ABSTRACT
Historically, medicine has focused on eliminating negative symptoms or "what is wrong" with someone rather than what makes one feel healthy and promotes flourishing. Traditional forms of psychotherapy, for example, cognitive-behavioral therapy, often emphasize decreasing negative thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Positive psychological interventions (PPIs) are activities that aim to increase positive emotion, and thereby increase well-being and happiness. Increasing positive emotions is an important part of well-being because increased happiness has been linked to better immune system functioning, better cardiac functioning, increased longevity, and improved psychological health. There are several types of PPIs, with different systematic components and different outcomes for certain individuals. These intervention categories include humor, gratitude, building character strengths, optimism, mindfulness, kindness, and active-constructive responding. Many of these PPIs themselves can be varied to modify to different clinical populations and adjusted to each person's optimal fit.
