When people hear the words positive psychology, they may think of positive thinking, gratitude lists or being encouraged to look on the bright side. For someone who is grieving, overwhelmed or trying to adjust to a life that has changed in ways they did not choose, that can be the last thing they want to hear.
Sometimes things are difficult because they are difficult. Someone has died. A relationship has ended. Work has disappeared. Health or capacity has changed. A role that gave life structure and meaning is no longer there. These experiences don’t necessarily need to be reframed into something positive.
In counselling, positive psychology is not about asking someone to ignore difficult emotions or find a positive side to painful experiences. It focuses on what contributes to wellbeing, including relationships, meaning, engagement, strengths, enjoyment, and a sense of capability. I think this offers another way to view someone’s whole experience, not just the part that is hurting.
What is positive psychology?
Positive psychology emerged as a distinct area of psychology in the late 1990s, with psychologist Martin Seligman one of the central figures in its development.
One framework associated with his work is PERMA, which describes five areas that can contribute to wellbeing: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment. Positive emotion includes experiences such as enjoyment, interest, hope or even moments of relief. Engagement is about becoming absorbed or involved in something that holds our attention. Relationships recognise the importance of connection and belonging, while meaning relates to having a sense of purpose or connection with something that matters beyond the immediate demands of everyday life. Accomplishment includes the experience of making progress, developing competence, or completing something that matters to us.
These aren’t intended to be a checklist for a good life, and we won’t necessarily experience all five strongly at the same time. They can, however, give us another way of noticing what may have changed when life changes.
Consider someone who has recently retired after spending decades in a profession that mattered to them. They expected to enjoy having more time, yet six months later something doesn’t feel right. They may even wonder why they aren’t happier.
Work may have provided much more than income. There were people to talk to, problems to solve, reasons to get up at a particular time, opportunities to use well-developed skills and the feeling of being useful. Retirement may therefore have changed relationships, engagement, meaning and accomplishment all at once.
Looking at the situation this way invites a different conversation than simply asking whether retirement has made someone happy. It helps us become curious about what the old life provided and what may be missing now.
Beyond positive thinking and toxic positivity
Most of us have heard comments like “Everything happens for a reason,” “Try to focus on the positives,” or “At least you still have…“ They are usually intended to help, but they can have the opposite effect.
When someone has died, being reminded of everything else you still have does not alter the significance of the person who is missing. You can value the people and relationships that remain while still being deeply affected by the relationship you’ve lost.
This is where the distinction between positive psychology and toxic positivity matters. Toxic positivity can minimise difficult experiences by creating pressure to feel differently about them. Used thoughtfully, positive psychology does something quite different. It allows us to become curious about the rest of a person’s life without asking them to minimise the part that hurts.
There doesn’t have to be a silver lining. Difficult emotions don’t have to be replaced with more positive ones before someone can begin to reconnect with parts of life that matter.
Positive psychology in grief and loss
Grief does not need positive psychology added to it. A person who is grieving does not need to become more positive.
What can be useful is remembering that the person who is grieving is still a whole person living a whole life, even when grief occupies a very large part of it.
Someone might laugh over lunch with a friend and then suddenly feel guilty. Another person might return to an activity they used to enjoy and be surprised to find themselves absorbed in it for half an hour. Someone else may continue a family tradition because it keeps them connected with the person who died, while another may decide that a tradition no longer feels right and change it completely.
In grief counselling, this might lead us to explore meaning, continuing bonds, relationships, identity after loss, and what a person wants to carry forward. We might wonder, What still connects you to the person who died? What from that relationship do you want to carry with you? Who can you be yourself with at the moment? Are there still things that give you moments of interest or respite?
These questions aren’t intended to make grief more positive. They help us understand more of the person’s life around the grief.
Some people discover strengths or priorities through loss that they had not recognised before. Others don’t. There is no requirement to grow from bereavement, and finding meaning in a death is not a measure of how well someone is grieving.
Positive psychology and life transitions
Retirement is only one example of a life transition. Redundancy, separation, changes in health, children leaving home, becoming a carer or reaching the end of a caring role can all change the structure of everyday life.
Sometimes people arrive in counselling saying something like, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should be enjoying this.
Perhaps there is nothing particularly wrong with them. The change may have affected more of their life than they initially realised.
Someone finishing a long caring role, for example, may have desperately needed a break. At the same time, appointments, medications, meals and other responsibilities may have organised much of the week. When that role ends, relief can come alongside grief, and suddenly you have hours of unstructured time. A role that was exhausting may also have provided purpose and a strong sense of being needed.
PERMA can help you reflect on what has changed. What has happened to relationships? What used to provide interest or engagement? Where did the person experience competence or accomplishment? What gave life meaning or structure that isn’t there in the same way now?
Sometimes rebuilding begins with understanding what was actually lost. It doesn’t require rushing towards a new identity or immediately deciding what comes next. There can be a period between what has ended and what has not yet taken shape.
Positive psychology, chronic disorganisation and overwhelm
People who have lived with chronic disorganisation or overwhelm for a long time often know a great deal about what they don’t do well. The paperwork is piling up. The spare room can’t be used. An appointment has been forgotten. Unfinished tasks are everywhere, and another organising system has been bought but never quite started.
After enough experiences like these, it is easy for the problem to become a story about the person: Why can’t I manage this?
It may be more useful to become curious about what happens when things do work. Perhaps starting is easier when somebody else is present. Perhaps visual reminders work better than lists tucked away in a notebook. Perhaps the person functions well in one environment but becomes overwhelmed in another. They may have developed creative ways of managing some things that they barely recognise because they are so focused on everything that remains undone.
For someone with ADHD or another form of neurodivergence, disability, health difficulties, executive functioning challenges or years of accumulated stress, this isn’t about discovering a hidden strength and then trying harder. Sometimes the environment needs to change. Sometimes another person is needed. Sometimes practical support is appropriate, and sometimes an expectation needs reconsideration.
A more useful question can be:
What conditions help me function better?
Accomplishment can look different here too. Opening a letter you’ve avoided for three weeks may matter. Making the phone call may matter. Creating one usable space may matter. Asking someone to sit alongside you while you begin may matter.
These aren’t achievements to celebrate for the sake of being positive. They can give us useful information about what helped something become possible.
How I draw on positive psychology in counselling
My work is grounded in relational Gestalt psychotherapy and informed by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), alongside grief-informed, nature-based and somatic approaches. I don’t see positive psychology as a separate therapy that replaces any of these.
Counselling naturally gives space to what is difficult. Grief may need to be expressed, uncertainty may remain unresolved, patterns may need to be understood, or someone may have spent a long time trying not to feel an experience. What interests me about positive psychology is the additional curiosity it can bring.
We can also notice what supports life. That might be a relationship where someone feels more like themselves, an activity they become absorbed in, a strength they have stopped recognising, something they have managed despite expecting they couldn’t, or a part of life that still has meaning.
There will also be times when very little of this feels available, and that is important too. Positive psychology doesn’t need to become another expectation to meet.
For me, the value of this lens is not in asking people to become more positive. It is in making room for more of the picture. We can take seriously what has been lost or what is difficult, while also noticing the people, strengths, interests, experiences and sources of meaning that remain part of someone’s life or begin to emerge again.
If this way of working resonates with you, you can learn more about counselling and psychotherapy or book an initial appointment.
