ABSTRACT
Since the turn of the twenty-®rst century, key ®gures in the ®eld of psychology such as Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2000) have called on us to explore human capacity rather than focusing on failings or inadequacies. In 2000 the American Psychologist devoted much of the sixth issue of volume 55 to papers that made the argument from many perspectives. Additionally, the Handbook of positive psychology (Snyder and Lopez, 2002) has alerted us to the bene®ts of considering psychology from a positive perspective rather than one of pathology and incapacity. Consistent with that approach is the ever-growing interest in the areas of health promotion and prevention and in those of coping and resilience. Resilience and how to achieve it is part of the well-being factor. Two additional areas, the achievement of happiness and the development of emotional intelligence assisted by social coping skills, contribute to today's positive orientation of psychology.
