Positive Psychology and Social Work—Definitions and Missions

The term positive psychology is a comprehensive term for the study of positive emotions, positive character traits, and enabling institutions (Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005). Positive psychology embodies the striving to understand individuals' positive attributes, psychological assets, and strengths (Kobau et al., 2011) and to study the conditions and processes that contribute to the flourishing or optimal functioning of people, groups, and institutions (Gable & Jonathan, 2005). Fundamentally, positive psychology sees the field of psychology as one which includes an understanding of suffering and happiness as well as the interaction between the two, and offers validated interventions that both relieve suffering and increase happiness, two separable concepts and endeavors (Seligman, 2007).

Similarly, but with a more central and fundamental emphasis on specific populations, the primary mission of the social work profession, according to the official definition of social work jointly developed by the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) and the International Association of Schools of Social Work, is to promote “social change, problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance well-being” (IFSW, 2005).

Within the broad goal of promoting well-being, social work has these specific aims: first, relief of psychological distress and material need, thus helping people to function effectively in their social environment, including providing for basic survival needs (adequate nutrition, shelter, and medical care) and creating opportunities that enhance social productivity; second, social control, thus encouraging adherence to social norms and minimizing, eliminating, or normalizing deviant behavior; and finally, social reform, thus altering the conditions that are related to psychological distress and material need. This goal stems from the belief that the faulty social structure—and not the unworthiness of individual persons—is responsible for social problems (Conrad & Schneider, 1992; Gambrill, 2006).

Social work by definition thus shares with positive psychology the mission of enhancing individuals' well-being. However, social work's specific target populations include those who may be in need of special attention and/or professional help, both as a result of stressful life events and/or poor living conditions. Moreover, many social workers come to the aid of clients who do not seek help voluntarily; that is, people who are legally required or mandated to receive social work services (Ivanoff, Blythe, & Tripodi, 1994).

In addition to enhancing individuals' well-being, positive psychology and social work are taking this goal a step further. According to the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE, 2008), the purpose of the social work profession is to “promote human and community well-being” (Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards [EPAS], 2008, p. 1). Furthermore, that purpose “is actualized through its quest for social and economic justice, the prevention of conditions that limit human rights, the elimination of poverty, and the enhancement of the quality of life for all persons” (EPAS, 2008, p. 1). In other words, the promotion of well-being in individuals and communities is a common mission behind both approaches.

The purpose of promoting human and community well-being is conceptualized in social work as “guided by a person and environment construct, a global perspective, respect for human diversity, and knowledge based on scientific inquiry” (EPAS, 2008, p. 1). This suggests that social workers examine individual behavior in its context, reflecting on how that behavior is a response to and, in turn, influences the individual's environment (Hepworth, Rooney, Rooney, Strom-Gottffried, & Larsen, 2010).

In accordance with this approach, any gaps in environmental resources, limitations of individuals who need or utilize these resources, or dysfunctional transactions between individuals and environmental systems threaten to block the fulfillment of human needs and lead to stress or impaired functioning. To reduce or remove this stress requires coping efforts aimed at gratifying these human needs: that is, achieving an adaptive fit between person and environment. People, however, often do not have access to adequate resources or may lack effective coping methods. Social work involves helping such people meet their needs by linking them with or developing essential resources (Hepworth et al., 2010).

Earlier writings on positive psychology focused on happiness, and positive psychology was defined as the investigation of optimal experience and the life worth living (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Happiness in this sense was the study of positive emotion and pleasure, engagement, and meaning (Seligman, 2002, 2007). A decade later, the central goals of positive psychology have evolved, and attention has been redirected toward the broader term well-being, now called “flourishing” by Seligman (2011), and the ways in which individuals endeavor to increase its presence and extent in their lives.

According to Seligman (2011), well-being has five measurable elements (PERMA) that equally—and either exclusively or jointly—contribute to it: Positive emotion (of which happiness and life satisfaction are aspects); Engagement; Relationships; Meaning and purpose; and Accomplishment. All five elements are pursued for their own sake; they are exclusive and thus may be defined and measured independently of the other elements; and, whereas none of the elements defines well-being, each contributes to it.

So it seems there is some overlap in the aims of positive psychology and social work when it comes to promoting well-being. In positive psychology, however, a greater amount of effort has been invested in identifying and defining the core elements of this broader term. These efforts could be helpful for social work as well, in terms of determining operative aims when promoting well-being as part of intervention processes.

The framework of positive psychology provides a comprehensive scheme for describing and understanding the good life: positive subjective experiences (e.g., life satisfaction, fulfillment); positive individual traits (e.g., character, values); positive relationships (e.g., friendship, marriage, colleagueship); and positive groups and institutions (e.g., families, schools, communities). Positive groups and institutions enable the development and display of positive relationships and positive traits, which in turn enable positive subjective experiences and flourishing (Seligman, 2011). People are at their best when institutions, relationships, traits, and experiences are in alignment, and doing well in life represents a coming together of all four domains (Park & Peterson, 2008). This alignment is also in keeping with the mission of social work, in its quest to empower individuals and communities and help them to both maximize their potential and find fulfillment.

Moreover, both positive psychology and social work share a holistic outlook on the human experience: an acknowledgment of the coexistence of both the good and the bad. In response to positive psychology's many critics, experts in the field continuously stress that this positive approach neither replaces nor denies the problems in people's lives, and does not ignore distress and misery. What positive psychology has done is to divert the main focus from psychopathology to a fuller and more balanced depiction of human thriving and flourishing, and to offer a better way to integrate and complement existing knowledge about mental illness with knowledge about positive mental health (Kobau et al., 2011). Positive psychology's most basic assumption is that human goodness and excellence are as authentic as disease, disorder, and distress and therefore deserve equal attention from psychologists and other human service providers (Peterson & Park, 2003). These basic assumptions are shared by the social work field, with the key difference being that social work has not had to confront criticism on this front since its very existence emerged out of the need to help weakened populations (i.e., those individuals dealing with the greatest misery and despair). The integrative view of human experience is, however, fully acknowledged by the social work profession.

Examining these aims of both perspectives reveal several similarities. However, it seems that social work takes into account the importance of the social and cultural context in which individuals live, and tries to improve the fit between the person and the environment. Nevertheless, both social work and psychology practices have operated for many years from a problem-focused basis, and have used medical-model terms, such as diagnosis. A call for a change in such perspectives has led to a gradual switching over to a strength-based approach and practice.

Personal and Psychological Strengths in Positive Psychology and the Strength Perspective in Social Work

A key aspect of the positive psychology research agenda has been a focus on personal and psychological strengths, the use of which can lead to energizing experiences and elevated, sustainable well-being (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). This focus on people's strengths is also the most important aspect of social work's strength perspective.

The strength perspective emerged in the late 1980s as an alternative to the dominant deficit-oriented psychotherapeutic models in social work practice (Guo & Tsui, 2010; Saleebey, 2009); it evolved in reaction to the prior exclusive focus on problems, limitations, or diagnoses that tended to reduce a person to a problem-saturated label, a situation that is fundamentally antithetical to the values of social work (Weick, Rapp, Sullivan, & Kisthardt, 1989). A strength-based approach, rather, sees the profession of social work as geared toward respecting the dignity and worth of every human being, regardless of their current situation. It is aimed at bringing the practice of social work back to its foundation of valuing and collaborating with the client. It moved the profession away from focusing on the problems and deficits as defined by the social worker or other helping professionals, and toward identifying and focusing on the strengths, abilities, and possibilities of clients through an egalitarian, collaborative relationship (Blundo, 2001).

The strength perspective focuses on client capabilities, knowledge, abilities, motivations, experience, intelligence, and other positive qualities that can be put to use to solve problems and pursue positive changes (Blundo, 2008; CSWE, 2008; Kim, 2008; Sheafor & Horejsi, 2008). This approach emphasizes the notion that people have the ability to grow, change, and enhance their own well-being (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2010).

The idea that “every individual, group, family, and community has strengths” (Saleebey, 2009, p. 15), a fundamental social work claim, is also identified with the claims of positive psychology. Differences between the perspectives emerge with relation to the typology and types of strengths, the unit of observance for strength, and the way the manifestations of strengths are encouraged.

Within the social work context, various attempts have been made to identify strengths. Cowger, Anderson, and Snively (2006), for example, have come up with evaluative questions to operationalize the strength-based perspective. Others have called for a “diagnostic strengths manual” (Saleebey, 2009), a manual that would provide a list of strengths. Currently, the social work field offers a general classification of areas of strength: behaviors and accomplishments, personal qualities and characteristics, and finally, a client's material and social resources (Saleebey, 2009).

Positive psychology provides a more specific and descriptive classification. Peterson and Seligman (2004) developed a model called values in action (VIA) which includes 24 character strengths, each related to one of the following six broader virtues: (1) wisdom and knowledge (including creativity, curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning, perspective); (2) courage (including bravery, integrity, persistence, zest); (3) humanity (including kindness, love, social intelligence); (4) justice (including fairness, leadership, teamwork); (5) temperance (including forgiveness, modesty, prudence, self-regulation); and (6) transcendence (including appreciation of beauty, gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality). In Seligman's new well-being theory, these 24 strengths underpin all five elements of PERMA: deploying one's greatest strengths leads to more positive emotion, to more meaning, to more accomplishment, and to better relationships (Seligman, 2011).

In addition to recognizing individuals' strengths and resources, the social work literature points to the importance of actually finding and realizing them. Saleebey (2009) suggests several types of questions for social workers to ask that would, for instance, try to target how their service users have managed to cope thus far and what they have learned about themselves and their world during the course of their struggles. Furthermore, these questions aim to single out those people and organizations or groups that have been especially helpful to and supportive of the individuals. In trying to focus on positive aims and using personal and individual strengths to achieve them—rather than focusing solely on reducing symptoms—the clients and the social worker together explore the hopes, visions, and aspirations of the clients.

These questions highlight additional assumptions of the strength perspective. One assumption is that the person him- or herself is an expert on his or her life. Because most of the people who come to or are sent to a social worker have lived with their problems for a long period of time, they have thought and worried about them extensively. They are thus in a position to know their problems better than anyone else does. The clients have the wisdom, knowledge, and experience that they bring with them and, in combination with the specialized skills and experience offered by the social worker, they may be able to create a valuable outcome for themselves (Pulla, 2012). Moreover, as we emphasized earlier, the social work field sees the person as a part of his or her environment, which has its own strengths and resources. These strengths and resources must also be identified and recognized.

Recent theoretical developments in positive psychology have refined the concept of strengths, and suggest that strengths are characteristics that allow people to perform well or at their personal best, and that using one's greatest strengths (e.g., physical talents, creativity, and intelligence) leads to increased well-being and superior performance (Wood, Linley, Maltby, Kashdan, & Hurling, 2011). They continue by suggesting that while it is important to possess strengths, it is even more important to use them (Wood et al., 2011). It is the unblocked use of the strength that would lead to the greatest benefit. In other words, people who report greater use of their strengths develop greater levels of well-being over time. In keeping with this understanding, social work defines as one of its primary goals helping clients first recognize and then use their strengths.

Having reviewed some of the similarities and differences in focus between social work's and positive psychology's approaches to the human experience, we would like to turn now to two practical examples of professional use of the previously reviewed principles in social work field practice. We will look at violence in families and rehabilitation in mental health: two representative endeavors of social workers in two of their most common working arenas.

Domestic Violence From a Strength Perspective

Domestic violence is defined as a pattern of behavior in a relationship in which the batterer attempts to control his or her victim by use of a variety of tactics (Barnett, Miller-Perrin, & Perrin, 1997), such as fear and intimidation, physical and/or sexual abuse, psychological and emotional abuse (Register, 1993). Social workers form a central part of the support offered to women who experience domestic violence, as they have a statutory mandate to attend to vulnerable individuals and families, which includes the safeguarding of children and their mothers (Keeling & Van Wormer, 2012). Studies have found that 15% to 32% of women on welfare, who comprise the population with whom social workers primarily work, experience domestic violence, and an additional 60% have been abused in the past (Raphael & Tolman, 1997).

For many years, people who experienced various traumatic events, including domestic violence, were called victims (Herman, 1992). In their zeal to help and advocate for battered women, practitioners and researchers in the area of domestic violence used to depict battered women as victims who were weak and without options (Black, 2003; Peled, Eisikovits, Enosh, & Winstok, 2000). In her seminal work, Walker (1979), for example, portrayed the battered woman as one who had fallen into an abyss of hopelessness, helplessness. Although this work was paramount in terms of gaining insight into battered women's lives and catapulting their situation into the public consciousness, this portrayal inadvertently focused on their weaknesses instead of on their survival skills (Peled et al., 2000; Rothenberg, 2003). Today, in keeping with a positive perspective and in line with the strength approach, they are called survivors (e.g., Profitt, 2000; Roche, 1999). This term reflects the fact that in order to survive domestic violence a woman must be active and cope well enough to keep both herself and her children alive. Whereas the woman's coping patterns may at times be perceived by others—for example, professionals, society in general—as maladaptive, she has nevertheless managed to survive the insidious and ongoing pattern of abuse (Postmus, 2000).

Additional facet of the strength perspective is the ability to listen sensitively to one's clients: that is, both to the women and to the men who have undergone domestic violence. It is imperative that these stories be told, heard, and believed, although this process is a highly complex and sensitive one (Pyles, Katie, Mariame, Suzette, & DeChiro, 2012).

In an empirical examination, Black (2003) analyzed the narratives of 20 battered women to determine whether court advocates used principles of the strength perspectives to assist the women in obtaining protective orders and devising safety plans. She found that most of the women were satisfied with the services provided by the advocates and believed that the advocates showed concern for their plights. “Taking time to listen” was cited as a major aspect of that display of concern, and it exemplifies a basic principle of conducting a strength-based assessment: giving preeminence to the client's understanding of the facts (Cowger, 1994). Advocates helped uncover women's strengths, often reinforcing steps the women had taken to effect positive change in their lives. In addition, many communities offer services to assist survivors of domestic violence in seeking safety from their abusive partners, and most communities have survivor advocates who, among other things, educate the public to understand that domestic violence is a public, not a private, issue. Some communities have established coalitions of advocates and professionals from a variety of fields, such as health care, criminal justice, law enforcement, and community social services. These coalitions strive to ensure that professionals who work with survivors are aware of and understand the issues related to domestic violence (Postmus, 2000).

However, Keeling and Van Wormer (2012) examined the narratives of seven women as they spoke in detail about their interactions with social workers following domestic violence. The researchers revealed that the participants had not felt free to disclose all the facts about the true nature of the family violence, especially with regard to their children. The women's fears—that the social worker might take action against them and remove their children from their care as a result of what they had revealed—were an indication of a serious lack of trust in the social work agency.

The perception of what defines a successful resolution of a domestic abuse situation has undergone a major change, now that women who have suffered abuse are seen as having strengths and as being experts regarding their own lives. Earlier writings and interventions were aimed at convincing women to leave their abusive partners. This goal was based on the assumption that battered women were trapped in their relationships against their better judgment or against their will (e.g., Walker, 1979). Contemporary authors, however, are pioneering in suggesting that these interventions should present staying in the relationship as a legitimate choice as well, which choice of course does not preclude the women's attempts to end the domestic abuse from within the relationship (Peled et al., 2000).

Another area of change, brought about in part by use of the strength perspective, pertains to the way the social work field now views the parenting skills of mothers who are abused by their partners. In the earlier literature on the subject, battered women were depicted as helpless victims of abuse who could not protect themselves, let alone their children (e.g., Loseke, 1992). Or they were portrayed as bad mothers who failed to protect their children by virtue of the fact that they chose to stay with the men who abused them (Roberts, 1999). These portrayals highlighted the women's deficiencies and revealed them to be failures as mothers (Semaan, Jasinski, & Bubriski-McKenzie, 2013).

Recent studies, however, highlight the role of motherhood as a source of affirmation and strength, something that in fact helped these women to survive their difficult domestic situations. In two studies many of the women reported that motherhood served as a turning point, compelling them to end their relationships with the men who abused them (Peled & Gil, 2011; Semaan et al., 2013). The battered women who had children spoke very positively about their mothering abilities, and their self-perceptions as good mothers. Moreover, all of the women felt stronger as a result of being—and empowered by their role as—mothers, a role that helped them live through a period when they were with their abusive intimate partners. The fact that they had to care for their children empowered and strengthened them.

In sum, this section demonstrates just how far we have come in the domestic violence arena, in terms of implementing a positive theoretical and practical perspective, as well as in putting an emphasis on strengths. However, it also highlights some gaps and areas of concern that warrant further examination.

The Strength Perspective and Recovery in Mental Health

One group with whom social workers have applied the strength perspective is people who have psychiatric disabilities (Rapp, 1998). Social workers constitute the largest group of practitioners in the mental health field (Bentley, 2002) and are one of multiple professional groups who work in this area.

For many years, the medical model dominated the mental health field. The medical model was designed around the assumption that psychiatric disabilities were chronic, and it predicted ongoing deterioration (Kruger, 2000). The current perspective of helping people with psychiatric disabilities, however, follows the recovery model. The recovery model challenges the medical model and the assumption of chronicity. The recovery perspective is grounded in concern for the empowerment of an oppressed population, a belief in the right of all individuals to self-determination, and an understanding of the effect of the environment on the experience of people with psychiatric disabilities.

The most fundamental premise of the recovery paradigm is that people with psychiatric disabilities can and do recover. This vision presents a challenge to the establishment message that one should expect less from a life affected by mental illness (Frese & Davis, 1997). The recovery vision suggests a positive goal in place of a negative one: Rather than attempting to reduce the risk of relapse, the individual in recovery works to achieve personal success (Sullivan, 1994). The vision describes a life beyond psychiatric diagnosis that is both vital and valuable, whether or not symptom relief—which is the main goal according to the medical model—is ever achieved (Anthony, 1993; Frese & Davis, 1997). Finally, recovery is often said to be a nonlinear process that involves making progress, losing ground, and pressing forward again (e.g., Anthony, 1993; Ralph, 2000).

Several authors suggest that social work inhabits a unique position among the mental health professions and is ideally situated both to support this vision and to develop within it. Social workers play a major role in supporting individuals as they draw on natural resources in their environments. They operate from the perspective that all people have both profound immediate worth and the potential for tremendous, self-defined growth; they advocate for meaningful system change at all levels; and they work toward the kind of community change and environmental enrichment that will facilitate the recovery of people with psychiatric disabilities. Therefore, the recovery paradigm offers social workers a perspective that upholds the profession's values and may be used as a foundation for direct practice and agency administration, a guide for policy making, and a theoretical base for mental health research (Buckles et al., 2008; Carpenter, 2002).

The recovery process is consistent with the ecological framework that guides social workers. As mentioned earlier, the ecological perspective incorporates both the individual and the environment and focuses on the relationship between the two, with an emphasis on interactions and transactions. Thus recovery can be viewed as facilitated or impeded through the dynamic interplay of forces that are complex, synergistic, and linked (Onken, Dumont, Ridgway, Dornan, & Ralph, 2002). The dynamic interaction among characteristics of the individual (such as hope), characteristics of the environment (such as opportunity), and characteristics of the exchange between the individual and the environment (such as choice), can promote or hinder recovery.

Moreover, social work professionals emphasize the social aspects of recovery (Topor, Borg, Di Girolamo, & Davidson, 2009). For the most part, existing recovery research suggests that individuals need to enter into and pursue highly individualistic journeys of healing and improvement in order to overcome the consequences of mental illnesses. However, many other factors are involved in recovery narratives, factors that lie outside of or beyond the person's own efforts or control. As such, recovery should be seen as not just an individual journey but rather as a journey composed of many social factors and structures—elements that, taken together, can either facilitate or impede an individual's inclusion in community life such as friends, family, and good material conditions, that is, proper housing, a meaningful occupation, and access to the community's cultural resources (Mezzina et al., 2006).

Strengths model case management (SMCM) denotes a specific use of the strength model to enhance recovery among people with psychiatric disabilities (Fukui et al., 2012). Full implementation of SMCM consists of structural components (low caseload sizes, low supervisor–to–case manager ratio, weekly group supervision using a structured format for case presentations, and so on) and practice components (such as use of the strengths assessment and personal recovery plan tools, use of naturally occurring resources to achieve goals, and in-person service delivery). It also requires specific supervisory behaviors to teach and reinforce practice skills of frontline staff. Studies testing the effectiveness of using SMCM to assist people with psychiatric disabilities have reported positive outcomes in the areas of hospitalization, housing, employment, symptoms, leisure time, social support, and family burden (Fukui et al., 2012).

In addition, the literature describes several standardized interventions that aim to help individuals acquire knowledge and skills to manage their illnesses effectively and achieve personal recovery goals. Interventions include psychoeducation, cognitive-behavioral approaches to medication adherence, relapse prevention, social skills training, and coping skills training (Roe, Hasson-Ohayon, Salyers, & Kravetz, 2009). Other interventions include emotion training and situation assessment (Penn, Roberts, Combs, & Sterne, 2007) and hope enhancing (Repper & Perkins, 2003).

In summary, this subchapter reflects the major changes that have taken place in the area of mental health. Moreover, it provides a good example of cooperation between the different types of professionals working in this area: psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, occupational workers, and the affected individuals themselves.

Future Directions

Life can be difficult, particularly for people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and lack the resources that would help them thrive. Some live in very poor conditions and are mandated to receive social services; others have undergone destabilizing life events and need professional care and help. However, when a flourishing, strength-oriented outlook stands behind the provision of these services, no less than a comprehensive empathy for people's positive qualities and potential strengths develops, as do the individuals themselves. Therefore, in parallel with working to lower negativism, hatred, misery, and pain, practitioners—both psychologists and social workers—must also acknowledge individuals' altruism, optimism, and well-being. Looking to find the best in human existence and cultivating a positive regard for individuals, we can better understand individuals' choices and the potential they have to master even the most painful and stressful events; we can see the important roles played by interpersonal relationships and community assets. In many ways, positive psychology advocates what social workers have been striving to do for many years: promote human potential. Both fields belong to the positive social sciences and share a positive regard for human experience. Both oppose the medical model, with its emphasis on a deficit-centered pathology-focused conception of health and with its end goal of “returning to normal” (Ryff & Singer, 1998). Both positive psychology and social work share fundamental assumptions about human nature that hold that people have within them a natural tendency to want to grow and develop their potential, and when their environment supports them in doing so, they thrive (Linley & Harrington, 2005). Perhaps the time has come to abandon the old-school profession-specific differentiated definitions and work together toward developing an integrated view to understanding, caring for and nurturing human flourishing, which would not be dependent in any way on the clinician's profession. Rather, it would rely on jointly utilizing individual and environmental resources in a strength-oriented approach, with the aim of actualizing each individual's and community's best.

Practitioners of both positive psychology and the strength perspective in social work should make additional efforts to see these movements become more integrated into the broad scope of their professions, to acknowledge earlier writings on these topics, and to act as a unified entity. For example, Hung (2010), a clinical social worker, has called attention to the fact that the psychoanalyst Karen Horney's ideas actually reflect a basic assumption of the strength perspective. Horney (1950) theorized that all people naturally strive toward self-realization and have a natural propensity to grow and realize their unique potential. Efforts to enhance the integration between what seem to be diverse perspectives—but aren't—could help expand the use of the strength theory. One area in which the idea that people are striving toward growth has been developed is in the field of trauma, where it is recognized that posttraumatic growth is a common occurrence (Joseph & Murphy, 2014).

While advocating for a united comprehensive use, attention should be paid to the current limitations and criticisms of positive psychology and the strength perspective in social work, voiced by supporters and opponents alike. Pulla (2012), for instance, continues to raise the question of how we can expect to find the assets, strengths, and protective factors in human beings if we are still fundamentally and primarily trained to look for problems and deficits. In her view this tendency is so deep-rooted that much more stringent efforts would have to be made in order to see beyond the damage: fighting against ourselves, our biases, our training, and even our own culture in order to widen the perspective.

With regard to practice, Rapp, Saleebey, and Sullivan (2005) highlight the need to develop a clearer definition of strength-based practice. They want to know how and when one defines a strength-based practice as such, and which and how many elements should be included in order for a strength-based practice to meet its own definition. In addition, they suggest greater clarity about the relationship between problems and challenges on the one hand, and strength, competencies, and resources on the other.

Some critics go even farther. Murphy, Duggan, and Joseph (2013) argue that the current policy and professional context require practitioners to act instrumentally on behalf of the state in relation to the most vulnerable cases, and in these situations the service user's right to self-determination can never be unconditionally respected; theories and concepts calling for egalitarian relations must therefore be adopted. Finally, Guo and Tsui (2010) claim that the strength perspective and the encouragement of clients to discover their own strengths are not enough. According to them, if social work's mission is to emancipate, empower, and enable vulnerable people, then social workers should support the attempts of people to enhance their strength by resisting and even subverting power relations instead of forcing them to be rehabilitated according to middle-class values and behaviors.

The examples we have presented in this chapter show that the attempts to alter the language, attitude, relations, and outcomes of the strength perspective interventions have been employed in the field with a large degree of success. Moreover, in this chapter, we gave two examples of the strides that have been made. It should be stated that the application of strength-based practice in social work has also been conducted in many additional areas such as drug addiction (Okundaye, Smith, & Lawrence-Webb, 2001), adolescence (Yip, 2006), and families (Early & GlenMaye, 2000). In order to continue and find strengths in our clients, we have first to find the strengths within ourselves. The authentic belief in a client and his or her potential can only be achieved after shifting our internal perspective and becoming aware of our own strengths, our hope and positive expectations for our own lives. We as workers and educators have to go through a continuous process of reflection and discovery. Only then will we be able to use and practice the strength perspective (Pulla, 2012).

Conclusion

In a symbolic and parallel manner, this chapter was written jointly by a social worker and a psychologist. The writing process, like the process being written about, enabled a mutual learning and recognition of the similarities and complementarities between our personal and professional beliefs to take place. It seems to us that those working in the fields of positive psychology and social work aim to provide a balanced understanding of the human experience—integrating both the more negative and the more positive aspects of it, and caring in a comprehensive manner for individuals. Both attempt to help individuals become their best selves, enhance their well-being, and enable them to flourish. Taken together, positive psychology principles and social work strategies ought to be synergized into a unified new concept of positive regard for people and their environments.

Summary Points

• During the past decade, the field of positive psychology has stimulated research aimed at addressing the science and practice imbalance between psychopathology relative to strengths and well-being.
• Social work has undergone a similar development, moving from a medical model to a healing one, embracing a strength perspective for its service users.
• Positive psychology and social work both focus on promoting well-being and identifying personal strengths. However, social work's specific target populations include those who may be in need of special attention and/or professional help. In addition, social work takes into account the importance of the social and cultural context in which individuals live, and tries to improve the fit between the person and the environment.
• Change in practice is a gradual process. Language and use of different concepts promote the change. The time has come to abandon the old-school profession-specific differentiated definitions and work together toward developing an integrated view to understanding, caring for, and nurturing human flourishing.
• By prioritizing positive psychology and strength-oriented research in clinical practice, practitioners can promote the presence of well-being, engaging one's own personal and environmental strengths, rather than simply focusing on the alleviation of disorder and deficit. It seems that in order to work from a strength-based perspective we have to find our own strengths and personal hopes.

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