Professor Robert Emmons recently lectured to students at Chico University to talk about what he knows best:

Psychology has long followed the medical model, focusing on what’s wrong with a person and how that could be fixed, he said. In the last decade, proponents of positive psychology have added something new: an emphasis on the person’s strengths and potential.

1. For instance, someone who has lost his or her job and feels depressed might seek help from a psychologist, he said. A practitioner of positive psychology might, in addition to considering the depression, also explore the person’s capacities. The client might be very compassionate and/or persistent. Perhaps a new career in a field more “congruent” with those qualities can be found, Emmons said.
   

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3. Positive psychology isn’t a starting point with someone who is severely depressed, he acknowledged. “You have to stop the bleeding first.”
   

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5. But after the severe problem has been treated successfully with psychotherapy and/or drugs, there is often room for positive psychology to help even more, he said.
   

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7. So how can you integrate some positive psychology in your life today? It all comes back to gratitude again. Interestingly Emmons points out that negative thinking may have an evolutionary reason for existing. It’s for survival. Negative thinking can warn you that things could wrong again so you better be prepared.
   

Gratitude is a way to train yourself away from that negative trend. So even if you’re feeling blue or downright depressed, most of us can muster a few things we are grateful for. That simple process often has a positive cyclical effect. Our minds become used to viewing our lives with a more positive lens. So count your blessings - nothing new but somehow, revolutionary!