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Positive Psychology

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Positive Psychology Coaching

Abstract

This chapter explains how research findings from the newly emerged field of positive psychology contribute to contemporary coaching practice. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Martin Seligman are the founder and father of the positive psychology movement, and their research has had a monumental influence on how positive psychology coaching is conducted today. In contrast to the goal of traditional psychological research which is to understand human thinking and behaviour in relation to clinical populations, the goal of positive psychological research is to understand how to bring greater happiness, joy, meaning, and fulfilment into the lives of non-clinical populations, which ultimately benefits society as a whole. Positive psychology has been defined as the scientific study of what makes life most worth living (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, American Psychologist 55(1):5–14, 2000). It focuses on the science of three essential elements: positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions. The field of positive psychology is intended to complement, not replace, traditional psychology. It does not seek to deny the importance of studying how things go wrong, but rather to emphasise the importance of determining how things go right.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Susanne Knowles

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  1. Susanne Knowles
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Knowles, S. (2021). Positive Psychology. In: Positive Psychology Coaching. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88995-1_3

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