What Can Coaches Learn from Positive Psychology?

We need to understand that modern psychology developed from helping people with major emotional problems.  It was aimed at “fixing” what was wrong with people. In other words, on studying and responding to pathology.  In the late 20^th century, a group of practitioners and researchers, led by Martin Seligman, took a different approach: “What if we studied people who were mentally balanced and functioning effectively?  What could we learn from them?”  This led to the birth of a field called positive psychology.  You can learn more about positive psychology here.

 

Positive psychology provides both a practical and conceptual framework for coaching.  In some ways, practitioners find themselves overwhelmed by various models and interventions applying positive psychology to coaching.  A recent article  by Joseph Ciarrochi and other researchers seeks to provide a framework that brings together the core processes of change related to the coaching conversation, processes that can be personalized for a particular client.

 

They identified six psychological processes that a coach might use with a client:

 

First, self—Unpacking the strengths that a client used in a recent accomplishment.

 

Second, attention—Using an open question to direct attention to curious exploration of a particular topic.

 

Third, motivation—Asking a client to identify their values and how this is important to the change they want to make.

 

Fourth, affect—Asking the client to name clearly their emotions in the moment.

 

Fifth, cognition—Using a decision balance exercise, help the client think through the pros and cons of a decision they want to make.

 

Sixth, behavior—Helping a client start a new behavior or habit by identifying a workable process.

 

A key point of the study is that not all these processes would be used in a particular context, but each process—based on asking powerful questions—moves the client forward.  Each of these processes engages the client at a deeper psychological level, increase their esteem, efficacy, awareness, and potential for change. Simple but impactful coaching questions help a client to access and build on inner resources that they might not otherwise tap.