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Summary: Went from sad and negative to happy & positive!
Review: Over the last few years, like many others, the Clinton recession and bear market has played it's toll on me. I lost a small fortune in the markets and found gaining employment difficult. To make matters worse, several close family members passed away unexpectedly (9 in one month) so I have been tested.A good friend recommended this book to me. Feeling that it was just another "feel good book" loaded with polyanna type nonsense, I resisted. Finally, I borrowed the book from my friend and read it. I have to admit, I felt better, but then again I had proved to myself that this was just a "feel good book." More to the point, I started to apply someof what I had read. I read more and more every day and continued to apply Dr. Seligmans advice. When I called my friend and told him what was happening, he just laughed and siad I told you so. When I returned the book to my friend, he asked me if I was open to more information. "There's more I thought." He gave me a copy of Learned Optimism also by Seligman and The 7 Habits of Highloy Effective People by Dr. Covey. When I finished those he loaned me a few more. My whole attitude had changed from negative to positive. In fact, I no longer refer to positive mind books as "feel good books" in a negative way anymore. Of course they are "feel good books." And when are we at out best, when we feel good or when we feel lousy? Having been sad and negative for a long time and gone to happy and positive, I can tell you that lif is a lot better when you feel good, happy and positive then by being negative, sad and feeling lousy. I highly recommend this great book by Dr. Seligman. Perhaps like me, you will find this the first of many books and also find you whole life changed for the better as a result. Thank you Dr. Seligman!
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Summary: So who can be against being positive?
Review: Professor, "no mind" embraces authentic happiness and authentic pessimism, unauthentic happiness and unauthentic pessimism--and all such things apart from your Buddha Nature. In saying what you have said, you have said exactly nothing. Herr Hitler apparently found great contentment in knowing his strengths and actualizing them. I think he was utterly convinced that what he was trying to do was for the good of all and profoundly positive.
Rating: 
Summary: a decent book on an important topic
Review: Seligman has chosen to address a very important topic- namely how we should pursue happiness- and does a decent job providing answers. The main message I took home is that if you pursue meaningful activities that use your "signature strengths", you will achieve happiness in the process. Seligman also fills the book with quite a bit of fluffy psychology and terms which I didn't find too informative. Nonetheless, this book is well worth reading. Avery Z. Conner, author of "Fevers of the Mind".
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Summary: Off to a good start...
Review: Seligman's book shows that he's a beneficiary of Banker's Paradox: (p 186): the more you have, the more you can get. A successful professor, researcher, author and (icing on the cake) president of APA -- you have license to create, and Seligman uses it wisely.
I heard Seligman's APA Presidential address many years ago, where he openly questioned the claims of traditional psychotherapy. Some folks applauded; some actually walked out. Perhaps his greatest contribution is his questioning of traditional therapy, especially Freudian emphasis on childhood as the source of current ills.
Additionally, Seligman wisely deplores traditional psychology's emphasis on "what's wrong with you." That's probably why "life coaching" has become a bonanza. People want to talk about their lives but they don't want to be in a one-down position, as patients with a diagnosis.
That said, this book offers a simple introduction to what he calls Positive Psychology. Ironically, much of what Seligman offers echoes what we've already read in the unscientific pop psychology books that we find everywhere. Some, of course, were written by authors who have PhD degrees in psychology but no longer practice.
For example, Richard Carlson's "small stuff" books make points that are scientifically valid: Hashing over sad childhood memories leads to sad moods, which cause us to remember more sad memories, and so on. Wayne Dyer's books encourage us to express gratitude and forgiveness. So I think Seligman needs to be even more scientific to distinguish himself from the "self-help" section of a major bookstore. It can be done: Annie Paul's Cult of Personality is a fine recent example. Gilovich, Dawes and Russo have used research findings to create readable but helpful guides to decision-making.
Pop psych books are, by definition, aimed at a mass audience. Therefore, they appeal to people who feel some pain and want to change their lives. In contrast, it's hard to see who Seligman wants to reach. Scientifically trained readers (like me) will want to read original journal articles. And Seligman's prescriptions tend to be vague or targeted, as he suggests in the "love" chapter, to making great lives better. If you don't have a great life to start with, you can get pretty discouraged! A newly-divorced, newly-fired fifty-something reader won't find much help here.
In particular, the chapter on Signature Strengths seems quite valuable. (Skip the tests in the book - a big waste of paper - and go right to the Internet.) I took the website test and sure enough, I "owned" the results. But, I pondered, what next? I score off the chart on "love of learning." No surprise! But if I were searching for a career or a mate, how would I use this information?
Seligman's chapter on careers doesn't seem focused. He encourages us to distinguish a job, career and vocation. (Carolyn Myss -- definitely a non-scientist! -- makes the identical distinction in her Advanced Energy Anatomy Tapes.) And perhaps many people can find ways to transform mundane jobs, like the orderly in the hospital who brings pictures to patients.
But some people thrive on jobs that bring money, leaving them time and resources for pursuing their own personal interests and philanthropies outside work. Pollan and Levine make this point in Fire Your Boss. And some will be such misfits, and so desperate to take any job, they will have trouble applying this framework.
Seligman's discussion of work now seems quaint in the post-9/11 era, when choices are less abundant than before. He focuses on young lawyers who leave high-paying jobs, possibly because he researched or consulted with law firms. He suggests ways the firm could use the talents of these young, smart people.
But firms have little interest in keeping employees happy, despite years of organizational behavior theories. They want results! I'd have liked to see suggests for employees to create their own jobs, not passively wait for the firm to come up with solutions.
Additionally, signature strengths can't be discussed in isolation. Sure, a lawyer might spend weeks alone in the law library, but social intelligence informs him what's important, when to challenge an assignment, how to talk to the partners and associates and a whole lot more. Indeed I would argue that social intelligence might be a better predictor of success and happiness than, say, creativity. Business firms say they value creativity, but, in my experience, not with their dollars. Barry Staw of UC Berkeley wrote a provocative article on this very topic.
Finally, Seligman doesn't address differences of race, gender and class. I'd argue that a male whose signature strength involved creativity, learning, or wisdom might be valued more than a female with similar strengths, and therefore find it easier to deploy those strengths. If you're not a privileged white male, you'll need social intelligence more than any other quality.
Seligman illustrates many points with examples from his own family, like Wayne Dyer does. At times these examples seem like annoying intrusions. And he interacts with the elite members of academic psychology (very few women, I noticed!), to whom he has unique access. There's a fine line between reporting and name-dropping and at times he blurs the distinction.
Overall, you can't disregard Seligman's courage in presenting what many of his colleagues would dismiss as silly. Without his distinguished track record, he wouldn't be heard at all. Or, put another way, he has chosen to use his fame to promote a very worthwhile cause that can, eventually, help others.
Rating: 
Summary: Dangerous Pop Psychology Claptrap
Review: Shame on Dr. Martin Seligman. Following in the footsteps of Stephen Covey, Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer, he has abandoned legitimate science and moved into the touchy-feely realm of self-help psychology, by appealing to people's thirst for easy answers to difficult life problems. Having been down that road many times with the aforementioned authors, I suggest avoiding said road like the plague! Life does not offer easy answers. Changing attitudes and behavior is hard work, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a charlatan.
By contrast, Dr. Aaron Beck, the founder of Cognitive Therapy, is a brilliant scientist - I repeat, SCIENTIST - who built a school of psychology one brick at a time - through careful research and testing. Dr. Beck NEVER gave people a false sense of optimism. Seligman on the other hand wants to reap the rewards and achieve celebrity by appealing to people's mania for easy answers.
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Summary: Happiness & Optimism -- can Pessimism be Constructive ?
Review: The author, Dr. Seligman, is famous for his book Learned Optimism. And his new book, Authentic Happiness, is a useful addition with an especially good web site. Not all psychologists have agreed with, or found research support for, Dr. Seligman's theory of optimism. Some parts of Positive Psychology have been found to be too one-sided and unrealistic about optimism. The academic book about that research and theory is Optimism and Pessimism edited by Dr. Chang. That book has a chapter about constructive pessimism by Dr. Norem, the author of the Positive Power of Negative Thinking. Some psychologists say Dr. Seligman's theory of Positive Psychology is too much a 'one size fits all' model of healthy personality. Individual and cultural differences seem to be more important than Dr. Seligman says. So some people may want to compare his theory to the psychology of constructive pessimism. The surge of research on Resiliency in psychology indicates that individual differences in personality are fundamental -- what helps me won't necessarily help you. Keeping an open mind while exploring psychological health seems to be the key. In any case, Dr. Seligman does present some of the answers for some of the people, and that is worthwhile.
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Summary: Speculative + Unscientiific + Self-absorbed = Disappointing
Review: The biggest problem with Seligman's book is it is not based on real science. His experiments consists of asking people whether they are happy. This is like asking a male teenager about his sex life. The results will not be that accurate. The problem with surveys are many. People all have different criterion about what will qualify as happiness. It may be absence of pain for one and a state of bliss for another. Defining of these vague terms does not seem to be done very clearly in his work. Other problems that may result is that people often delude themselves about how happy they are or simply lie on the survey for whatever reason. In addition a question may be present to measure a trait but the wording of the question or the causal connection of the question to the trait is unsupported. In other words, just because this person answered this question this way does not mean the trait is necessarily reflected in that person. There's a lot of subjectivity and interpretation going on. A better way to do this is have physiological indicators that correlate to happiness. People would be hooked up to wires, put through different experiences, and their levels of happiness measured. However, all we get are questionnaires which really prove nothing. This means all the conclusions from experiments done from surveys (which I believe are all of them) must be looked at with a grain of salt and not taken as gospel. I would think the general conclusions such as married people are happier than single people are probably true, but I would be suspicious of the numbers telling what percentage are happy and how much happier they are. Seligman has this happiness formula that he either simply created out of thin air or is based on his survey experiments. Since the validity of survey experiments are questionable, I'm skeptical about the formula as well. He also talks about his life, how he met his wife, how he chose his profession, his various hobbies, his kids, how he met his colleagues. Other non fiction-writers do this too, especially 'self-help' authors. I wish they wouldn't. It is irrelevant, uninteresting, indulgent and self-absorbed. I did not pick up the book to read their autobiography. Seligman argues that you will be happier if you engage in more activities that creates 'flow' and which you innately are good at. Basically it means you will be happier if you do stuff you like. Unfortunately, most of his insights do not go any deeper than this. He creates these 24 strengths that he found from combing through religions, cultures, and important texts in the pass. I hope most scientists would not do it this way. He divides and categorizes. People will find this interesting, because they like taking quizzes and tests to find out more about themselves. However, the real probative value is minimal. All the problems with surveys I mentioned above apply to the surveys measuring what amount of these 24 strengths you have. His work would be more valid to me if good scientific testing derived these 24 strengths rather than him collecting them. His chapter on meaning and purpose which you think would intricately be linked to happiness has hardly anything to do with it and his more him talking about his colleagues and some get together. Get to the point! He has this gratitude exercise which is hoaky and sentimental. In conclusion, the book is not really insightful or helpful and probably has nothing in it that will make anyone any happier. If by chance someone does become happier, I doubt this book will have anything to do with it. Like philosophers of old and Jung and Freud, he is speculating and making stuff up with the smallest backbone of science behind it. Speculation may be interesting and fun but is not science and it is usually not helpful. I really wanted to like this book and wanted scientific data on happiness so I may better understand it and achieve more of it, but I didn't get that. Quite a disappointing book.
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Summary: Optimism is the real tonic
Review: The great Dr. Denis Waitley conducting one of his outstanding "Seeds of Greatness" speeches asked; "Are you happy because you sing or are you singing because you are happy?" What Dr. Waitley was referring to was that our actions can and usually do lead to the way we feel. In this case, singing makes you happy and by being happy you sing even more. Dr. Waitley also went on to say that motion is created by emotion. How we feel can lead to actions that are productive. In this great book by Martin Seligman, you can learn how your feelings can help you succeed. Seligman is no doubt best known for his groundbreaking book Learned Optimism. RE: Optimism is the real tonic. I foundit amusing that one reviewer wrote a review here asking if pessimism can be a tonic and actually got 34 helpful votes (no doubt placed by the reviewer) How in the world can pessimism be a tonic? Unless you enjoy being sad and unhappy, pessimism is a poisin. I really enjoyed Dr. Selligmans newest book. In addition, I recommend Millionaire Habits by Brian Tracy and any book by Dr. Denis Waitley that you can get your hands on.
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Summary: Loved it.
Review: This book is excellent if you want to be happy. I am troubled by a review below me however. Someone recommended "The negative power of positive thinking". That has got to be the worst most boring book I ever read.
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Summary: good book, but not for the over-40 single woman
Review: This book provides practical advice backed up by research. It states clearly what actions and beliefs are needed in order to have a happy and fulfilled life. Unfortunately, it seems that marriage or at least a stable, committed, long-term relationship is necessary for happiness, and this is just not something that many single women over 40 are going to be able to achieve (from the text, it appears that Seligman, like many middle-aged men, decided to marry a woman 15-20 years younger than he is, the second time around). It is somewhat disheartening to be told that one of the key ingredients to happiness is something that is likely out of your reach.
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