She wants to be happy and have a positive outlook on life. So she begins each day listing what she is grateful for. She has hung her mirror with encouraging slogans. ‘You are great!’ ‘You can do it!’ She ends the day with a positive quote.
It does not help.
“Tory” (not her real name) is one of Whitney Goodman’s (31) clients. Like many of the American psychotherapist’s, mostly young, clients, she struggles with the relentless pressure to see bright spots in every form of misery and to be happy in all circumstances.
Goodman calls this ‘toxic positivity’ in a book of the same name that was published this month. The phenomenon forms the basis of many self-help books: if you think positively enough, you can achieve anything. It resounds in the body positivity movement, which instructs us to love our imperfect bodies. It is used inappropriately and inappropriately in the event of adversity.
“From cancer patients to the unemployed,” Goodman writes, “we’ve all been told that positive thoughts make everything better.”
Goodman, who runs her own therapy practice in Miami, noticed this cult of positivity as a child. At home, at school, at church – everywhere she was supposed to be happy and having fun. Once she graduated in couples and family therapy, realizing its impact on some clients, she began collecting examples of toxic positivity on her Instagram account, which would eventually turn into a book.
Our ‘obsession’ with positivity is harmful, says Goodman. She is not alone in that. Tilburg University released a study on Friday that shows something similar: people who experience more pressure to be happy are generally less satisfied with their lives and feel gloomy and anxious more often.
According to Goodman, the idea that we should be purely positive in life implies that those who do not get it together in life, have that to thank themselves. Moreover, within this way of thinking there is no room for criticism or negative emotions. Both on an individual and a social level. Anyone who addresses racism is quickly found to be too negative. A feminist too angry.
Is this penchant for positivity mainly an American phenomenon?
‘I focused on the US when writing this book, but I have the impression that it is not just something from here. Social media play an important role. There we can present the best version of ourselves. Many people want to be seen as someone who is happy and doing well.’
Happiness and positivity have become both a goal and an obligation, you write.
‘Many people experience pressure to be happy all the time. Our career should make us happy; our children should make us happy; our relationships should make us happy. Whoever has all those things and yet is not happy all the time, can get the feeling that they are doing something wrong.
“I have many clients like Tory who are so obsessed with the idea of happiness and perfection that it makes them unhappy. They are constantly engaged in introspection and want to continuously improve themselves. It can be helpful to look at yourself and work on yourself, but some people get completely absorbed in trying to become their ideal version of themselves. That ideal version does not exist.’
Is positivity always wrong?
“No, positivity can be very helpful. It only becomes toxic when we use it to suppress emotions, to deny other people’s experience or to tell them that what they are feeling is wrong. That they should see losing a job as an opportunity, for example, and not as a problem. That’s toxic positivity: denying that evil exists and that sometimes life can get in the way. That terrible things can happen to people and that there is not always a positive side to it.’
Isn’t the problem mainly that this way of thinking places too great a responsibility on the individual? As long as you’re positive, you’ll be fine. While circumstances such as access to good education, care and work are perhaps a more important condition for happiness.
‘Precisely. That is also why this body of thought is so widespread, because it is very pleasant for people in positions of power to say: this only happens to you because of your attitude, you have to change.
‘You hear it a lot during this pandemic: we should be grateful that we don’t live in a country where the problems are bigger and focus on what is going well. That is attractive for government leaders to say. Look on the bright side, folks. While sometimes they have no idea what they are doing.’
What makes toxic positivity harmful?
‘First of all, it is harmful because it encourages people to suppress their emotions. It is also unhealthy for relationships. If I feel like you’re always doing just fine, that you’re not struggling with anything, I won’t be so inclined to share my problems. We suffer in silence. I think many relationships grow closer by sharing our struggles and not just happiness.
‘Finally, it can lead to social problems not being exposed, because there is no room for criticism or complaining within toxic positivity.’
In your opinion, there is not enough room to address racism. However, there has been a lot of debate about this recently in the US and in the Netherlands as well. How about that toxic positivity?
‘That’s not my experience. When you read on social media how people react to someone who mentions racism, the tone is still often: come on people, we have so much to be thankful for, let’s focus on that. Or: why can’t we just love each other? In this way a real and big problem is ignored.’
The pressure to be positive starts in childhood. How does that work?
‘Parents always say: all I want is my child happy is. There is a danger that children will learn that happiness is the ultimate goal in life. They don’t learn that other things have value too.
“I think it’s better if we teach our kids to be resilient, get to know themselves well, set their limits and look for satisfaction, rather than just wanting to be happy. Because whoever just wants to be happy all the time will always be disappointed.’
Having children is a theme that involves a lot of toxic positivity, you write. A pregnant woman should not complain about ailments, because not everyone is given the opportunity to have a child.
“Yeah, I really noticed that during my own pregnancy. Older generations also often tell you: you should not complain about your child, because children are a blessing. The point is, both can be true. Children are a blessing and I can still be dead tired.’
Yet in your book you also mention studies that show that positivity is good. For example, optimism is associated with higher levels of health and faster recovery from illness.
‘The difficult thing about this type of research is that a relationship has been demonstrated, but not always the direction of causality. It could be that people are healthier because they are more optimistic, but the reverse could also be true: those who are healthier automatically become more optimistic – we don’t know. Moreover, the research population is not always equally diverse. In addition, what works for the average person does not have to work for every individual.’
Wouldn’t it be wiser to advise people to be positive? If it doesn’t help, then it doesn’t hurt.
‘My experience is that it can indeed be harmful. Again, I’m not against being positive, it’s about taking on harmful forms at times. I have worked a lot with cancer patients. The pressure on this group to be positive and fight ‘the fight’ is enormous. They are told: if you just have a positive mindset, you can beat cancer. It leads to people being made to feel guilty when they are not positive. They are ashamed of that and do not seek help.’
You are also critical of the body positivity movement. What is wrong with that?
‘I have the feeling that things are starting to change now, but when the body positivity movement just started, the tone was: you have to love your body, no matter how imperfect. In practice, this is unattainable for many of my clients. They hate their bodies and if you tell them to love them, they won’t. This leads to shame and frustration, because they fail in that too.
‘I am in favor of body neutrality: you don’t have to love your body. You don’t have to talk to it lovingly and love every part. You can also let it be for what it is.’
That’s also your answer to toxic positivity: radical acceptance.
‘That is not my own idea, by the way, but a concept developed by Marsha Linehan (an American psychologist and author, red.† It’s a way to deal with suffering. It recognizes that pain is an unavoidable part of life and that suppressing that pain will only make things worse.
“I think it’s good that we’re going to listen to each other again. Listen to what the other person is struggling with and try to understand that, instead of telling someone to stay positive.’
We’d better not pursue happiness, you think. So what should we aspire to?
‘A life that is in line with our values, with the things that are important to us. For example, I recently had a child. I love my son very much, but he doesn’t make me happy all the time. Some aspects of motherhood are very hard. But my value is that my family is important to me, so I can pursue that value and know that sometimes I get a lot of joy out of it and sometimes it’s hard.”
Is that also what you advised your client Tory?
“What ultimately helped her is to pause the therapy; she was so busy being happy that she forgot to live. She has stopped digging into herself for what needed to be improved. Of course that doesn’t work for everyone. Some people who stop therapy will suffer from that, but in her case it was exactly what she needed.’
In the acknowledgment of your book you also thank your son for the sleepless nights he gave you, because that’s how you could write this book. Isn’t that also a form of toxic positivity? In effect, you’re saying that all young parents should do something useful on wakeful nights.
“I understand you’re reading this that way, but I wrote this because that’s how I experienced it. It would be poisonous if I said to another young mother who complains about sleep deprivation, why don’t you write a book during those sleepless nights, instead of complaining about it? This is a good example of how something positive can become toxic in one setting and not in another.’
It’s a thin dividing line?
‘Absolute. And it’s up to the person on the receiving end to decide: does this feel useful or good for me?’