PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING IN ADULT LIFE

Knowledge of psychological well-being persistently lags behind knowledge of psychological dysfunction. The imbalance is evident in magnitude of research-studies of psychological problems dwarf the literature on positive psychological functioning-and in the meaning of basic terms (e.g., typical usage equates health with the absence of illness). A person is viewed as mentally sound if he or she does not suffer from anxiety, depression, or other forms of psychological symptomatology. This prevailing formulation never gets to the heart of wellness; to do so, we must define mental health as the presence of the positive. To explicate the positive is, however, to grapple with basic values and ideals of the human experience. These values are no less evident in definitions of human suffering, although consensus in identification of the negative is somehow easier to achieve. Despite these challenges, much has been written, within the field of psychology and outside it, regarding the contours of positive psychological functioning.