About us 

James L. Krag, M.D. (from the Introduction to Positive Psychology Interventions)

In the 1970s, I became interested in the importance of prevention. Prevention included fire departments helping to make changes in building codes so that fewer buildings had fires. Prevention included departments of transportation designing road systems so that there were fewer accidents and developing speed limits and requiring seat belts for vehicles. Prevention also included health care to not simply be disease care but to develop and promote measures that encouraged health, such as walking, jogging and healthier eating. I eventually entered medical school with the hope to focus on prevention. I was drawn to the specialty of psychiatry with the intention of focusing on the treatment of addictions, since that work could prevent many individual and societal problems. I began working with severely disturbed adolescents and as my experience progressed, I was working with all ages and many psychiatric disorders.

Over the years, it became increasingly clear to me that psychiatry, and the field of medicine in general, was not doing nearly enough to promote prevention. When I first learned about Positive Psychology, I began to read about it and apply the principles as I was able in my psychiatric practice with patients and in my own life. But due to the constraints of current practice methods, it was difficult for me, as one person, to fully integrate these ideas. When I retired in 2018, I devoted more time to reading the research done on Positive Psychology and various researched interventions that were helping people focus on becoming well instead of only specific psychiatric symptom relief. Over these years, my study partner has been Thomas Syre, Sr. We finally decided that, although there were many books about the topic of Positive Psychology, there was a need for a more direct, practical, easily approachable, self-help book to apply these principles through specific interventions. We believe this book meets those needs.