Professor Martin Seligman, during his presidency of the American Psychological Association in 1998, asked applied psychologists to return to their principles and pay attention to making people’s lives more fruitful and satisfying, as well as identifying and cultivating their talents, in addition to treating and healing mental patients. .

In fact, these were the goals of applied psychologists until before World War II, but after the war, psychologists focused entirely on the treatment of mental illness and almost completely neglected the other two goals.

After Professor Sigman’s comment in 1998, a large group of thinkers focused on emotions and positive traits, abilities, talents, and positive institutions, or at least paid more attention to these aspects. Research in the field of positive psychology has expanded and expanded in the last decade or two. In 2008, the first issue of the magazine of positive psychology published many researches that were conducted on positive emotions, traits, capabilities and well-being. Currently, positive psychology is taught in more than 100 colleges and educational centers in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Although there is still a long way to know and apply what positive psychology says, the existing literature shows that this psychology plays a significant role in counseling and psychotherapy.

Taken from the book of techniques of positive psychology, written by Jina.L. Magyar-Moi