Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realise Your Potential for Lasting Fulfilment (Paperback)

~ Martin E.P. Seligman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This title describes 24 strengths and virtues which each person can develop to their maximum potential. It provides a variety of tests and assessment tools to enable readers to discover and deploy those strengths at home and in the home.

Product Details

• Paperback: 326 pages
• Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing (March 6, 2003)
• ISBN-10: 1857883292
• ISBN-13: 978-1857883299
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #662,925 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Some good advice, but leaves me with some doubts, February 17, 2004

By	Peter McCluskey (Mountain View, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Some of ideas near the beginning of the book are effective at making me happy and not too hard to follow. This is surprising enough to make it a pretty good book.
But much of the book has little value. The lengthy questionnaires mostly just told me what I already knew about myself.
He mostly ignores any questions that might be raised about whether the happiness he's helping people to find is authentic (which isn't surprising if you assume he's following his own advice). I have a strong suspicion that becoming happy from following his advice and changing one's perception about how well things are going isn't as genuinely satisfying as it would be to create the kind of successes that happiness has evolved as a reward for.
Some of his claims about parental influences on children appear to have been discredited by Judith Rich Harris. His advice for parents may still be right, but his apparent carelessness has made me suspicious.