构建人类优势:心理学遗忘的使命
By Martin E.P. Seligman, PhD
马丁·塞利格曼
APA President
美国心理学会前主席
Before World War II, psychology had three missions: curing mental illness, making the lives of all people more fulfilling, and identifying and nurturing high talent. After the war, two events changed the face of psychology. In 1946, the Veterans Administration was created, and practicing psychologists found they could make a living treating mental illness. In 1947, the National Institute of Mental Health was created, and academic psychologists discovered they could get grants for research on mental illness.
在第二次世界大战以前,心理学有三个使命:治疗心理疾病,让所有的人生活更有意义,鉴别和培养天才。战后,两个事件改变了心理学的面貌。1946年,美国退役军人管理局成立,应用心理学家发现,他们能够通过治疗心理疾病来谋生。1947年,美国国立心理健康研究所成立,从事学术研究的心理学家发现,他们能够获得心理疾病方面的研究资助。
As a result, we have made huge strides in the understanding of and therapy for mental illness. At least 10 disorders, previously intractable, have yielded up their secrets and can now be cured or considerably relieved. Even better, millions of people have had their troubles relieved by psychologists.
因此,我们在理解和治疗心理疾病方面取得了巨大进步。心理学家至少揭示了10种之前难以治疗的疾病奥秘,现在这些疾病能够治愈或大大缓解。更为成功的是,心理学家减轻了数百万人的烦恼。
Our neglected missions 我们忽略的使命
But the downside was that the other two fundamental missions of psychology--making the lives of all people better and nurturing "genius"--were all but forgotten.
We became a victimology. Human beings were seen as passive foci: Stimuli came on and elicited "responses," or external "reinforcements" weakened or strengthened "responses," or conflicts from childhood pushed the human being around. Viewing the human being as essentially passive, psychologists treated mental illness within a theoretical framework of repairing damaged habits, damaged drives, damaged childhoods and damaged brains.
Fifty years later, I want to remind our field that it has been side-tracked. Psychology is not just the study of weakness and damage, it is also the study of strength and virtue. Treatment is not just fixing what is broken, it is nurturing what is best within ourselves.
Bringing this to the foreground is the work of the Presidential Task Force on Prevention, headed by Suzanne Bennett Johnson and Roger Weissberg. This task force will take on a number of jobs: It will attempt to identify the "Best practices in prevention" led by Karol Kumpfer, Lizette Peterson and Peter Muehrer; it will explore "Creating a new profession: training in prevention and health promotion," by setting up conferences on the training of the next generation of prevention psychologists led by Irwin Sandler, Shana Millstein, Mark Greenberg and Norman Anderson; it will work with Henry Tomes of APA's Public Interest Directorate in the ad campaign to prevent violence in children; it will sponsor a special issue on prevention in the 21st century for the American Psychologist, edited by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; and, led by Camilla Benbow, it will ask what psychology can do to nurture highly talented children.
Building strength, resilience and health in young people 构建年轻人的优势、韧性和健康
But an underlying question remains: How can we prevent problems like depression, substance abuse, schizophrenia, AIDS or injury in young people who are genetically vulnerable or who live in worlds that nurture these problems? What we have learned is that pathologizing does not move us closer to the prevention of serious disorders. The major strides in prevention have largely come from building a science focused on systematically promoting the competence of individuals.
We have discovered that there is a set of human strengths that are the most likely buffers against mental illness: courage, optimism, interpersonal skill, work ethic, hope, honesty and perseverance. Much of the task of prevention will be to create a science of human strength whose mission will be to foster these virtues in young people.
Fifty years of working in a medical model on personal weakness and on the damaged brain has left the mental health professions ill-equipped to do effective prevention. We need massive research on human strength and virtue. We need practitioners to recognize that much of the best work they do is amplifying the strengths rather than repairing their patients' weaknesses. We need psychologists who work with families, schools, religious communities and corporations to emphasize their primary role of fostering strength.
The major psychological theories have changed to undergird a new science of strength and resilience. Individuals--even children--are now seen as decision-makers, with choices, preferences and the possibility of becoming masterful, efficacious or, in malignant circumstances, helpless and hopeless. Such science and practice will prevent many of the major emotional disorders. It will also have two side effects. Given all we are learning about the effects of behavior and of mental well-being on the body, it will make our clients physically healthier. It will also re-orient psychology to its two neglected missions, making normal people stronger and more productive as well as making high human potential actual.
Accordingly, the theme of APA's 1998 Annual Convention in San Francisco, Aug. 14-18, is "Prevention: building strength, resilience and health in young people." I urge you to bring your family, particularly your children and your grandchildren.
中译本见:《积 极 心 理 学:探索人类优势的科学与实践》p 4~5 中国轻工业出版社 2013-11
www.psychspace.com心理学空间网