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 Harry Potter and the Power of the Positive by
Dave Shearon Children
give wonderful gifts. Our boys have given Teresa and I an
appreciation for baseball, “stop for the fun of it”, archery, and lots
of great times reading to them at night. Both
of them enjoyed being read to long after they no longer needed that
reassurance and ritual to go to sleep. Toward
the end of our time
reading to each of them, we were reading books that we all enjoyed, but
they could not get read for themselves. The
earliest of the Harry Potter books was such a book for my younger
son. Of course, as a lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy,
I was hooked by the story, and have read them right along with the boys
as each new book has been released. In
preparation for both seeing the new movie based on the fifth book and
reading the last book when it comes out on Saturday, my recreational
reading recently has been to re-read the fifth and sixth novels. He
goes to a British boarding school for wizards and
witches whose headmaster is a powerful and good wizard named Albus
Dumbledore. Professor
Dumbledore has repeatedly
claimed that Harry has a magic greater than his opponent’s, and one
which his opponent underestimates: the magic of love. Sappy?
Absolutely. These days, however, I am convinced that
“sappy” and “soft-hearted” are not particularly strong arguments
against a proposition. Chris
Peterson reports that the character strength
that distinguishes the best leaders at West Point is the capacity to
love and be loved. Today,
however, thanks to the work
of Dr. Seligman and other greats in this field, we have a mounting body
of evidence that suggests just how important and powerful the positive
can be in our lives. Thanks
to the work of Barbara
Fredrickson, we even have “Broaden and Build” as a theoretical base
for understanding this power. Just
in the last
few weeks, the Wall Street Journal ("How
Depression Weakens the Brain", paid registration required)
published a story about recent research showing that even a single
experience of major depression is linked to double the chance of
developing concentration, memory, or problem-solving difficulties after
the age of 65. Depression
has also been linked to shrinkage in
the portion of the brain devoted to memory. The
program was initially a depression-prevention program
for susceptible middle-school students. It continues to carry
this characteristic though though research has shown it has
benefits in other areas. With
this recent research on the effects
of depression in later life added to all the other research on the
widespread and growing experience of depression, the investment in
helping students develop the habits of thought and emotional regulation
they can let them avoid depressive episodes appears eminently
worthwhile. In the
sixth book, Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry takes a swig of a magical
potion known for inducing luck as he attempts to accomplish a
particularly difficult task. Sure
enough, he not only
accomplishes the task, but several other events occur as a result of
his actions that move matters in directions favorable to him. Of
course, I am not suggesting that positive psychology is magic. In
fact, I make a point to disavow that thought when I speak. But I
also admit that, sometimes, it can feel that way. For
those of us
who have spent too many years focusing on what can go wrong, generating
personal, permanent, and pervasive explanations for the bad things that
have happened in our lives, and generally living in a more negative
state, living more positively can, sometimes, feel pretty
magical. The
experience of refusing to see things in the worst
possible light, maintaining an openness to the possibility that things
could turn out for the best, and therefore acting in ways that make
that more likely, and then having it happen, is extraordinarily
uplifting. This
is especially so when the positive approach has
not been one’s normal path through life and when it was a conscious
choice that led to taking the more positive path. It
does, however,
seem to have the effect of tipping the odds of good things happening
and minimizing the odds of bad things. Even
over a fairly short
period of time the results can significantly affect outcomes.
Over the course of years, or even a lifetime, the consequences in terms
of health, well-being, relationships, and achievement can be huge. In the
world of legal
education, there are those who scoff
at the idea that a system that seems to consistently create extremely
negative emotional and cognitive consequences for the students should
be changed. I
believe a fair reading of the evidence suggests
that the efforts to apply positive psychology to improve the lives of
individuals in a wide range of settings are fully warranted on a
straight cost-benefit analysis. If you
believe, as Chris Peterson
says, that a key summation of positive psychology’s findings is, “other
people matter,” then there is no question as to the value of these
efforts. I am proud to be a part of this group. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  Related
Talent Development Resources pages:Depression and Creativity positive
psychology mental
health...[front
page] counseling / therapy article authors / titles ~ ~ ~
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