“Anti-DSM” Movement: Diagnostic Manual Of The 24 Human Virtues

The “anti-DSM” movement is a challenge that positive psychology has launched in favor of human virtues and strengths. This perspective aims to highlight what makes us happy and thus counter the tendency to classify and study only mental problems.

Thus, while the DSM is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the VIA (Values ​​in Action, Values ​​in Action in English) aims to classify human virtues, extracting patterns of behavior and proposing a common lexicon that helps us to understand the human virtues and strengths at an intercultural level.

Just like the DSM, the VIA manual also offers evaluation strategies and questionnaires that help researchers evaluate the 6 human virtues, which in turn are divided into 24 strengths. In this link we leave you their official page, where you can register and take the test in English.

Human virtues and strengths, the secret of our happiness

We have not yet named the creators of this project! They are the psychologists Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, who have proposed the existence of 6 virtues, through which it is possible to articulate as many as 24 human strengths. Let’s see what they are:

1. Common sense and awareness:

• Curiosity and interest in what surrounds us
• Love of knowledge
• Critical judgment and an open mind to learn
• Creativity
• Perspective (criterion)

2. Courage in overcoming obstacles:

• Courage
• Hard work and perseverance
• Integrity and honesty
• Vitality (desire and enthusiasm)

3. Love:

• Kindness
• Intimacy
• Social intelligence

4. Justice:

• Civic spirit and teamwork
• Justice and equity
• Leadership

5. Characteristics of temperament:

• Humility
• Self control
• Prudence and caution
• Forgiveness and compassion

6. Transcendence:

• Appreciation of beauty
• Fear and amazement
• Gratitude
• Hope and optimism
• Playful ability and mood
• Spirituality and goals

The importance of identifying the positive aspects of educating

Without falling into excess of optimism, it is good to emphasize that the more we cultivate these virtues and these strengths, the closer we will come to self-realization and the ability to be happy . This gives us the ability to advance and optimize the training and education we give to both children and adults in our society.

Emphasizing their existence will help us to enhance the development of these personal, emotional, cognitive and behavioral skills. A film that will help you understand the importance of talking about human virtues is The fleeting moment :

We could say that less rigidity and greater flexibility allow us to look at things from another point of view, to open our minds and be able to understand and learn in a conscious way. Evaluating every possibility is essential for raising strong people who are able to deal with the world.

Just as we said earlier, education must have the task of promoting positive changes in people and improving their skills on all levels, opening new paths and emphasizing what is relevant to our development as people.

In recent years there has been a tendency to “humanize” our education, giving more and more importance to social and emotional intelligence, a guarantee of success and positive development.

In other words, by promoting the development of human virtues, we will help our children to be happy, more confident in themselves and their decisions. However, today there are still too many shortcomings from this point of view in learning models and in schools. This is due to the fact that, in many cases, too many classes make this task impossible. But even the ignorance and inertia of some people make the few possibilities that would exist in schools useless.

You will certainly know Einstein’s famous phrase:

Take note, and start exploring each of your strengths.