DOMINIC W. MASSARO, editor
University of California, Santa Cruz

Positive Psychology: Documentation of a Burgeoning Movement

Handbook of Positive Psychology
Edited by C. R. Snyder and Shane J. Lopez. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. xviii + 829 pp. Cloth, $95.00.

In the first issue of the American Psychologist in the new millennium, Martin Seligman (recently president of the American Psychological Association) and Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (2000) launched the self-conscious movement of positive psychology with great éclat. In "Positive Psychology: Special Issue on Happiness, Excellence, and Optimal Human Functioning," which they organized and edited, they complained about the inattention in scientific psychology to what makes for a good life and about the negative focus of clinical practice on disability and illness, and they assembled 15 contributions to illustrate the promise of a positive approach. Now, only 2 years later, C. R. Snyder and Shane Lopez have brought forth a solid handbook of more than 800 pages, 55 chapters, and 108 contributors that presents the movement as a thriving reality and in so doing adds to its momentum.