Positive Psychology and the use of whig history

This is inspired by some of the discussion after the research seminar on Monday, as well as this blog post that CJ posted some time ago but reminded me of yesterday.


In their introduction to positive psychology Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) provide an historical sketch. That historical sketch presents all the main failings of whig history; past psychology being presented only from the position of the current authors, movements being praised or denigrated from a position that some current form of psychology is the correct one; and a particular failing of whiggish histories of psychology, that the approach to psychology adopted by the authors solves any problems that they have identified.

I have looked for an open access copy of Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi to link to, but unfortunately I have not been able to find one, so with regret you will have to rely on my description of it. Those of you that have institutional or personal access to the American Psychologist will be able to better judge if I am being fair in my characterisation of them.

I have been influenced by Yen's 2010 paper on the historical narratives in Positive Psychology, and by the ideas expressed on the Anarpsy facebook group.

 The history of psychology from a positive psychology perspective

The historical sketch of psychology found in Seligman and Csikzentmihalyi goes like this:

Before world war II psychology had three missions, "curing mental illness, making the lives of all people more productive and fulfilling, and identifying and nurturing high talent." (p6)

After world war II, because of funding being made available by what was then called the Veteran's Administration, psychologists found they could make a living by treating mental illness, and because of funding provided by the National Institute of Mental Health academic found they could get funding for research if that research was about pathology.

In the 50 years that follow "the other two fundamental missions of psychology--making the lives of all people better and nurturing genius--were all but forgotten." (p6).

Seligman and Csikzentmihalyi describe the situation; "Psychologists saw human beings as passive foci: Stimuli came on and elicited responses (what an extraordinarily passive word!). External
reinforcements weakened or strengthened responses. Drives, tissue needs, instincts, and conflicts from childhood pushed each of us around." (p6)

One potential branch of psychology, which first created this critque of psychology was Humanistic Psychology. According to Seligman and Csikzentmihalyi this came into existence a decade later than the immediate after war period.

Unfortunately, humanistic psychology did not attract much of a cumulative empirical base, and it spawned myriad therapeutic self-help movements. In some of its incarnations, it emphasized the self and encouraged a self-centeredness that played down concerns for collective well-being (p7)

Even worse, in their history Humanistic psychology was responsible for self help books, that now crowd out the scholarly tomes on psychology.

The three missions of psychology

It is hard for me to reconcile the three missions identified by Seligman and Cskizentmihalyi and the history of psychology. However I will try to compare these three missions with my understanding of the history of Psychology, that understanding owes a debt to the work of Kurt Danziger, Graeme Richards and Dai Jones.

Curing Mental Illness

There is an ongoing discussion over whether Freud and the other pre WWII psychoanalysts should be seen as a part of the mainstream discipline, or a competitor discipline that was more successful than psychology because it held the promise of curing mental illness. That argument was live at the time and their are contemporary psychologists who very much saw it as part of the discipline, and others that rejected it. The first and second world war are both important to the rising profile of psychology. During the first world war the US army recognised the potential problems of shell shock, and supported the efforts of Woodworth to create a screening test for recruits; with those picked up by the screening test to then be subjected to a clinical interview by a psychiatrist. The test was never introduced as thankfully the war ended, and Woodworth sold a slightly altered test to businesses who wanted to screen out potentially 'maladjusted' employees. In the UK C.S. Myres, and W. McDougall were pivotal in getting recognition for shell shock, and advocating psychological treatments for it. Best known because of Pat Barker's regeneration trilogy is W.H.R. Rivers. Rivers should be known to psychologists because he co-founded the British Journal of Psychology, and was instrumental in helping to run the first two experimental psychology laboratories in the UK, had prior to this gained his MD, and used his own version of 'the talking cure' to try to help officers suffering from shell shock.

However, in the USA, psychology gained credibility, just after world war one, for the intelligence tests run on recruits.

There is a theme here which Seligman and Cskizentmihalyi do not pick out, the alliances psychology has formed with the military as part of promoting and defining the discipline. It goes beyond trying to deal with the suffering of soldiers, and developing psychological tests for recruits. In world war two the 'American Solider' research project, as well as launching the American version of social psychology as if it were the only version available, led to a range of changes to US army practice including "Expert and Combat Infantrymen’s Badges, revision of pay scales, the demobilization point system, and influenced what appeared in Yank, the Army Weekly, Stars & Stripes, and Frank Capra’s “Why We Fight” propaganda films". Latterly psychologists have been instrumental in helping the US torture suspects in Gauntanamo bay. It is odd that this historical theme was not picked out by Seligman and Cskizentmihalyi as positive psychology has firmly allied itself with the US military for
the Comprehensive Soldier (and family) Fitness project. However they are trying to claim their product is better than 'psychology as usual' rather than just being a slight re-branding.

 Making the lives of all people better

There have been, and still are, several organisations within psychology that have this as their remit. Community Psychology, as exemplified by Isaac Prilleltensky has long pursued the idea of giving people meaningful control over their lives as a step towards improving well being. As Community Psychology dates back to 1965 it is disruptive of the narrative that Positive psychologists are weaving. Critical Psychology, which again develops during the time period which Seligman and  Cskizentmihalyi claim psychology is only interested in working within the model of the DSM. Both of these do include a thorough critique of the psychological mainstream, whereas positive psychology reinforces that mainstream while attempting to carve a professional niche.

Even in that positive psychology is not unique in proclaiming an attempt to make the lives of all people better, sports psychology, health psychology and educational psychology all attempt to do that.

Identifying and nurturing high talent

From within the mainstream of psychology sports psychology, educational psychology and occupational psychology might all realistically claim that they have been identifying and nurturing high talent.

However, a more pervasive theme, that Positive Psychology joins in with 'psychology as usual' is classification of people. Intelligence tests, personality tests, attitude scales and now character strengths and virtues, are part of the continuing effort by psychology, since the early part of the twentieth century to classify people, and in a Foucaultian twist get people to classify themselves.

Conclusions

Positive psychologists write a history of the discipline in order to position Positive Psychology as something new and radical.  Unfortunately there appears to be nothing new or radical about it. The themes of forming allegiance with the power of the nation state through working with the military has a long history, as does producing classification systems that reflect current concerns. By writing such a poor history of psychology the main thing that it did for me was to make be sceptical of any claims about history and culture that were made subsequently. However, while there have been dissenting and critical voices as far as I can tell most psychologists cannot recognise this as poor history. That perhaps is also an important lesson.