Reflections of a Deaf Scholar 201
Many years later, the words of the genji how [an incantation] surged like a
current into my consciousness. I finally realized that I had misunderstood the
deep meaning of the incantations. It was a sorcerous weapon that could divert
death. It was a sequence of words that could re-establish harmony in chaotic
circumstances. (p. 135)Stoller came to view sorcerers, who are “solitary spiritual guardians of their commu-
nities” (p. 144), as bringers of harmony, balancing community life and disruptive
forces. Sorcerers develop humility when they understand that they are a link in the
chain of history: “They realize that the knowledge they have acquired is borrowed
and that their responsibility is to define what they have learned and pass it on to the
next generation” (p. 144).
I was not practicing magic, but I had found a source of peace, confidence, con-
nection, and strength in thinking of the life lessons deaf people had learned. In
my search for knowledge, for what it means for deaf people to flourish, and for the
circumstances that provide a breeding ground for deaf flourishing, I had found an
unexpected gift at a moment when I needed it most: a treasure of strengths. Accord-
ing to peterson and Seligman (2004),strengths are truths reflected in personal struggles and often in the present-
ing problems that clients seek to resolve. They highlight an unrecognized
commitment of personal, physical, and spiritual survival and represent charac-
ter virtues that confront threats to psychological well-being and act as buffers
to mental illness. (cited in Ward & Reuter, 2011, p. 25)Responding to an exclusive focus on pathology and mental illness, positive psy-
chology focuses on mental health and describes positive qualities that contribute
to the well-being of individuals (Seligman, 2011; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi,
2000). Scholars have tried to identify common strengths that are cross-linguistically,
cross-culturally, and intergenerationally appreciated.
In their book Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification, peter-
son and Seligman (2004) list 24 character strengths that can be categorized into
six virtues that are present in diverse cultures worldwide: justice, courage, transcen-
dence, humanity, temperance, and wisdom and knowledge. The list is helpful to
both clients and counselors, as it allows them to identify strengths and move away
from a problem-saturated perspective:Authentic reflection of clients’ strengths in session allows clients to recognize
that strengths are already present in themselves. This shift in language reveals
a shift in the cocreated reality between a strength-centered counselor and a
client, from problem to possibility, and from adversity to opportunity. (cited
in Ward & Reuter, 2011, p. 32)In a Western context, Seligman (2011) identifies five “elements of well-being”: pos-
itive emotion, engagement (flow), meaning (“belonging to and serving something
that you believe is bigger than the self,” p. 17), accomplishment (achievement), and