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Back to Positive Psychology: Martin E. P. Seligman’s Visionary Science

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Positive Psychology: Martin E. P. Seligman’s Visionary Science by University of Pennsylvania

4.9
stars
5,768 ratings

About the Course

Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman—renowned worldwide as the “father of Positive Psychology”—has led visionary leaps in the scientific research, empirical data and personal understandings of human flourishing. This course explores the past, present and future of positive psychology as a journey through the key scientific leaps led by Dr. Seligman and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center and Master of Applied Positive Psychology program. There are no prerequisites....

Top reviews

RS

Dec 8, 2017

Very self-enhancing. Activities are fun and at the same time a good avenue for learning experiences. Very positive and student engaging. Thank you for giving me the chance to be part of this course =)

JK

May 5, 2021

This is not a course for educational purposes only. This course will change the way you look at yourself and your relationship with society forever. Take it, and encourage your friends to do the same.

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1 - 25 of 1,963 Reviews for Positive Psychology: Martin E. P. Seligman’s Visionary Science

By Ozrenka

Mar 6, 2019

It gives you the basics that you need to understand Positive Psychology concepts, it gives you an opportunity to interact with other learners in forum discussions, it gives you 'homework', positive interventions you can practice at home or work, it's easy to follow, overall it's an excellent course if you need to be introduced in the field of Positive Psychology.

By BAKANG S

Jan 23, 2020

Dr Seligman is a very charismatic professor. He presents the course in a very interesting and engaging way. I enjoyed the coursework as well as the reading. I will be delving further into the subject.

By Milly L

Aug 19, 2019

This course has been an eye opener for me to the possibilities and options of changing culture and behavior, not solely basing on past experience of individuals but with more focus on future choices.

By Mrinalini K

Jun 17, 2020

A perfect course for aspirant Positive Psychologist. This course change the way I perceive the challenges of life. Learning the Theory of PERMA is very fascinating and beneficial for happy well-being!

By Anna S

Jun 28, 2018

There is stuff to be learned here, but... The course delivery is dreadful. The lectures are extremely repetitive and you will have to sit through hours of Martin Seligman talking about which VIP he sat next to at a very important function and every other unimportant detail to get to the crux of the information. This course comes across as a sales pitch much of the time, (as do his books). A shame, as his philosophy is indeed very helpful and the strategies he suggests (when you finally get to hear them) can be life changing.

By Susanne W

Mar 13, 2019

A complete visionary in the world of psychology. His concepts and skills should be taught in every classroom and are a great path for anyone looking to improve their overall life experience. I wish I had learned all of this sooner. Awesome!

By Reynan S S

Dec 9, 2017

Very self-enhancing. Activities are fun and at the same time a good avenue for learning experiences. Very positive and student engaging. Thank you for giving me the chance to be part of this course =)

By elainechen

May 3, 2019

Too much about professor's theories and their promotions, less practical exercise or methods.

By Chris L

Mar 11, 2019

The last school I worked at introduced Positive Education over two years ago and the whole process resonated with me in every way. It helped teachers open up themselves, their weaknesses, their strengths and how they would like to improve to better their students. When I came across this course, it was an easy decision and well worth the time. I will continue to practise the work myself. I have introduced it to my children each night through one of the processes that I learned and I would like to pass it onto students and eventually do more training in this area and get a whole school involved, possibly a larger organisation doing it.

By William H

Dec 19, 2018

Enlightening course about a topic that is well needed. Love the concept that not only is there another side to psychology, but that there are actually tools that we can use on a regular basis that enable and empower us to be happier.

By Janet K

May 6, 2021

This is not a course for educational purposes only. This course will change the way you look at yourself and your relationship with society forever. Take it, and encourage your friends to do the same.

By Matthew " M

Nov 19, 2018

I loved this course. Not only is the information and research on Positive Psychology interesting and inspiring, it is practically useful, too!

By Lequn G

Feb 24, 2019

This course gives a good overview of positive psychology based on research methods and findings. At the same time, it didn't emphasize how to apply positive psychology in real life (except some isolated mentions like ACR). I'd recommend it for those who want to get an idea of this field, not those who want practical applications. Maybe the following courses in this series will focus more on applications/interventions.

By Andrew

Jan 6, 2018

A big jumble and often a ego trip for Seligman who seems to think he is the father of everything and gives no credit to his forefathers in humanistic psychology or the like. The course lacks coherence and substance.

By Sonya C

Feb 18, 2020

I enjoyed the content but really want to know HOW to implement things like learned optimism and mindfulness.

By Alban D W

Aug 24, 2019

Positive psychology is exceedingly important to me, as a psychologist who has worked in a variety of inpatient, residential and outpatient facilities. I understand the importance of helping clients via a focus on what positives she or he has and others positives can beI developed. I've run some marathons, and found that I just need to keep on running, no matter how many may pass me in the process. When you run under the 26.2 mile finish line. the rest of the race, being passed, etc.. becomes less important. There is the story of a boy trying to toss a baseball up in the air and hit it with his bat. The boy keeps tossing it up, albeit, missing the ball. Rather than pessimism and failure, he proudly says aloud, "What a great pitcher I am!" My clients often focus on mistakes, failures, other people's comments about them - including family. I love positive psychology. Could not agree more that the focus must be on our positives. versus trying overcome our shortcomings! That is my focus as a psychologist. Dr. Seligman has developed an extremely important way of looking at things. I also like Behavioral Activation Therapy (not behavior therapy). Rather than focusing on the downside, behavioral activation assigns the client to go do X, Y, Z - of his or her choosing, as long as it is healthy and positive. Example,, a depressed person can focus on being depressed, isolated from other, lack of positive experiences. But the depressed person very often decides to not go to the friends birthday party, and shuts him or herself in their room - all alone. Behavioral Activation - assigns them to go anyway. Being home alone in one's room make depression worse. going anything (unless it is a mean group of peers, who tend to ridicule him or her - if so -- the goal is to find those who are not like that). Yet CBT (a very good therapy) is often shoved to the head of the line. I strongly recommend Behavioral Activation Therapy, which is a key treatment at an inpatient center in Wisconsin. Thank you for your time, in reading this message.

By Matheus P

Feb 28, 2020

Excellent and succint explanation of the history, objectives, trends and branches of Positive Psychology. And to learn with the man himself and other leading researchers is a one-of-a-kind experience.

By Polina B

Apr 26, 2017

Advantages:

1) I liked the idea of filming the lectures of Dr Seligman in the real class. Watching his videos, I felt like I was sitting is the lecture room with other students.

2) I also enjoyed watching different researchers talking about their fields of study. Inviting different speakers makes the course more diverse.

Areas of improvement:

1) Design. Some of the presentations in the videos were not in the style of the course (e.g. videos on constructive journalism)

2) Structure. The overall impression is that different parts of the course were not reconciled with each other, leading to fragmentation of the course. It concerns not only design, but also video lenght (for example videos on constructive journalism were way too long) and lack of a sigle thread going through all the videos and supplementary materials. It seems that the course has been made in a hurry.

By Micah K

Oct 31, 2017

As an introduction to positive psychology, the course material did seem a bit random. The topics covered were certainly interesting, but as they exclusively reflected the interests and activities of Marty Seligman and his Post-Docs at UPenn, the course provided a somewhat skewed sample of information that was a bit odd to present in an introductory course. Also many of the technical details were off. Quiz questions were repeated, sections of videos were cut off at random, and the time estimates were often way off. Having said all of that, I did learn a lot!

By Петрова Ю П

Jun 3, 2020

First of all, I want to Express my deepest gratitude to You for your faith in me. For the opportunity to take your course. Your course has helped me during this difficult period of life that we all go through, related to the COVID-19 epidemic.

What makes my life worth living? – good question, it's like thinking about the meaning of life. I think the meaning of life is just to live. I enjoy every moment of it, I must try to be here and now, so as not to miss the smallest details of every beautiful moment. The past is an experience, the future is not known. You should try to enrich your life with beautiful moments, a positive attitude, help other people, and be a spiritual person. Take care of our neighbors and our little brothers. He treats nature with love and saves it as much as possible.

What does it mean for me to live a good life? Kindness, justice, joy, health, happiness, friendship, relationships, and much more fill our lives and make them wonderful.

What strengths and practices you will now be able to develop in order to create an upward spiral of prosperity in your life and for those you love? – I will try to find pluses in everything, take care of my mental state, help people, try to be more positive and good-natured.

By Betsy W M

Sep 13, 2017

This is incredible. For four years or more, I wanted to enter the Masters Program. I am in my 60's, and got my BS in 2006 during evening classes at Chestnut Hill College. I began a Masters in Spirituality at the College, but it was cancelled out. I put it to rest but kept thinking about this course. Totally interested, I went online and saw that I would need Statistics. I just couldn't fathom doing so and put it aside. Last month, I googled Dr. Seligman again and to my surprise, this course was available. It is like the "I am double parked version" of his Degree Program(which at times I am), but I found it a gift. And of course, NO STATISTICS. Even though I recently married a Statistician.

By Kristina T

Mar 13, 2019

I express my gratitude to everyone who prepared this course, especially Martin Seligman. It was a pleasure for me to learn from you. Your course is available for people like me, with not the best English :) A lot of useful information and exercises that I already use in my life and in working with clients.

By Ming M

Jul 10, 2017

I like the course material. I would like to suggest the format to be changed. Currently there is too fragmented with too many interruptions. It would be better to run the lectures more consecutively.

By Manikanta K

Aug 26, 2018

Glad to learn lot of experimental positive psychology tools to use in day to day life and helped to practice positive psychology coaching through this course. Thank you Coursera for this opportunity.

By Lindsay F

Mar 15, 2019

This course was so interesting, engaging, relatively easy concepts to follow, and also impactful. Applicable to people with all interests!