Vol 11, Issue 2, 2023 ISSN - 2347-5544 HOW POSITIVE IS POSITIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY? (EXAMINATION OF POSITIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY) YENER ÖZEN 1 *, İREM TÜRKMEN 2 1 Department of Special Education, Erzincan Binali Yıldırım University, Faculty of Education, Erzincan, Turkey. 2 Department of Special Education Teaching, Erzincan Binali Yıldırım University, Erzincan, Turkey. Email: yenerozen@erzincan.edu.tr Received: 30 January 2023, Revised and Accepted: 06 February 2023 ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to discuss positive psychotherapy in general terms and concepts. Positive psychotherapy is an important psychotherapy approach founded in 1968 by Nossrat Peseschkian. Since the 1990s, it has become more known. It is a combination of psychodynamic, existential, cultural, and behavioral theories. The word positive here means the actual, the real. The psychotherapist helps the client to see and understand the problem by making the current symptom more understandable. Positive psychotherapy also has a positive view of people. He argues that people are inherently good and should focus on the good aspects they have. It has three main principles: Hope, balance, and counseling. Positive psychotherapy is based on the balance model. By interpreting the symptoms positively, it is aimed for the client to approach the balance. It tries to explain the symptoms with its primary and secondary abilities. It aims to strengthen the positive resources of individuals to cope with the conflicts they experience, to continue their lives in a better quality and to realize themselves. Keywords: Positive psychotherapy, Humanism, Mental health. INTRODUCTION Psychology is a Greek word and is composed of the words psych for soul-mind and logos for knowledge. The combination of these two words created a new word that means psychology. Psychology, which deals with human beings, their behaviors, the origin of behaviors, and mental structuring, is a positive science whose research is based on experimentation and observation. The recognition of psychology as a science does not go back too far. When Wundt established the first psychological laboratory at the College of Leipzig in 1879, psychology began to be recognized as an independent science. After that, the study of psychology gained momentum and new approaches was found. After World War II, pathology moved to the center of psychology due to the traumatic effects of war on people and mental disorders. The inadequacy of this pathology-focused approach in explaining the function of people in their own lives has led to the need for new approaches that are individual-centered, focusing on the strengths and potentials of people (Ilgaz, 2018). Positive psychotherapy is a theory of psychotherapy that began to be developed in the late 1960s. The basis of the theory is based on Seligman’s (1998) positive psychology theory, but it includes more systematic and evidence-based studies. Since the Second World War, trying to fix the mentally ill and repairing the damage has come to the fore. Positive psychotherapy, on the other hand, aims to further develop the good aspects, make them functional, and focus on the virtues of the person (Güney, 2015). When the scientific studies conducted at that time are examined, there are many studies on people’s mistakes and shortcomings, but the insufficiency of the number of studies examining their strengths is striking. With the development of positive psychology, these deficiencies in the literature have begun to be eliminated (Karaırmak and Siviş, 2008). The fact that positive psychology is open to all people, not just people with problems, can be associated with preventive guidance from psychological counseling and guidance services. However, this aspect of positive psychology should not be misunderstood as putting people with problems into the background. Because positive psychology not only heals wounds, illness and deformed aspects, but also increases the quality of life by emphasizing strengths (Demir and Türk, 2020). When the literature in Turkey is examined, although there are articles on various topics related to positive psychotherapy and positive psychology, there is no compilation study in which studies are included. The main reason for this study is to eliminate this deficiency in the literature and to contribute to the literature. In this study, it is aimed to touch on the theoretical basis of positive psychotherapy, literature research, developed scales, positive psychotherapy techniques, and psychotherapy session duration. LITERATURE RESEARCH While empiricism and rationalism continue to be studied and studied in traditional psychology, qualitative studies have gradually started to become more visible with the influence of postmodern thought movements. With this development, studies dealing with personal problems, the individual and the environment they are in have gained momentum. Positive psychology is one of the psychology trends that concentrate on these studies (Cakmak, 2019). Although positive psychology is mostly associated with Seligman, names such as Maslow, Rogers, and Fromm were also influential in the formation of the theory. This theory does not aim to cover up the problems, but aims to both study the problems and enable the client to realize these strengths by discovering the individual’s strengths in this process. In this way, the client starts to move from a problem-oriented perspective to a solution- oriented perspective. Positive psychotherapy, on the other hand, is a theoretical restructuring of research-based positive psychology. The approach of positive psychotherapy to human nature is also positive. He believes that people are inherently good. Considering the views on the examination of human nature, it is seen that they are divided into three as neutral, negative, and positive. While Maslow and Rogers are a few of the positive approaches, when we talk about the negative approach, we come across Freud. Contrary to classical psychoanalysis, it argues that human beings are not just about sexuality and aggression, but also have the capacity to love and know (Eryılmaz, 2011). Research Article © 2023 The Authors. Published by Innovare Academic Sciences Pvt Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22159/ijss.2023v11i2.47404. Journal homepage: https://innovareacademics.in/journals/index.php/ijss