Somehow I knew that this dry-sounding article would get interesting
(…)
"When I first got into this work, it seemed a little counterintuitive that we were studying positive emotions in a way that hadn't been thought about before. To say that positive emotions could sometimes be inappropriate, or maladaptive, or something you might want to rein in or suppress was very different from the mainstream approach to studying positive emotions.
"For better or worse, there has been some mainstream attention to this work. We've been called the dark side of happiness. (…) I couldn't help but notice that I would be working with patients, particularly those who were manic—people with a history of bipolar disorder—who were describing feeling elated, excited, overjoyed, but they were being hospitalized, losing their life's savings, and engaging in risky behaviors, like driving fast and engaging in sexual liaisons with a bunch of strangers. I thought, is this the same thing? They're feeling positive, but there are all these negative consequences…."
