[Psychology] should be just as concerned with building strength as with repairing damage.

Martin E. P. Seligman advanced this idea in the late 1990s as he helped launch “positive psychology,” a movement arguing that mainstream psychology had become disproportionately focused on pathology—diagnosing and treating mental illness—while neglecting the scientific study of human strengths, virtues, and well-being. The line is commonly associated with Seligman’s agenda-setting writings and talks from his American Psychological Association presidency (1998) and the early positive-psychology literature that followed. In that setting, he urged researchers and clinicians to complement “repairing damage” (therapy, symptom reduction) with “building strength” (cultivating resilience, optimism, character strengths, and meaning).

The quote frames mental health as more than the absence of disorder. Seligman’s contrast implies a rebalancing: psychology should not only fix what is broken but also develop what is best in people. “Building strength” points to capacities—hope, gratitude, self-control, social connection, purpose—that can be measured, taught, and supported, and that may buffer against future distress. The significance is programmatic: it argues for a broadened research and clinical mission, where flourishing and prevention are legitimate scientific targets alongside treatment. It also challenges a deficit-only model of persons, proposing that strengths are not merely byproducts of recovery but central ingredients of a good life.