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Positive Psychology Coaching: Putting the Science of Happiness to Work for Your Clients ReviewThis was a rare book. I wanted to like this book. Really I did. But it was possibly the most disappointing book I've ever read. A better title would have been, "Authentic Happiness Revisited: a shallow rehash of Marty Seligman's earlier book by academics with no writing skills who collaborated at a distance without editing the end result."
The title claims the book helps coaches apply positive psychology with clients. If you're a coach, leave now and buy "Happier" by Tal Ben-Shahar, "Authentic Happiness" by Martin Seligman, and "Now, Discover Your Strengths" by Clifton and Buckingham. You'll get the same info with better writing, far better organization, and applications and exercises you can use with your clients. Other than the author bios and introduction, nothing in the content suggested either author had ever coached a client or run a coaching business.
This book was so bad, in so many ways, it's hard to know where to start. It reads like a stream-of-consciousness ramble about positive psychology research, arbitrarily divided into chapters. Often, the content didn't even have much to do with the chapter title. Here goes...
Mostly, I wanted applications. How can I use positive psychology in my coaching practice? Maybe a forgiveness exercise. Or some cool, insightful questions to help clients find unexpected gratitude. No such luck. Most of the book monotonously recites research results, leaving it to the reader to figure out how to translate the research into action.
Each chapter does end with 'Action steps.' Chapter 2: "Consider how you might use happiness assessments in your own practice. Will you include them in your welcome packet?" and "What language might you use to talk about happiness with executives?" Those would be good questions if the authors had told us anything about happiness assessments, how to use them, when to use them, and what a welcome packet for a positive psychology coaching practice might look like. But they didn't. Like 99% of the book, the authors left the content as an exercise for the reader.
The chapter "Solid Happiness Interventions" takes this to an extreme. It begins by telling us we can find good positive psychology interventions by joining a positive psychology listserv, visiting the positive psychology website, and subscribing to leading journals as a way to learn interventions. Rats. I kind of hoped the authors would do that for me.
After delegating the chapter topic to the web, the narrative segues without warning into discussing that the word "happiness" is perceived as "too light and new-agey to be taken seriously" and is associated with "naivete, hedonism, and intellectual simplicity." From here we get some simple marketing advice about word choice before we proceed to actual happiness interventions, seven pages into the chapter. (By the way, they don't actually address anything about the business of coaching except for these three random tips on using the word "Happiness" in corporate settings. But this is typical of the rambling nature of the book.)
They follow their marketing advice with what they call "interventions." They aren't interventions, though. They're a bibliography of research results. We're sent to Baylor University's Michael Frisch, who apparently has a great computer-based test (QOLI) we can use to assess quality of life. They don't tell us what it measures. They don't show us a sample report. But they do share their excitement "because it relies on scientifically supported measures." No transcripts. No examples of how it's been used to help a client (has it ever?), just a 2 page ad for Frisch's assessment. The one suggested application for the QOLI is relieving clients of our "burdensome" sessions by providing discussion material when the client has none.
(Gentle reader, if you ever find your coaching sessions burdensome, your coach is incompetent or a bad fit. Go elsewhere. If you have nothing to discuss and your coach invents busy-work to keep your meter running, run--don't walk--from their office. People-helpers should not be in the business of finding new problems to keep you hooked.)
Sadly, the so-called interventions are just the standard list of activities that correlate with happiness: goals, journaling, physical exercise, reviewing positive memories, forgiveness, gratitude, having friends, romance, and altruism. This isn't news. "Authentic Happiness" covered that ground in 2003, but with better grammar.
And that's the end of the intervention chapter. There were no interventions. No coaching advice beyond, "use these things." I'd expect more from a high school term paper. At least the authors could have made up some exercises or discussion points. How about telling us how to use the "interventions" with clients? Other than 40 years of meditation, how do I help my clients become more grateful? What if Susan can't find it in her heart to forgive? Should Chris reconcile and offer forgiveness face-to-face, or is internal forgiveness enough? And what about Tracy, who needs to forgive a dead parent? How does that work? I hoped we'd get stories or advice to help apply the concepts. We get nothing.
The one intervention they discuss a bit is journaling, which they call "expressive writing paradigm." They then point out, "You might be smiling to yourself, thinking that this is exactly the type of thing you already do with your clients ... If so, you can now proceed with the added confidence of a positive psychology scientific seal of approval." Wow. I don't know which was more painful: their condescending prose, or the glee with which they seem to think they've said something useful. Go read some coaching books, guys. Cheryl Richardson covered Journaling years ago in more detail, with better examples.
The second part of the book discusses strengths-based coaching. Again, they enumerate research and say nothing new. "Authentic Happiness" and The Gallup Organization's strengths-based books will give you everything you need to know.
The book only lacks depth when it comes to application, however. When it comes to trivia, we get enough to drown. Chapter 2 spends 25 pages defining happiness, offering up gems like, "Happiness is not uniquely American," "it's not just pleasant, it's beneficial," and "Happiness is Functional."
I could go on, but I'll spare you. We get the worst treatment of "SMART" goals I've ever seen. We get research citations by the dozens, with nary a comment on application. We get lots of history of the Happiness movement. Did you know Seligman's Positive Psychology research has grown into "lucrative research prizes, annual conferences, ... high-profile organizational donors, a best-selling book, and a flood of media attention." Need I go on? This material may read well in Seligman's bio, but in a book purporting to be about applying the research to help people, it's utterly irrelevant. Perhaps a bit less about how positive psychology has helped Seligman and co-author Ben Dean, and more about how it's helped clients? Nah. That couldn't be relevant. Could it?
In summary: the book was poorly written with no coherence or flow. It listed research without helping the reader apply it. Most concepts had no examples, no stories from real coaching engagements, and nothing you could use with clients without translating the research into client exercises yourself.
If you still want this book, write me. I'll sell you my copy.
Here are books to read instead:
Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment
Take Time for Your Life
Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment
Now, Discover Your Strengths
Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life
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