Positive Psychology
Positive psychology is a scientific field that studies what makes life worth living — focusing on strengths, flourishing, and wellbeing rather than on dysfunction and pathology. It provides coaching with a robust evidence base for building resilience, engagement, and meaningful achievement.
What it is
Launched as a formal discipline by Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi around 2000, positive psychology redirected psychological research toward the conditions that enable individuals and communities to thrive. It does not ignore suffering, but argues that understanding and cultivating positive states is equally important.
Central constructs include PERMA (Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Achievement), character strengths (24 universally recognised virtues measured by the VIA Survey), flow (the state of optimal absorption in an intrinsically motivating activity), and post-traumatic growth. The field is empirically grounded, with a commitment to rigorous measurement.
How it is used in coaching
Positive psychology is arguably the closest academic cousin to coaching. Practitioners use strengths-based assessments, gratitude practices, goal-setting frameworks, and wellbeing interventions drawn directly from the research. Coaching informed by positive psychology helps clients identify what energises them, build on what they do best, and design lives and careers aligned with their deepest values.
Key benefits & applications
Strong scientific foundation; practical and measurable interventions; broadly applicable; naturally aligns with coaching's forward-focused, strengths-based ethos.
What our members have to say
Perspectives from coaches and institutes in the CoachScape community.
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Bibliography
A curated selection of the most important literature on this topic.
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