Toxic Positivity: Too Much of a Good Thing

Good vibes only. Other people have it worse. Being negative isn’t going help you.

Toxic positivity is a problem and a phenomenon that just about everyone has experienced—anyone on social media has definitely experienced it—but few people know it. It is increasingly prevalent and, as such, is garnering increasing attention in the psychology field.

Toxic positivity may seem like an oxymoron. How can positive be bad? Positivity becomes toxic when it is empty and excessive and when it ignores the necessity and reality of negative emotions. There are multiple definitions of out there but this one from The Psychology Group is a favorite:

“…the excessive and ineffective overgeneralization of a happy, optimistic state across all situations. The process of toxic positivity results in the denial, minimization, and invalidation of the authentic human emotional experience.”

Medical News Today describes it as “an obsession with positive thinking…a belief that people should put a positive spin on all experiences, even those that are profoundly tragic.”

Why Does Toxic Positivity Happen?

The short answer is discomfort.

Sometimes a friend or loved on just doesn’t know what to say and so tries to find something pithy and positive to feel like they’ve contributed or supported you. A word of advice for all – if you don’t know what to say it is perfectly acceptable, and advisable, to say just that. 

“I don’t know what to say to make this better.”

“I wish I had the words to fix this.”

Other times your friend or loved one does not want to be confronted with your negative emotions because it makes them uncomfortable. 

 And that is okay. 

It is okay to be uncomfortable with someone’s negative emotions. But avoiding them communicates negative emotions are unacceptable, which brings us right into our next topic.

What Toxic Positivity Ignores and What it Creates

The problem with toxic positivity is that it denies the very existence of negative emotions. When a person is suffering, they need to know their emotions are valid and accessible. Instead, toxic positivity creates shame, guilt, and inauthenticity.

Shame – toxic positivity tells us our negative emotions are unacceptable. 

Don’t get me wrong. Negative emotions are not fun, and they are frequently difficult to navigate. But they are natural and a necessary part of being human. I tell my clients every emotion they feel is valid and that they are feeling them for a reason. The difference lies in what we do with that emotion, but that is for a different conversation.

Guilt – toxic positivity also sends the message if you are not finding a way to feel positive, all the time, even in the face of tragedy, that you are doing something wrong.

Positivity all the time is not just unnatural it is also just not possible. There are some things that are just not positive and will never be okay no matter which way the situation is looked at. There are others that will only look positive in hindsight if everything does happen to turn out as a result. That’s as a result, not in spite of.

Here is what I mean: say you get fired from your job and ultimately you are hired somewhere new with better pay and a better work environment. In hindsight being fired was a good thing because you wound up with a better job because of it. But at the time being fired was still awful.

Inauthenticity – toxic positivity avoids authentic human emotion. 

At its root toxic positivity is an avoidance mechanism. When someone engages in toxic positivity it allows them to circumvent emotional situations that make them uncomfortable whether the situation is yours or their own. As a result, these uncomfortable emotions are discounted, dismissed, and denied.

Emotional Junk Food

I see toxic positivity as emotional junk food. Junk food fills you up but it’s empty calories. Toxic positivity, likewise, is empty positivity. I often see it expressed as a short, pithy statement that allows the giver to quickly move on—because of that discomfort we mentioned earlier—rather than sit with the receiver and support them through their difficulty. This seems to be particularly true in both uncomfortable situations and times when the giver does not know what to say.

Here are some examples and some things you can say instead. These suggestions are lifted directly from Science of People’s excellent and extensive article on the subject:

Instead of…. Say…

“It’ll all be fine.” “How can I help you?”

“You should smile more.” “Is everything okay?”

“Don’t worry about it.” “What can I do to make it less stressful for you?”

“It could be worse.” “This is tough; can I do anything?”

“Don’t be so negative.” “It must be hard. Tell me about it.”

“Always look on the bright side!” “It’s so hard to see the good in this situation, but we’ll

make sense of it when we can.”

“Everything happens for a reason.” “Do you want to talk about it?”

Replacing Toxic Positivity with Tragic Optimism

Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman provided an article for The Atlantic positing that the solution for toxic positivity is “tragic optimism,” a term first coined by Viktor Frankl an existential-humanistic psychologist, Holocaust survivor, and one of the giants of 20th century psychology.

Tragic optimism is the search for meaning amid the unavoidable tragedies of human existence. It is accepting the bad and through that seeing and being grateful for the good. Frankl himself defined tragic optimism as the decision to say “yes” to life despite all of its pain, guilt, and death and to counteract these negative inevitabilities with hope, faith, and love.

The BBC has a quality article from earlier this year on using tragic optimism to combat toxic positivity.

How to Avoid Toxic Positivity

To wrap up here are some strategies for avoiding toxic positivity directed at oneself or imposed by others.

Avoiding self-directed toxic positivity – 

·      Recognize negative emotions are normal and a natural part of being human.

·      Identify and name emotions rather than avoid them.

o   If you’re not confident with this go here to find an “emotion wheel” and how to use it. My clients love the emotion wheel.

·      Talk to trusted people about emotions, including the negative ones.

·      Find support from nonjudgmental people including trusted friends or a therapist. 

Avoiding toxic positivity from others – 

·      State to them you need to work through these negative emotions.

·      Validate your emotions to them.

·      Verbally communicate they can walk away if this makes them uncomfortable 

o   but you are going to work through these negative feelings rather than ignore them.

·      Walk away/find someone more validating if this person cannot be authentic with you and your negative emotions.

Here at Obsidian, our therapists love what we do and we always do our best to give you the best we possibly can. If you ever need help or guidance, please do not hesitate to contact us at the following:

References Related to Toxic Positivity

Campbell-Sills, L., Barlow, D. H., Brown, T. A., & Hofmann, S. G. (2006). Acceptability and suppression of negative emotion in anxiety and mood disorders. Emotion, 6(4), 587–595.

Ellard, Kristen K. et.al. April 11, 2017. Neural correlates of emotion acceptance vs worry or suppression in generalized anxiety disorder. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Volume 12, Issue 6, June 2017, Pages 1009–1021,

Levitt, Jill T. et al. The effects of acceptance versus suppression of emotion on subjective and psychophysiological response to carbon dioxide challenge in patients with panic disorder. Autumn 2004. Behavior Therapy. Vol 35.4, pp 747-766.

Lukin, Konstantin Ph.D. Toxic Positivity: Don’t Always Look on the Bright Side. August 1, 2019. Psychology Today.

Scully, Simone M. ‘Toxic Positivity’ Is Real — and It’s a Big Problem During the Pandemic. July 22, 2020. Healthline.com.