For over 70 years, psychology and psychiatry have almost exclusively focused on pathology, concentrating on how improve diagnosis trying to repair mental damages. Billions have been spent in order to improve our knowledge about chemical, genetic and neurophysiological basis of mental disease and to develop more efficent pharmacological treatments.
In the new century it is mandatory to veer towards a new field of study, redirecting scientific power and energy for understanding how to BUFFER against psychological vulnerability and to better PREVENT mental illness.
Psychologists should create a scientific monument, useful to remember that science should take as primary task the understanding of what makes life worth living.
Martin Seligman & Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi . Positive Psychology: an Introduction. Am Psychol 2000.