more action oriented than critical psychology, its efforts fell short of contesting structures of power. On the other hand, while critical scholarship, including critical psychology, was certainly more challenging of the status quo than community psychology, it had not produced effective interventions to foster social change. Thomas Teo (1999), a leading critical psychologist, has referred to this as a project of deconstruction without construction or reconstruction.
Just like the critique of mainstream psychology is not new, neither is positive psychology’s emphasis on human potential, resilience, and well-being. As Cowen and Kilmer (2002) claimed in their comprehensive review, many psychologists had made major contributions to the wellness enhancement movement prior to the birth of positive psychology. In short, there is enough humility to go around for both critical and positive psychologists.
Historical modesty notwithstanding, the question remains how to build a bridge, if at all feasible, between critical perspectives and positive psychology. My personal answer is in the redefinition of wellness as fairness (Prilleltensky, 2012). There is ample research showing that health and wellness depend on conditions of fairness in relationships, at work, school, and in the community (Biglan, 2015; Marmot, 2015). In the absence of fair and just conditions, the potential benefits of positive psychology will remain within the province of the privileged. There is an urgent need to democratize positive psychology and all applied disciplines. Unless we do that, positive psychology will be a luxury for the few and a threat to the many, for the interiorization of well-being limits the exteriorization of injustice.
This book is enormously rich in content and provocative in implications. Authors explore the topics I mentioned above in detail. Some attempt a rapprochement between critical and positive psychology, while others resist it, but all do so in thoughtful and scholarly ways. For those of us who support the critical tradition, but also want to see wellness for all, this book is an intellectual feast. For maximal enjoyment, digest it slowly. For maximal impact, spread it widely.
Biglan, A. (2015). The nurture effect: How the science of human behavior can improve our lives and our world. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.
Cowen, E. L., & Kilmer, R. P. (2002). “Positive psychology”: Some plusses and some open issues. Journal of Community Psychology, 30, 449–460. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jcop.10014
Davidson, H., Evans, S., Ganote, C., Henrickson, J., Jacobs-Priebe, L., Jones, D., … Riemer, M. (2006). Interdisciplinary critical scholarship on power and action: Implications for community psychology. American Journal of Community Psychology, 38, 35–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10464-006-9061-4
Davies, W. (2015). The happiness industry: How the government and big business sold us well-being. London, England: Verso.
Fox, D., Prilleltensky, I., & Austin, S. (Eds.). (2009). Critical psychology: An introduction (2nd ed.). London, England: SAGE.
Marmot, M. (2015). The health gap. New York, NY: Bloomsbury.
Prilleltensky, I. (1989). Psychology and the status quo. American Psychologist, 44, 795–802. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.44.5.795
Prilleltensky, I. (1994). The morals and politics of psychology: Psychological discourse and the status quo. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Prilleltensky, I. (2012). Wellness as fairness. American Journal of Community Psychology, 49, 1–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10464-011-9448-8
Prilleltensky, I. (2016). The laughing guide to well-being: Using humor and science to become happier and healthier. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Teo, T. (1999). Methodologies of critical psychology: Illustrations from the field of racism. Annual Review of Critical Psychology, 1, 119–134.