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Positive Psychology: A Foucauldian Critique

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Positive Psychology: A Foucauldian Critique
Matthew McDonald a; Jean O'Callaghan b
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Graduate School of Psychology, Assumption University, Bangkok.,
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School of Human & Life Sciences, Roehampton University, London.,

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DOI: 10.1080/08873260802111119

Positive Psychology:
A Foucauldian Critique

Matthew McDonald
Graduate School of Psychology, Assumption University, Bangkok

Jean O’Callaghan
School of Human & Life Sciences, Roehampton University, London

This article analyzes and critiques some of the ‘‘truth claims’’ of positive
psychology by applying Foucault’s concepts of power=knowledge, discipline,
and governmentality. It illustrates how positive psychology deploys mecha-
nisms to devalue, subjugate, and discredit humanistic psychology. It also
illustrates how positive psychology privileges particular modes of functioning
by classifying and categorizing character strengths and virtues, supporting a
neo-liberal economic and political discourse. Last, it offers an alternative
position to the prescriptive and constraining ideology of positive psychology.
Such a position enables a meta-perspective and reflexivity that could sustain a
flexible approach to understanding key issues like human happiness and well-
being, as well as open the way for a more productive, rather than adversarial,
dialogue, with humanistic psychology.

Since its official inception in the millennial issue of the American Psychol-
ogist, positive psychology has sought to redress the balance in psychology
from a preoccupation with illness and pathology toward a ‘‘new science’’
based on positive subjective experiences, positive individual traits, and posi-
tive institutions (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000, p. 8). The impact of
positive psychology, according to Martin Seligman and others (Seligman,
Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005), has been to unite scattered and disparate
lines of theory and research about what makes life most worth living.
In uniting these disparate lines, Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi claim that

Correspondence should be addressed to Matthew McDonald, Graduate School of

Psychology, Assumption University, Huamak Campus, C Building 9th Floor, Bangkok
10240, Thailand. E-mail: matthew.mcdonald@uts.edu.au

127
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positive psychology will provide a better understanding of what makes life

more meaningful, what constitutes wisdom, and how talent and creativity
come to fruition, all seemingly laudable goals. To this end, Peterson and
Seligman (2004) have developed a formal classification of character
strengths and virtues (such as hope, wisdom, creativity, future mindedness,
courage, emotional intelligence, spirituality, responsibility, and persever-
ance) so that they can be quantitatively measured, and to support a range
of empirically validated interventions that are proposed to facilitate lasting
happiness (Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005).
In the short time that it has existed, positive psychology has accrued
many notable achievements. One of its chief areas of success has been its
ability to raise public awareness around the issues of happiness and
well-being, for example the recent cover story on positive psychology in
Time Magazine (Wallis, 2005). Positive psychology has also become well
represented by a range of academic publications, including a dedicated jour-
nal—The Journal of Positive Psychology—various handbooks (Linley &
Joseph, 2004; Lopez & Snyder, 2004; Peterson & Seligman, 2004; Synder
& Lopez, 2002), introductory texts (Boniwell, 2006; Compton, 2004) and
scores of journal articles and special editions devoted to the topic. It has also
raised significant sums of money for research and scholarship, and there are
now undergraduate and graduate courses in positive psychology on offer in
the United States (Seligman et al., 2005).
Although positive psychology has flourished in the short time that it has
existed, it has not been without its detractors. Eugene Taylor (2001) argued
that positive psychology has failed to acknowledge its philosophical and
psychological antecedents, that positivist experimental psychology (the basis
of positive psychology’s epistemology) should not dictate what is and is not
first rate science, and that positive psychology is a controlling elite, chosen
and certified by each other, whose standards must be adopted by all others
whether they like it or not. In a similar vein, Barbara Held (2002, 2004,
2005) has called into question the tyranny of the positive attitude in the United
States (to which positive psychology has become the new vanguard; Held,
2002), positive psychology’s separatist stance (Held, 2004), and positive psy-
chology’s attempt to present itself as virtuous (Held, 2005).
By building on these previous critiques, this article aims to unmask some of
the power relations of social control operating in positive psychology’s
discourses by applying a Foucaudian analysis, in particular Foucault’s
(1975, 1991) model of governmentality and its related concepts, power=
knowledge and discipline. Our analysis argues that positive psychology needs
to acknowledge its limitations, and that, far from liberating psychology from
the negative and pathological, it has instituted a new set of governmental and
disciplinary mechanisms by means of defining what is ‘‘positive’’ in human
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existence via a prescriptive set of constructs (Peterson & Seligman, 2004), and
in its attempts to silence critical reflexivity and alternative perspectives.
We begin this article with a review of Foucault’s (1975, 1991) concepts of
power=knowledge, discipline and governmentality, which we use as a tool for
exposing positive psychology’s attempts to discredit other theoretical perspec-
tives such as humanistic psychology. We then extend this analysis to the level
of the individual by illustrating how positive psychology unwittingly supports
subjectivities tied to a neo-liberal political and economic discourse. From here
we offer an alternative Foucauldian conceptualization for a more informed
and critical approach to understanding human happiness and well-being.

POWER=KNOWLEDGE, DISCIPLINE, AND GOVERNMENTALITY

The concept of power, or power=knowledge, is central to Foucault’s (2002)

analysis of human meaning making in discourse and related practice. For
Foucault, power is immanent in all social relations, which is guided by an
understanding of ourselves and our environment. We come to understand
ourselves by acquiring knowledge of what is ‘‘real,’’ which in turn is influ-
enced by the dominant ethical and moral codes of our culture. Foucault
(1977) notes, ‘‘power and knowledge directly imply one another; there is
no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowl-
edge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the
same time power relations’’ (p. 27).
For power=knowledge relations to function effectively, they must be
grounded or tied to a specific rationality or ‘‘discourse.’’ Discourses are
not simply linguistic systems or text; they are sets of rules and conditions,
which are established between institutions, economic and social practices,
and patterns of behavior (Foucault, 1969). ‘‘This formation (of discourse)
is made possible by a group of relations established between authorities of
emergence, delimitation, and specification. One might say, then, that a dis-
cursive formation is defined (as far as its objects are concerned, at least) if
one can establish such a group’’ (Foucault, 1969, p. 49). Of particular rele-
vance to our critique of positive psychology is the concept of delimitation,
or the ‘‘authorities of delimitation,’’ where social institutions function
within a discourse by delimiting, designating, naming, and establishing their
various objects of focus. These authorities stem from a body of knowledge
recognized by public opinion, the law, the media, government, etc.
(Foucault, 1969, p. 46). Discourse operates through the deployment of disci-
plinary mechanisms such as hierarchical observation, the normalizing gaze,
and examination. ‘‘The examination combines the techniques of an observ-
ing hierarchy and those of a normalizing judgment. It is a normalizing gaze,
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a surveillance that makes it possible to qualify, to classify and to punish. It

establishes over individuals a visibility through which one differentiates
them and judges them’’ (Foucault, 1975, p. 184). Having laid out the basic
ideas of his approach to discourse analysis (Foucault, 1969), Foucault went
on to develop the related ideas of discipline and governmentality in two later
works, Discipline and Punish (1975) and The History of Sexuality Volume 1
(1976). The concepts of discipline and governmentality were then refined in
a series of lectures given at the College de France in 1978. In defining
governmentality Foucault (1991) noted:

To govern a state will therefore mean to apply economy, to set up an economy

at the level of the entire state, which means exercising towards its inhabitants,
and the wealth and behaviour of each and all, a form of surveillance and con-
trol as attentive as that of the head of a family over his household and his
goods. (p. 92)

Foucault illustrated the operation of governmentality through various

historical periods, for example, the construction of madness as a disease
(1961) and the development of the Western system of prisons (1975). He later
applied governmentality in the modern era to Western neo-liberal demo-
cracies (Lemke, 2001), which will form the basis of one of our critiques of
positive psychology. Neo-liberalism, or free market economics—the domi-
nant economic paradigm of Western Europe and North America—claims
to free individuals by enabling them to make their own decisions in order to
maximize personal economic and individual fulfillment. The basis of this sys-
tem of political economy is a reduction in government services (or government
interference) in the private lives of its citizens, with a concomitant expectation
that each citizen will take control of their lives. For neo-liberalism to operate
effectively, governments institute techniques and programs to shift the regula-
tory competence of the state onto responsible, rational, enterprising and
productive individuals (Lemke, 2001, pp. 101–102; Rose, 1996, pp. 150–168).
These techniques and programs represent a range of implicit disciplinary
mechanisms that control and coerce the subject. ‘‘Discipline is no longer
simply an art of distributing bodies, of extracting time from them and
accumulating it. But of composing forces to obtain an efficient machine’’
(Foucault, 1975, p. 164). Government in neo-liberal democracies function
at both the macro level of state politics and at the micro level of the individ-
ual, who plays an active role in their own self-governance, yet always within
socially prescribed limits.

A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician
binds them even more strongly by the chain of their own ideas; it is at the
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stable point of reason that he secures the end of the chain; this link is all the
stronger in that we do not know of what it is made and we believe it to be our
own work. (Foucault, 1975, p. 103)

Governments deploy the chains of their ideas through power=knowledge

(Foucault, 1975; Rose, 1996). In this model, the ‘‘state’’ is not the only focal
point of political inquiry. Rather, analysis investigates how political praxis
is formed on the foundation of specific power=knowledge relations at the
site of the human body. These power=knowledge relations, Foucault
(1975) argued, have an immediate hold upon the individual by investing
in it, training it, marking it, forcing it to carry out tasks and to emit the
appropriate signs. ‘‘Thus discipline produces subjected and practiced bodies,
‘docile’ bodies. Discipline increases the forces of the body (in economic
terms of utility) and diminishes these same forces (in political terms of
obedience)’’ (Foucault, 1975, p. 138).
Governmentality in a neo-liberal democracy functions through the pro-
duction and reproduction of power=knowledge by opening the space for
heterogeneity at any one time, so that more than one program may exist
and be founded on its own rationality (Lemke, 2001; Rose, 1996). Neverthe-
less, the outcome of these competing programs is one and the same—
responsible, rational, enterprising and productive individuals (Lemke,
2001; Rose, 1996). Hence, although human beings think they are choosing
freely, they are being variously rewarded or punished for particular practices
and modes of being. Such self-policing programs are deployed in schools,
universities, workplaces, prisons, hospitals, and other places where they
are internalized by the self and given ownership (Foucault, 1975).
Foucault’s work on the ‘‘technologies of domination’’ (1988) that subju-
gate the individual within such truth claims of governance, is central to criti-
quing the power games of positive psychology. Yet his later analytic
interests in how the individual can resist such discursive domination, is also
of relevance to our analysis, as it offers positive psychology the potential of
critiquing itself. Such a modus operandi could enable it to reflexively cri-
tique its power affiliations and vested interests, thereby being less vulnerable
to critique from outside interests. This perspective aligns with Foucault’s
(1988) attempt, in his final years, to account for what he termed technolo-
gies of the self that he identified in his historical textual analysis of
Greco=Roman and early Christian self-forming practices. Through these
practices. the individual self-authors and self-masters to attain a mode of
being informed by an ethic of aesthetics and ‘‘care of the self.’’ This enabled
an autonomy in being able to resist the circulating social discursive ‘‘truth
games’’ of subjugation and domination. Technologies of the self, Foucault
noted, ‘‘are practices whereby individuals, by their own means or with the
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help of others, act on their own bodies, souls, thoughts, conduct and ways of
being in order to transform themselves and attain a certain state of perfec-
tion or happiness or to become a sage’’ (Foucault, 1988, p. 4). Here the indi-
vidual is constituted as free and capable of self-formation by her=his own
means, thereby able to resist domination by means of critique, which
Foucault (2002) suggested allows the promotion of ‘‘new forms of subjectivity
through the refusal of the type of individuality that has been imposed on us for
several centuries’’ (p. 336). His analysis as a ‘‘history of the present’’ can be
applied to current practices of self-formation, which as Thompson (2003)
noted, can ‘‘loosen the hold of previous power=knowledges so that the process
of self-constitution can enable the cultivation of new forms of being and doing,
new kinds of value and obligation’’ (p. 123).
The question we ask here is what can the truth-claims promoted by posi-
tive psychology offer to individuals in Western culture, with specific refer-
ence to strategies of resistance to the dominant and dominating discourses
of neo-liberalism, as opposed to offering further subjugation and alienation?
Rose (1996) and Lemke (2001) elaborated on Foucault’s concept of govern-
mentality by exploring the dynamics that exist between the self and power=
knowledge in a neo-liberal society. Foucault explored this dynamic by
focusing on the ways in which subjectivity becomes an object, target and
resource for certain tactics and procedures of regulation (Rose, 1996, p.
152). From this perspective, technologies of the self come to represent a
form of constraint (as opposed to functioning in the production of an auton-
omous self), a technique and disciplinary mechanism whereby individuals
permit themselves to become the blind object of regulatory competence
(Foucault, 1988). Technologies of the self are produced by claims to expert-
ise, asserted through the discourse of scientificity, objectivity and impar-
tiality. Rose (1996) noted, ‘‘the grounding of authority in a claim to
scientificity and objectivity establishes in a unique way the distance between
systems of self-regulation and the formal organs of political power that is
necessary within liberal democratic rationalities of government’’ (p. 156).
Inhabiting the gap between state-political power and its citizens are the vari-
ous competing rationalities and expert knowledge of the human sciences.
These function by making the self visible through access to certain forms
of self-knowledge and self-mastery, under the imprimatur of experts advo-
cating a happier, more fulfilling life through the application of scientific
knowledge and professional skill (Rose, 1996; Rose & Miller, 1990; Rouse,
2003). The most productive element of these technologies is their ability to
reconcile what appear to be competing ideologies, for example, business suc-
cess and personal growth, image management and authenticity (Rose, 1996,
p. 157). These reconciliations are possible in a neo-liberal discourse because
political economy is designed to inhabit the social sphere and our private
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lives, where it emphasizes the values of individualism, wealth creation, con-

sumption, marketing of the self, and the entrepreneurial spirit (Fromm,
1947; Hamilton, 2003).

POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY AND HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

In the first phase of our analysis, we illustrate how positive psychology has
positioned itself within the classical scientific tradition, while simultaneously
constraining and attempting to discredit so-called ‘‘disorderly discourses’’ such
as humanistic psychology by deploying various disciplinary mechanisms.
In their seminal paper on positive psychology, Seligman and Csikzsent-
mihayi (2000) distinguished their movement by arguing for their own
distinct concepts and theories of positive human functioning and wellbeing.
The authors sought to achieve this by positioning their movement within a
‘‘positivist scientific discourse,’’ arguing that positive psychology would
become the preeminent body to assess, examine and judge the research
and theory that purported to increase our understanding of positive human
functioning: ‘‘At this juncture, the social and behavioral sciences can play an
enormously important role. They can articulate a vision of the good life that
is empirically sound while being understandable and attractive’’ (Seligman
& Csikszentmihalyi, 2000, p. 5). By invoking the wider social and behavioral
sciences, Seligman and Csiksentmihalyi argued that positive psychology is a
new and significant chapter in this long established tradition, whose auth-
ority is garnered by a strict adherence to empirically sound research that
is practical and useful to the individual in their desire to maximize their hap-
piness and well-being. Having positioned positive psychology within a main-
stream scientific discourse, the authors go on to assert their authority by
deploying a range of disciplinary mechanisms. They seek to achieve this
by exercising constraint (as the following statements indicate), by acting
as an observing hierarchy and applying a normalizing gaze over humanistic
psychology, which they argue should be excluded and ultimately rejected for
its alternative vision of the good life.

Unfortunately, humanistic psychology did not attract much of a cumulative

empirical base, and it spawned myriad therapeutic self-help movements. In
some of its incarnations, it emphasized the self and encouraged a self-centered-
ness that played down concerns for collective well-being. . . . Future debate
will determine whether this came about because Maslow and Rogers were
ahead of their times, because these flaws were inherent in their original vision,
or because of overly enthusiastic followers. However, one legacy of the
humanism of the 1960s is prominently displayed in any large bookstore: The
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‘‘psychology’’ section contains at least 10 shelves on crystal healing,

aromatherapy, and reaching the inner child for every shelf of books that
tries to uphold some scholarly standard. (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi,
2000, p. 7)
What distinguishes positive psychology from humanistic psychology of the
1960s and 1970s and from the positive thinking movement is its reliance on
empirical research to understand people and the lives they lead. Humanists
were often skeptical about the scientific method and what it could yield yet
were unable to offer an alternative other than the insight that people were
good. In contrast, positive psychologists see both strength and weakness as
authentic and as amenable to scientific understanding. (Peterson & Seligman,
2004, p. 4)

By valorizing their own movement, the authors discredit and disengage

from humanistic psychology, which is painted by Seligman, Csikszentmiha-
lyi, and Peterson as a false prophet. In setting out to disengage and separate
itself (Held, 2004), Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi have outlined a set of
rules and conditions for inquiring into positive human functioning based
on positivist scientific truth claims. Seligman (2004) illustrated this by
noting that publication and endorsement of his book, Character Strengths
and Virtues: A Handbook of Classification, was undertaken by what
he claims to be the leading authority in psychology, the American Psycho-
logical Association. Furthermore, Seligman et al., (2005) trumpet the
development of positive psychological measurement devices that are psycho-
metrically respectable and empirically documented.
Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) have attempted to exert their auth-
ority (their hierarchical observations) by claiming that positive psychology
is a legitimate science. The authors sell positive psychology as rational, rig-
orous, and based on sound principles of investigation, inplying that it is a
responsible scientific endeavor that governments, social and legal institu-
tions, and the public can trust implicitly (Seligman et al., 2005). In deploying
this disciplinary mechanism, Seligman set out to normalize his conception of
the positive—or positivist (Taylor, 2001)—while labeling other seemingly
competing ideologies, such as humanistic psychology, as radical, based on
wishful thinking, faith, self-deception, fads, and hand waving. In effect,
humanistic psychology is positioned as the ‘‘other’’ by positive psychology,
where it is derided and sidelined (Churchill, 1997).

And in this quest for what is best, positive psychology does not rely on wishful
thinking, faith, self-deception, fads, or hand waving: It tries to adapt what is
best in the scientific method to the unique problems that human behavior pre-
sents to those who wish to understand it in all its complexity. (Seligman &
Csikszentmihalyi, 2000, p. 7)
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By aligning positive psychology to a positivist scientific discourse,

Seligman (2003) argued that humanistic psychology has failed its ‘‘scientific
examination,’’ because it is based on a ‘‘sloppier, radical epistemology stres-
sing phenomenology and individual case histories’’ (p. 275). This is a contra-
dictory statement, given that one of Seligman’s chief collaborators, Mihalyi
Csikszentmihalyi, is himself a phenomenologist. Csiksentmihalyi’s (2002)
highly influential work on flow was developed using the experiential sam-
pling method, a technique based on phenomenological theory. Furthermore,
how does Seligman reconcile his views of humanistic psychology with his
regular references to the founding fathers of the movement? For example,
in Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook of Classification (Peterson
& Seligman, 2004), the authors consistently cited the work of Abraham
Maslow and Carl Rogers, both of whom used phenomenological methods
and individual case histories in the development of their concepts and
theories.
Seligman (2003, p. 275) claimed that humanistic psychology has failed to
gain the respect of mainstream psychology because of its use of unscientific
methods, so that it is little better than the panoply of unsupported new age
self-help books. However, in the intervening years, Seligman has failed to
notice that Humanistic Psychotherapies: Handbook of Research and Practice
(Cain & Seeman, 2001) was published by what he claims to be the leading
authority in psychology, the American Psychological Association. By his
own standards, Seligman is happy to ignore such evidence in his attempts
to claim that humanistic psychology lacks scientific authority and that it
never has and never will be accepted by mainstream psychology, presumably
because it has failed to tie itself to the rationality of the current economic
zeitgeist.

IN SUPPORT OF NEO-LIBERAL SUBJECTIVITIES

Through our analysis of the relationship between humanistic and positive

psychology, we now aim to apply this same critique to the level of the indi-
vidual by investigating the manner in which positive psychology unwittingly
supports a range of subjectivities tied to a neo-liberal political and economic
discourse. Our focus here rests on the recently published Character
Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification (Peterson & Seligman,
2004).
One of the aims of this project, according to Seligman (2002), was to
redress the balance in psychology, which has been largely dominated by the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM; American Psy-
chiatric Association, 2000). Seligman (2002) and other positive psychologists
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(Maddux, Snyder, & Lopez, 2004) have criticized the DSM for perpetuating
an illness ideology that has become pervasive throughout the psychological
sciences. Nevertheless, Peterson and Seligman (2004) have developed a paral-
lel system, applied instead to positive human functioning. The problem with
the DSM, as argued by a range of scholars (Honos-Webb & Leitner, 2001;
Szasz, 1961), is not so much its focus on illness and pathology, but its attempt
to classify and categorize mental distress that is often as unique as the indivi-
duals themselves. The DSM provides a standard of sanity that many indivi-
duals have tried to aspire to, and which many individuals have failed, often
with devastating consequences. Similarly, Character Strengths and Virtues:
A Handbook and Classification (Peterson & Seligman, 2004) provides a stan-
dard of sanity, which the authors claim is based on objective measurement
and values and which many individuals will similarly fail to achieve.
Classifying character strengths and virtues represents a new framework
for further tying subjectivities to a neo-liberal discourse. It represents a
new system of surveillance that risks creating its unintended opposite: disil-
lusionment and alienation in much the same way that the DSM (American
Psychiatric Association, 2000) has achieved by marginalizing those whose
characters do not conform to society’s norms. We argue that because of
the prescriptive nature of Peterson and Seligman’s (2004) character
strengths and virtues, they provide a range of degrees of normalization indi-
cating membership and participation in a wider economic and social dis-
course. Through this document, individuals become the object of their
own regulatory competence, whereby the self is made visible in light of a
redefined moral character. Furthermore, Seligman et al., (2005) claim that
their classification system is a leading authority in the science of character,
because of its claims to scientific and empirical validation.
Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi’s (2000) and Peterson and Seligman’s
(2004) promise of superior human functioning, well-being and happiness
represents a new character regime (Hughes, 2005), which the authors argued
will find a natural home in the ‘‘workplace’’ (Peterson & Seligman, 2004,
p. 640). However, the classifying and categorizing of character strengths
and virtues provides a new regulatory tool for the use of selection, control,
and discrimination in the workplace, in much the same way that measures of
personality have been used in the past (Holloway, 1998). Hodges and
Clifton (2004) writing on the application of positive psychology to the work-
place noted, ‘‘Rather than spending time helping their associates become
well-rounded, many of the world’s best managers have instead invested time
learning about the individual talents of each of their associates and manag-
ing with those unique talents in mind’’ (p. 256). Although this sounds good
in theory, it is highly unlikely that a manager would be willing to support
and invest in an individual’s talent for irony, resistance, justice, constructive
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criticism, reciprocity, and equality. From our research, workplace managers

are primarily interested in talents that conform to the neo-liberal values of
individualism, competitiveness, independence, enterprise, entrepreneurship,
dynamism, productivity, and flexibility (Birch & Paul, 2003; Bourdieu,
1998; Casey, 1999, 2002; Deery & Walsh, 1999; Hughes, 2005; Rose,
1996; Schor, 1991; Sennett, 1998). Due to the prescriptive nature of Peterson
and Seligman’s character strengths and virtues, they can be used to influence
organizational culture by manipulating employee identity to control and
coerce their workforce into more productive modes of functioning (Casey,
1999, 2002; Holloway, 1998; Hughes, 2005). Employees that possess the cor-
rect characters will be invested in by these procedures of regulation, which
function as a tool for self-governance. Employees become seduced by the
successful identities that these character strengths and virtues represent
(Hughes, 2005), while promising a seemingly unlimited upward mobility
through the corporate hierarchy. This significantly raises individual expecta-
tions and aspirations that will more often be thwarted by the true reality of
the situation (Drucker, 2001; Schor, 1991). In response, employee’s charac-
ters will be self-shaped into a commodity for hire in the personality market-
place. Fromm (1947) noted, ‘‘Success depends largely on how well a person
sells himself on the market, how well he gets his personality across, how nice
a ‘package’ he is; whether he is ‘cheerful,’ ‘sound,’ ‘aggressive,’ ‘reliable,’
‘ambitious’ ’’ (p. 51). The blueprint for this new ‘‘positive psychological
character regime’’ (Peterson & Seligman, 2004) can be seen in the following
quote: ‘‘At the group level, it is about the civic virtues and the institutions
that move individuals toward better citizenship: responsibility, nurturance,
altruism, civility, moderation, tolerance, and work ethic’’ (Seligman &
Csikszentmihalyi, 2000, p. 5). These elements of citizenship, tied to a neo-
liberal rationality, have become a moral and ethical imperative (Rose,
1996; Smart, 2003). For example, Peterson and Seligman’s (2004) character
strengths and virtues are closely aligned with current workplace policy and
welfare reform in a number of Western nations, particularly the United
States and the United Kingdom (Barry, Osborne, & Rose, 1996). This has
occurred because neo-liberalism has redefined the social sphere as an econ-
omic domain (Lemke, 2001, p. 197) so that positive psychological function-
ing, one that emphasizes responsibility, moderation and work ethic, plays an
important role in programs of self-governance. Lemke (2001, p. 201) argued
these programs of self-governance emphasize individual responsibility,
which also applies to families and associations, ensuring social risks such
as illness, unemployment, and poverty are no longer the concerns or
responsibility for governments at the state level. We argue that positive psy-
chology in its current guise supports these programs of self-governance.
Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) noted, ‘‘Psychology should be able
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to help document what kinds of families result in children who flourish,

what work settings support the greatest satisfaction among workers, what
policies result in the strongest civic engagement’’ (p. 5).
What is most troubling about positive psychology, though, is the way in
which it views itself, in particular its claim to value free scientific ration-
ality. Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) and Peterson and Seligman
(2004) argued that their reasoning, and their prescriptions for happiness
and well-being, are based on empirical evidence, obtained via a strict
adherence to the positivist scientific method, which is presumed to provide
a high degree of transparency. ‘‘What seemed to be lacking, however, was
a vision that justified the attitude and the methodology. I was looking for
a scientific approach to human behavior, but I never dreamed that this
could yield a value-free understanding’’ (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi,
2000, p. 7).
Far from ‘‘yielding a value-free understanding,’’ positive psychology has
unwittingly tied itself to a neo-liberal economic and political discourse, as
can be seen from Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) and Peterson and
Seligman’s (2004) prescriptions, which are underpinned by a philosophy
based on responsibility, moderation, and work ethic, all essential values
for the effective operation of a neo-liberal economy. Taylor (2001) added,
‘‘Seligman is injecting a value judgment into an allegedly value-free system,
a theoretical contradiction that will not be without pragmatic conse-
quences’’ (pp. 25–26). We suggest that one of these pragmatic consequences
is positive psychology’s support for an ideology that has wrought wide-
spread unhappiness, alienation, and injustice (Birch & Paul, 2003; Bourdieu,
1998; Cushman, 1990; Fromm, 1956; Hamilton, 2003; Lasch, 1979; Sennett,
1998; Snooks, 2000).

TOWARD A CRITICAL POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

In conclusion, we offer an alternate path for the development of a positive

psychology based on a critical understanding of self, others, social institu-
tions, and the dominant economic and political discourses that influence
and potentially limit freedom and autonomy. As previously stated, positive
psychology has positioned itself as the arbiter of expert knowledge related to
human happiness and well-being. It has sought to achieve this by deploying
a number of disciplinary mechanisms, as well as developing an overarching
document designed to ‘‘help people evolve toward their highest potential’’
(Peterson & Seligman, 2004, p. v). However, we argue that this article has
essentialised and shaped definitive categories and character traits that reflect
the movement’s rigid approach to critical inquiry and what constitutes
 POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY: A FOUCAULDIAN CRITIQUE 139
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happiness and well-being. We suggest that if positive psychology is to

achieve its stated aims of developing a new science based on positive subjec-
tive experiences, positive individual traits, and positive institutions, then it
needs to pursue an alternative path that avoids viewing itself as the preemi-
nent body to assess, examine, and judge the research and theory related to
positive psychological functioning.
The current approach by the leader and founder of positive psychology,
Martin Seligman, leaves it open to challenge and critique for offering a
fool’s gold in light of the complexity and unpredictability of much human
behavior. Moreover, the founder’s inflexible attitudes concerning what does
and does not constitute knowledge production have resulted in a series of
contradictions, because he and his new movement have become constrained
by a dogmatic set of rules and regulations. To inoculate itself to such poten-
tial criticism, we suggest that positive psychology adopt a meta-perspective
of self-reflexivity, enabling it to critique itself and to change often in
dialogue with other ideological truths. As Foucault (1969) advocated for
himself, ‘‘Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same’’
(p. 17). Here Foucault is not advocating a change in any particular direc-
tion, instead he is privileging an ethic of aesthetics by offering qualitative
standards to critique any proposed truth claims and to guide certain princi-
ples of what is valued in human cultures. This is where positive psychology
could align itself in dialogue with many of the principles of humanistic
psychology as another possible perspective, rather than viewing it as an
adversarial counterideology that it must compete with and discredit.
Foucault (1984) proposes an aesthetics of existence as an ethic for
fashioning new kinds of subjectivities, working under the direction of
critical inspection and the principle of autonomy, and crafting new ways
of looking at the world. Thompson (2003) noted, ‘‘Just as a technician,
artisan or artist always crafts a new work under the guidance of critical
scrutiny, examining what has been achieved thus far, recalling the rules of
the art itself, and comparing the former against the latter’’ (p. 124). Critique
for Foucault provides a set of ethical guidelines that promotes an auto-
nomous, noncentralized kind of theoretical production, ‘‘whose validity is
not dependent on the approval of the established regimes of thought’’
(Olssen, 1999, p. 133). By adopting a meta-perspective of self-reflexivity,
positive psychology could better understand the social, historical and cul-
tural forces that have shaped its underpinning philosophy and epistemology.
As Thompson (2003) noted, this would loosen the hold of previous power=
knowledge so that the process of self-formation could enable new forms of
being and doing.
Instead, we argue that positive psychology is currently pursuing a mis-
guided path, where it views itself as yielding a value-free understanding of
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positive human functioning and where it has unwittingly fallen into the trap
of supporting current neo-liberal values that have created a social world
characterized by exclusion, meaninglessness, and alienation.

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