Practicing Positive Psychology Coaching: Assessment, Activities and Strategies for Success

My story with this book involved quite heavy over payment, because of taxes and delivery choices, which are not relevant to the story, but are quite relevant to my expectations from the book. This book cost me almost $100, so it better be good, I thought, setting too high expectations. Even within this scenario, the author managed to deliver above expectations. Very enjoyable writing style - detailed and explanatory, but not heavy, plenty of personal examples and stories in each chapter, and lots of practical exercises, tools, and references. These are some of the excellent qualities of this book. The author is a scientist and he manages to combine the science implications along with useful advise and coaching instruments. I am very pleased with my purchase and I definitely recommend this book to all personal coaches who are looking for structure, practicality, and real-life examples, approaches, and tools.

Treat yourself to this excitingly book NOW! Todd Kashdan, Caroline Miller, and other positive psychology major scientist players hit a home run describing Robert's engaging new book. It is a coaches' dream resource encyclopedia! Dynamic, pithy, and jam-packed with scientifically well-researched, creative, but most of all, quick and easily applicable surveys for human potential explorers and practitioners. Robert's courageously candid honesty is a treat. His gutsy, yet friendly, down-to-earth writing style invites you to sit down a spell and savor his wisdom, self-exploration, and novel approaches to defining and fine-tuning what positive psychology is and isn't. Get ready to give your scanner or xerox some action, as his surveys are ones you will use with every coaching client, not to mention yourself. I did them all and had a few eyebrow-raising moments of self-discovery! His sections on values, positive diagnosis, midlife, and his practical tips for reappraisal and re-framing were particularly enlightening. As if all that wasn't enough, at the end of the book, Robert adds a brilliant bonus, a continuing education test that can score practitioners 3 continuing education credits.

Adds well being perspective for clients, beyond focusing on problems and solutions. Well organized, easy reading, good reference, I liked it

Positive Psychology introduces us to a science that focuses on the development of methods that promote individual and group flourishing. But how should a Positive Psychologist respond to some rather discouraging comments of his own work? You can find the answer in Robert Biswas-Diener's new book "Practicing Positive Psychology Coaching". After receiving some rather intense criticism of his first book "Positive Psychology Coaching" as being too theoretical, the author decided to use the criticism as motivation in order to create a new book that addresses the question by presenting a wide range of practical interventions and tools that can be directly applied by coaches, counselors and clinicians to their private practice. Interventions are clearly outlined and in many cases illustrated by case studies in order to demonstrate their use in a client setting. The book is a wonderful and effective tool for leading clients through a variety of stressful events such as layoffs, leadership changes, University graduation, middle-age crisis and retirement and can be used by practitioners as a valuable intervention for increasing the effectiveness of their services. Aspasia Karakosta-Stefanopoulos

I'm an HR and career consultant. The combination of practical information and academic rigor in this book serves me well as a "go-to" reference. Biswas-Diener shares countless stories and coaching experiences. Each one with the keen insights and nuanced observations of a practitioner who has mastered the subject matter. At a time when Interest access makes everyone an authority, Biswas-Diener demonstrates experience and credibility. And readers like me will find his approach refreshingly humble and unpretentious. This book brims with information, techniques and research. It is so much more than a how-to book. It is a thoughtfully written manual by a practitioner lending wisdom, applied knowledge and credibility to the field of positive psychology. Thank you Robert Biswas-Diener!

Oops. I shoulda read the previews and reviews better before I bought this, usually do, somehow this time didnt. So, this book will be useful, in my opinion, ONLY for a trained, advanced skilled Life Coach seeking to add another dimension to his/her repertoire. While moderately intriguing for general readership and people who do the other “coaching” (in fitness / sport say) the book is so deep into its own field I found it agonizing to read past p. 75.... the author seems to know his field well, the info well presented, so I’d surmise amongst the specialized life coaching community might even be a 5-star. If you’re looking for generally applicable methodology I don’t think you’ll find much take home value here....with one exception: a discussion of *strengths-based* consulting (rather than weaknesses) sets it apart from the run of the mill self help genre. Could be a road to go further down in sports coaching. If you like sentences that begin with, “Consider a series of studies by....” you’ll love this book.

A great tool for learning how administer assessments. The assessment tools in the book are short but have meaning which is described by the author. Happy I bought it.

This book is a journey that is so worth taking. If you are familiar with Positive Psychology you will LOVE Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener's rich and potent examples. This text allowed me to better internalize the important core principles found in the "science of happiness". This is one of the best resources I have found to help me apply Positive Psychology to my budding coaching practice. This manual is perfect for anyone who wants to know how to apply positive psychology to their counseling or coaching practice. I was so impressed with this book that I have decided to take a course that Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener offers online. For information about that check out [...]. I am grateful to have found an expert author who is authentically invested in the goodness of helping others.