Abstract

Today, positive psychology and optimism are taken as the spirit of times. But the push for the positive attitudes without considering uniqueness of individual and cultural diversity will be another 'tyranny'. The authors review defensive pessimism, which is a alternative and supplemental concept for positive psychology and optimism. They focus on differences and usefulness between defensive pessimism and strategic optimism, evaluation and therapeutic implications. And they emphasize that we must have great caution for introducing and applying therapeutic concepts into this country and hope to be developed Korean therapeutic model. (Korean J Str Res 2007;15:235∼244)

• Keywords: Defensive pessimism, Usefulness, Strategy, Optimism, Korean