What is Positive Psychology?

Positive psychology refers to a type of therapy that focuses on optimizing mental wellbeing, rather than fixing any specific problems. If conventional psychology helps people living with mental illness to achieve normalcy, then positive psychology helps people at a normal baseline achieve an optimal state. “Absence of symptoms is not the presence of wellbeing,” says Dr. Tayyab Rashid of the University of Toronto (Scarborough), also a faculty associate with the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University. He’s in conversation with Medcan Clinical Director of Psychology, Dr. Jack Muskat.