The Art of Happiness

Revolution.The watershed event for this new movementwas the formal establishment of a new field ofpsychology involving the study of humanhappiness. The formal birth of this new branch ofpsychology took place in 1998, when a highlyinfluential psychologist, Dr. Martin Seligman, thenewly elected president of the AmericanPsychological Association, decided to dedicatehis term as president to the establishment of thisnew field, which he dubbed “positivepsychology.” Pointing out that for the past halfcentury clinical psychology had focusedexclusively on mental illness, human weakness,and dysfunction, he called on his colleagues toexpand the scope of psychology to include thestudy of positive emotions, human strengths, and“what makes life worth living.”