"Seeking a Cure for Optimism"

12/31/09. Hope springs eternal in the healthy, but not in many intellectuals who make a living knowing things that aren't true.

This NYT article takes a swipe at Positive Psychology, a movement that Professor Martin E.P. Seligman started in 1998. Positive Psychology has attracted some of the best and brightest psychologists and psychiatrists, among other professionals, and spawned some important, well designed research studies on such topics as character, virtues, and enhancing human experience. This emphasis on looking for what is positive in human experience is a much needed corrective to years of only examining psychopathology.

This article quotes the work of Barbara Ehrenreich, a congenital sourpuss, with a long history of applying her Marxist world view --- and I don't mean Groucho --- to helping the poor and downtrodden, barely disguising her smug attitudes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/fashion/31positive.html?_r=1&em