This document provides an overview of positive psychology and coaching psychology. It discusses how positive psychology evolved as the fourth wave of psychology beyond focusing on disease, behaviorism, and humanism. Models of positive psychology like PERMA are introduced, as are second wave positive psychology topics like meaning, authenticity, and how negative experiences can lead to growth. Coaching psychology principles and the coaching process are outlined. Interventions highlighted include gratitude, forgiveness, and character strengths. Leading thinkers and theories in positive psychology are also mentioned.

1. Positive & Coaching
Psychology
In Practice

2. Positive Psychology
“The scientific study of optimal human functioning. It
aims to discover and promote the factors that allow
individuals and communities to thrive.”
- Martin Seligman

3. Fourth wave of psychology
1. Disease - Freud - 1850s onwards
2. Behaviorism - Skinner - 1920s onwards
3. Humanistic - Maslow - 1950s onwards
4. Positive - Seligman - 2000s onwards

4. “The science of psychology has been far more successful on
the negative than on the positive side; it has revealed to us
much about man’s shortcomings, his illnesses, his sins, but
little about his potentialities, his virtues, his achievable
aspirations, or his full psychological height. It is as if
psychology had voluntarily restricted itself to only half its
rightful jurisdiction, and that the darker, meaner half” (Maslow,
1954, p. 354).

5. Between 1887 and 2001, for every 21 research studies
related to a ‘negative’ topic in psychology there was only
one related to a positive aspect of life.
Fun fact!

7. Positive institutions
● Positive Education
● Positive Workplaces
○ Positive Organisational Scholarship
● Positive Communities
○ Action for Happiness

8. Leading lights and theoretical underpinnings
● Bandura - Self efficacy
● Clifton - Strengths
● Seligman & Petersen - Character Strengths
● Csikszentmihalyi - Flow
● Deci & Ryan - Self Determination Theory
● Diener - Subjective Wellbeing
● Fredrickson - Broaden & Build Effect
● Snyder - Hope

9. Models
PERMA
○ Positive Emotion
○ Engagement
○ Relationships
○ Meaning
○ Accomplishment

10. Second Wave
Positive Psychology
2
A MASTERCLASS ON MEANING AND VALUED LIVING

11. Chapter 2 – Second Wave Positive Psychology
Held (2004)
“Positive psychology has presented itself as a
separate field of psychology which is
characterised by a “negativity about negativity
itself.”
”

12. Chapter 2 – Second Wave Positive Psychology
PP 1.0
-
+ ▪ the good life
▪ positive experiences
▪ positive thinking
▪ positive behaviour

13. Chapter 2 – Second Wave Positive Psychology
PP 2.0
- +
▪ the good life
▪ positive experiences
▪ positive thinking
▪ positive behaviour
▪ the meaningful life
▪ negative can create positive
▪ positive can create negative

14. Chapter 2 – Second Wave Positive Psychology
PP 1.0: Subjective well-being
” life
satisfactio
n
positive
affect
negative
affect
+ + -

15. Chapter 2 – Second Wave Positive Psychology
PP 2.0: Psychological well-being
self-acceptance
environmental mastery
purpose in life
positive relationships
personal growth
autonomy

16. Chapter 2 – Second Wave Positive Psychology
Negative can create positive
experiencing +
mastering
difficult
situations
personal
growth

17. Chapter 2 – Second Wave Positive Psychology
PP 2.0 in practice
awareness of factors that
obscure authenticity and agency
engaging in behaviour that
reduces the impact of these
factors
awareness of factors that
represent authenticity and
agency
engaging in behaviour that
increases authenticity and
agency

18. Chapter 2 – Second Wave Positive Psychology
Positive can create negative
▪ positive thinking can be a form of avoidance and can
reduce well-being
▪ the paradoxical search for happiness and meaning
▪ overuse of strengths: e.g. extreme levels of optimism
related with maladaptive risk-taking

19. Chapter 2 – Second Wave Positive Psychology
PP 2.0 in practice
“I saw this big piece of
marble, saw David, and the
only thing I needed to do was
to remove the pieces that
were unnecessary”
- Michelangelo

20. Interventions
● Gratitude
● Forgiveness
● Savouring
● Strengths
● Meaning-oriented
● Empathy-related
● Creativity
● Patience
● Courage
● Humour
● Engagement and Flow
● Mindfulness
● Wisdom
● Resilience
● Life Satisfaction

21. Coaching Psychology
“Coaching psychology can be understood as the systematic
application of behavioural science to the enhancement of
life experience, work performance and well-being for
individuals, groups and organisations who do not have
clinically significant mental health issues or abnormal levels
of distress.” Grant, 2006.

22. The steps are:
1. Problem identification
2. Goal selection
3. Generation of alternatives
4. Consideration of consequences
5. Decision making
6. Implementation
7. Evaluation
(Wasik, 1984)

23. Goal setting theory
Motivation theory / Self Determination Theory
Change
Systems theory
Organisational Development
Individual Difference
Psychometrics
Counselling/Therapy - BSFT, CBT
Positive Psychology
ACT
Self compassion
Informed by:

24. Resources:
Top Pos Psych TED talks – includes Seligman, Shawn Achor, Angela Duckworth, Lea
Waters (from Melb Uni)
Positive Psychology Program web site
International Positive Psychology Association
VIA Strengths Survey
The Psychology Podcast / The Potential Psychology Podcast!
Greater Good Web site (http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/)
Centre for Positive Psychology – Melbourne Graduate School of Education (Melb Uni)

25. Books:
Seligman
Learned Optimism
Authentic Happiness
Flourish
The Hope Circuit
Chris Peterson – Pursuing the Good Life
Carol Dweck – Mindset
Brene Brown – Daring Greatly, Dare to Lead
James Clear - Atomic Habits
Lea Waters - The Strength Switch