New Web Site to Help 19 Million Depressed Americans Get Happy

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Can a Web site make you happy? That's the promise of a new interactive Web site that goes online today, based on more than 40 years of clinical research from the world's foremost authority on positive psychology, Dr. Martin Seligman. The new site, http://www.reflectivehappiness.com/, provides users with a series of scientifically tested exercises that have been clinically proven to decrease depression while improving emotional well being, allowing for more happiness in life.

Dr. Seligman, the father of the positive psychology movement, is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, whose body of work includes 21 books and 200 articles, including the landmark 'Authentic Happiness' (Free Press, 2002) and 'Learned Optimism' (Knopf, 1991). To read Dr. Seligman's biography, click http://www.reflectivehappiness.com/AboutUs/Seligman.aspx.

The new Web site distills many of Dr. Seligman's greatest discoveries, drawn from a lifetime of work, into a single online resource where users can sign in and follow a prescribed set of interactive exercises, personally designed and tested by Dr. Seligman. The process begins with an upfront assessment of one's own happiness and depression levels. Those benchmarks are then used throughout the program to determine progress toward living a happier, more positive life with less depression and negativity.

Along the way, users receive online streaming video training from Dr. Seligman, who kicks off each exercise with an in-depth explanation of its purpose and desired result. To help, users can also click on any one of several virtual partners who can help steer them through the process, explain the exercises, and share why the exercises work.

The virtual partners represent the collective wisdom of expert profilers who worked to create the virtual partner profiles, and develop their every word. It's a highly engaging technology that allows those suffering from depression to learn from others in the privacy of their own homes. The virtual partners even share intimate details, such as a struggle with breast cancer or the loss of a loved one. They serve as part mirror, part window, helping users discover the flawed thought processes that lead to depression, and new ways of thinking and approaching the world. To meet a Reflective Happiness virtual partner, visit http://www.reflectivehappiness.com/AboutUs/VirtualPartners.aspx.

Those new approaches to the world are taught through http://www.reflectivehappiness.com/'s clinically proven exercises. For instance, the program's first exercise, The Three Blessings, requires users to recall and jot down three things that went really well in their lives that day. They can be major events - such as a job promotion - or minor items, such as your spouse stopping on the way home to pick up your favorite ice cream. Next to the positive event, users note why they think these things

went well. After seven days, users are retested to see if their levels of depression or happiness have changed.

"It is a remarkably powerful exercise that teaches people how to recognize the good events taking place in their lives, and their contribution to these good events, rather than dwelling on the mistakes that were made," says Dr. Jeffrey Levy, M.D., president and CEO of Reflective Learning, the company that created ReflectiveHappiness.com, and developed the technology that powers the site. "Most importantly, however, the exercise, as well as others in the program, has been scientifically proven to help most people decrease depression and increase happiness."

For instance, in a study published in the July/August 2005 issue of American Psychologist, two of the exercises that comprise the ReflectiveHappiness.com program, Three Blessings and Signature Strengths, were proven to increase happiness and decrease depressive symptoms for six months. In all, ReflectiveHappiness.com consists of six life-altering exercises, all of which impress upon the member habits that will utilize the knowledge, tools, and skills needed to master the three components of happiness: the Pleasant Life, the Engaged Life, and the Meaningful Life. In beta testing, the Reflective Happiness Web site helped the vast majority of members, many of whom experienced a decrease in depression and an increase in happiness while on the program.

In addition to the Happiness Building Program, users receive questions and answers from Dr. Seligman, the Reflective Happiness newsletter, membership in the Positive Psychology Book Club, Happiness Tests and Questionnaires, and the Reflective Happiness Community Forum.

For more information on Reflective Happiness, Dr. Seligman, or positive psychology, please visit http://www.reflectivehappiness.com/, or contact Renee Rozniatoski at 610-642-8253.

About Reflective Happiness

ReflectiveHappiness.com is the world's first Web site using positive psychology to decrease depression. Based on more than 40 years of research from Dr. Martin Seligman, the father of the positive psychology movement, the site provides users with a series of scientifically tested and clinically proven exercises designed to help anyone live a happier, more productive and positive life. Reflective Happiness users are helped along the way by Virtual Partners - online personas whose background, personalities and life experiences have been developed by a team of Reflective Happiness' expert profilers to help users better understand the exercises and realize how they can be applied in the real world. The techniques and exercises in http://www.reflectivehappiness.com/ have been clinically proven to decrease depression and increase happiness in studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals.