Life Coaching, Psychotherapy, and Counseling

Although it would be hard to confuse therapy with executive coaching (say, working with a CEO on improving his or her leadership skills), life coaching and therapy/counseling can be less clearly differentiated and may sometimes overlap (for example, working with a person who wants to rejoin the workforce after a painful divorce). Many authors emphasize the differences between coaching and therapy/counseling and the importance of making this distinction clear to the clients (Auerbach, 2001; Orlinsky, 2007; Whitworth, Kimsey-House, Kimsey-House, & Sandahl, 2007). One of the main differences is that therapy and counseling usually center on solving problems, alleviating pain, or healing psychological distress, whereas coaching focuses on optimizing functioning that is already good, refining skills, and achieving goals. Kauffman (2006) offers a helpful metaphor when she says that clinicians are trained to “follow a trail of tears,” whereas coaches follow a “trail of dreams.”

Grant and Cavanagh (2010) describe a life coach as primarily a facilitator of change whose work is based on these assumptions:

• People have a significant latent potential.
• People can change in significant ways.
• Change can happen in a short period of time.
• Clients are resourceful.
• Clients want to change and are willing to work for it.
• Coaching clients do not have serious mental health problems¹ and life coaching is not focused on repairing psychopathologies.
• Life coaching is goal-focused.

Development of Life Coaching

Although there are precursors of coaching dating to the 1960s, most authors locate its emergence in the United States in the 1970s and in Europe in the 1980s (Grant & Cavanagh, 2010; Stelter, 2014) and agree on two important historical roots of coaching: sports psychology and the human potential movement. Sports psychology had a focus on goals and peak performance, whereas the human potential movement, inspired by humanistic and existential psychology, promoted self-realization (see Robbins, Chapter 3, this volume).

In its short history, coaching has grown tremendously and has evolved conceptually and in terms of its practices. Some authors talk about different “generations” of coaching: Kauffman (2006) describes a first generation of practitioners who established the profession and the basic models of coaching, some of whom were “gurus” with extraordinary communication skills, and a second generation (in the mid 2000s) of coaches who work with more complex interventions and are building a more solid theoretical framework and research foundation for the field. The “second generation” described by Kauffman (2006) is more egalitarian and collaborative than the first one (which was highly influenced by the medical model), promoting the idea that coach and coachee can work as coresearchers.

Stelter (2014) also talks about generations in coaching. He sees a progression from a problem-focused way of working, to a solution-focused approach, to a reflection-focused coaching. First-generation coaches were very goal-oriented in order to help a person achieve a particular objective; second-generation coaches assumed that the clients knew how to deal with challenges; and a third generation has a less goal-oriented agenda and a focus on the co-creation of meaning in conversation in a process characterized by a symmetrical relationship between coach and coachee.

Stober and Grant (2006a) talk about the place of expert knowledge in coaching and describe a continuum that goes from giving advice (a la sports coach) to asking questions. Similarly, Kaufman and Scoular (2004; see also Kauffman, Joseph, & Scoular, Chapter 23, this volume) talk about how coaching has evolved from early approaches that were influenced by a medical model, in which the client was seen as a “high level patient,” to strengths-based and positive psychology models in which the client is a coactive, equal partner.

Coaches can position themselves and move along a continuum of “intervention.” Some work in highly structured ways and use strategies and techniques with a very specific objective in mind, as described by Cox, Bachkirova, and Clutterbuck (2010):

Coaching could be seen as a human development process that involves structured, focused interaction, and the use of appropriate strategies, tools, and techniques to promote desirable and sustainable change for the benefit of the coachee and potentially for other stakeholders. (emphasis added)

Some coaches see themselves as co-creators of new meanings and emerging stories through dialogues:

Coaching is described as a developmental conversation and dialogue, a co-creative process between coach and coachee with the purpose of giving (especially) the coachee a space and an opportunity for immersing him/herself in reflection on and new understandings of (1) his or her own experiences in the specific context and (2) his or her own interactions, relations and negotiations with others in specific contexts and situations. The coaching conversation should enable new possible ways of acting in the contexts that are the topic of the conversation. (emphasis added; Stelter, 2014)

However, I believe that these different approaches or focuses are not “stages” that supersede one another like steps on a staircase, but more like branches on a tree, which, although still connected, grow in different directions.

Different Approaches in Life Coaching

In their Complete Handbook of Coaching, Cox et al. (2010) offer an overview of different approaches in coaching. It is interesting how much the list of coaching models looks like a list of schools of psychotherapy: There is psychodynamic coaching, cognitive-behavioral and solution-centered coaching, person-centered and Gestalt, existential coaching, narrative coaching, transpersonal, transactional analysis, NLP (neurolinguistic programming), in addition to ontological and positive psychology coaching.

In the field of therapy, there have been important efforts to look at what the different therapeutic models have in common, and these have identified the “active ingredients” that explain change beyond the specific schools, such as Orlinsky and Howard's (1987) Generic Model of Psychotherapy and the Common Factors proposed by Hubble, Duncan, and Miller (1999) and Messer and Wampold (2002). Given the broad spectrum of approaches to coaching, there are similar attempts to distill the commonalities of the various coaching models.

A Meta-Theory for Life Coaching

Stober and Grant (2006b) acknowledge how each of the many approaches in coaching provides its own articulate framework for practice, and they offer a “meta-theory” or explanation that accounts for the coaching process in a way that is broader than the specifics of each model. Based on Messer and Wampold's (2002) contextual model of psychotherapy, Stober and Grant (2006a) offer a contextual model that includes the elements or factors that all coaching processes have in common. These are:

• An explicit outcome or goal.
• A sensible rationale about why coaching fits the client's needs or situation.
• A procedure, something the coach does or the coach and coachee do together.
• A meaningful relationship.
• A collaborative working alliance.
• The client's ability and readiness to change.
• The coach's ability and readiness to help the client change.

Stober and Grant's (2006a) contextual model also includes seven key principles of human change processes:

1. Collaboration
2. Accountability
3. Awareness
4. Responsibility
5. Commitment
6. Action
7. Results

Positive Psychology Coaching

As we discuss in the following sections, positive psychology can be incorporated into different styles and models of life coaching. Additionally, there is an emerging way of working called Positive Psychology Coaching that, although still in development, is explicitly built on positive psychology concepts and research findings. Kauffman, Boniwell, and Silberman (2010) describe this nicely when they say that “positive psychology coaches attempt to weave the ‘straw’ of research into the ‘gold’ of artful coaching.” For these authors, the goals of Positive Psychology Coaching include promoting positive affect and directing purposeful change. They focus on strengths rather than on weaknesses and use a variety of assessment tools to explore character strengths, life satisfaction, and potential routes to peak performance. Positive Psychology Coaches use positive interventions, or intentional activities that have been empirically proven to enhance well-being (more on these in the next section).

Biswas-Diener (2010) emphasizes that coaches who use positive psychology need to understand its technical aspects and its scientific foundation. Coaches need to be able to critically consume research literature and keep abreast of the new developments in the field, because science changes. Biswas-Diener (2010) describes his work as such:

I am explicitly informed in my coaching work by the science and theory of positive psychology. This means I have a tendency to look for solutions rather than explore obstacles, that I use a codified vocabulary for strengths, that I draw upon empirically supported interventions and assessments, and that I attend heavily to the role of positive and negative emotions when I interact with my clients.

Positive Interventions/Activities

Pawelski (2011) defines positive interventions as “evidence-based, intentional acts meant to increase well-being in non-clinical populations” (p. 643). Sin and Lyubomirsky (2009) described them as “treatment methods or intentional activities aimed at cultivating positive feelings, positive behaviors, or positive cognitions” (p. 467). More recently, Lyubomirsky and her collaborators, as well as other researchers, are using the terms “positive activities” (Layous, Chancellor, & Lyubomirsky, 2013), “positive activity interventions” (Layous & Lyubomirsky, in press), and “positive psychology exercises” (Huffman et al., 2013), referring to the same kind of activities.

Positive psychology stresses the importance of choice and intentional activity. Layous et al. (2013) point out that a large part of people's happiness can be explained by how they choose to spend their time and to respond to situations in their lives. Layous and Lyubomirsky (in press) explain that positive activity interventions (PAIs) are strategies that mirror what naturally happy people think and do and improve the happiness of the person who practices them. They are usually brief, self-administered activities that cost no money, and they all promote positive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Some of the best-known positive exercises include keeping a gratitude journal, doing a gratitude visit, and using a character strength in a novel way (a more complete list follows in the next section).

One of the reasons why positive activity exercises are so appropriate for coaching is that, as Layous and Lyubomirsky (in press) explain, they are focused on increasing the positive and do not aim at fixing negative feelings, thoughts, or behaviors.

Research on Positive Interventions

The effectiveness of positive interventions in increasing subjective well-being is solidly established. Huffman et al. (2013) state that there have been over 50 studies in which more than 4,000 people have used positive psychology exercises with good results in nonclinical populations. Today there is an increasing number of studies documenting the usefulness of positive psychology exercises in clinical populations as well (Huffman et al., 2013), particularly for people who are struggling with depression.

Layous and Lyubomirsky (in press) state that strategies to increase happiness clearly work. Among the positive exercises that have been proven to increase well-being, Layous and Lyubomirsky (in press) and Lyubomirsky and Layous (2013) cite:

• Writing letters of gratitude
• Counting one's blessings
• Practicing optimism
• Performing acts of kindness
• Using one's strengths in new ways
• Affirming one's most important values
• Meditating on positive feelings toward self and others
• Visualizing ideal future selves

For Layous and Lyubomirsky (in press), it is important to move forward from assessing whether positive activity interventions work (there is solid evidence that they do; see also Layous, Sheldon, & Lyubomirsky, Chapter 11, this volume) to understanding how they work. They point out that there are moderating variables that influence the effectiveness of positive activities, for example, the duration and format of the intervention and the characteristics of the person who is doing the positive exercise. They also talk about importance of a right “fit” between the person and the activity.

Lyubomirsky and Layous (2013) propose a positive activity model: Positive activities increase positive emotions, positive thoughts, and positive behaviors, all of which increase well-being. Positive activities can also satisfy the three psychological needs posited in self-determination theory: autonomy, competence, and connection. The authors state that positive activities also increase the chance of engaging in other positive behaviors, even if they are unrelated to the positive activity exercise. There are characteristics of the activity and of the person that influence or mediate the impact of the positive exercise. Among the features of the activity there is dosage, variety, trigger, and social support, whereas some of the relevant characteristics of the person include motivation and effort, efficacy beliefs, baseline affective state, personality, social support, and demographic characteristics.

Here are some examples of these mediating variables as described by Lyubomirsky and Layous (2013): Dosage, the intensity and frequency of an activity, has an impact on its effectiveness. Doing five acts of kindness on the same day had a greater impact than doing five acts of kindness over a week. In one study, counting one's blessings once a week was more effective than doing it three times a week. These illustrate how activities can be “watered down” or “overdone” and the “ideal” dose probably varies depending on the person and the activity.

Variety plays an important role in positive activities. Several studies, naturalistic and experimental, have shown that doing a number of different activities concurrently brings the greatest benefits. Social support, virtual and in person, has been shown to increase the effectiveness of positive activities too.

Lyubomirsky and Layous (2013) think that variety and social support probably are advantageous in any positive activity, whereas other features of positive exercises vary between activities. For example, a positive activity can be self-oriented and work better for an individualist person, and a different activity can be oriented toward others and be a better fit for a collectivist person. Individual characteristics that influence the impact of positive exercises include motivation, willingness, and the belief that they will work. The emotional state of the participants in positive activities is also important: It has been shown that people who start out with low positive affect or moderate depression may benefit the most from these activities. These authors also state that research shows that older people tend to benefit more than younger people and that Western participants tend to benefit more than people from Eastern cultures.

Another variable that affects outcome is whether the person enjoys the activity, which speaks to the importance of “fit” between person and activity. Layous et al. (2013) highlight the importance of matching people's interests and values with their activities.

As we can see, research on positive activities is growing and becoming more nuanced, so coaches and clients can have more information when they chose to recommend or to try a positive psychology exercise. Biswas-Diener (2010) says that positive psychology interventions can be the “corpus of a scientific toolbox” that coaches can add to their practices. Csikszentmihalyi and Nakamura (2011) point out a potential problem we should be aware of:

When a person charges for a specific service, he or she can not be as critical of it, lest the clients begin to suspect that the goods provided are not as advertised. So life coaches need theories of happiness, and interventions that produce them, that are beyond change and improvement. Whether they can resist this pressure or not remains to be seen.

As life coaches grounded in positive psychology research, we need to remind ourselves (and our clients sometimes) that the knowledge we have is always developing and changing.

Positive Psychology as an Orientation

This is apparently the simplest, but in my opinion the most important, feature of any practice that is informed by positive psychology. It is not a technique or a strategy, but a perspective—a way of looking at people and of creating relationships with them. For me this is expressed in Csikszentmihalyi's description of positive psychology as “a metaphysical orientation toward the good” (cited in Pawelski, 2008). This orientation toward the good translates in life coaching as a curiosity to explore what works well in our clients' lives, what they do well, what they enjoy, what values are most important to them, what their greatest strengths are, which are their most meaningful relationships, what helps them overcome hurdles, and what gives them hope.

This of course coincides with the basic orientation of most life coaching models. I think what positive psychology can add is a coherent and systematic framework to guide our exploration. Seligman's (2011) PERMA model of well-being can be a very useful map. PERMA is the acronym for the five components of well-being: positivity, engagement, relationships, meaning, and achievement (Seligman, 2011).

Positivity refers to positive emotions. Engagement is about experiencing flow, focusing completely on tasks in which we use our skills to face challenges. Relationships is about the quality of our connections and interactions with others. Meaning has to do with having purpose and making sense of our experiences in a way that makes our life feel worth living. Achievement refers to reaching goals and having a sense of accomplishment.

Positive psychologists study topics such as happiness, positive emotions, flow experiences, optimism, goal attainment, character strengths, resilience, and loving relationships, often using experimental or quasiexperimental methods. The coach, however, can be an ethnographer of sorts, doing “micro-research” or qualitative exploration with clients into the phenomena of their lives. This kind of inquiry does not require special techniques other than good conversational and relational skills and a sensitivity and curiosity about what works well and what is most meaningful for the client: What makes you happy? What brings you most satisfaction in life? What has allowed you to go on despite the setbacks you have faced? When are you in your best mood? Who helps you pursue your goals? How do the best conversations take place in your life? When are you closer to being your “best self”? (Tarragona, 2010, 2013).

A life coaching process that is informed by positive psychology does not mean that the client can only talk about what works well and never discuss failures, difficulties, or painful experiences, nor that the coach only inquires about successes and high points. Clients should be free to talk about whatever is important to them and relevant for their goals. But it is different to talk about difficulties against a background of strengths, skills, and hopes that put current obstacles in a broader context.

White (2007) discusses maps as constructions that can guide our explorations, offer routes we might have not imagined, and show us that there are many ways to get to a destination. If we have a general “map” of the different areas of well-being, we can visit those territories when they become relevant in our coaching conversations (Tarragona, 2013). For example, I had a young client, a university student, who spontaneously said in a session that he felt he took for granted much of what he had and that he focused on what was missing in his life. This made me think of the research on gratitude and I asked him some questions about his experiences of gratitude. We talked about one area that, according to positive psychology, is related to well-being. It was not a “strategy”; I was not trying to get him to be more grateful at the moment, but wanted to find out about his experiences of gratitude and what gratitude meant for him.

Conversation itself can bring about change. As Anderson (1997) says, language and dialogue can be generative. We remember things, feel emotions, and can create new meanings that emerge when we talk together. In sum, the first way in which we can use positive psychology in life coaching is as a positioning or stance that is sensitive to what clients say and is related to the elements of well-being. Positive psychology can be a “lens” that zooms into positive emotions, flow experiences, purpose and meaning in life, positive relationships, achievements, and character strengths.

Positive Psychology as a Source of Information

Another way of bringing positive psychology into our work as life coaches is to offer ideas and information that come from research about well-being. Positive psychology has produced a robust body of findings about happiness, life satisfaction, and human flourishing, and we can put this knowledge at the service of our clients. We can do this in different ways, depending on our coaching style.

We can take a psychoeducational stance and “instruct” our clients about topics that are relevant to their situation, comment on evidence, share findings, or recommend a book or a video by an expert on the topic we are discussing. We might create our own handouts for clients or have a website or blog with information that is based on positive psychology.

Because I am partial to collaborative practices, I like Anderson's (1997) notion of “food for thought and dialogue,” which means that the ideas that the coach brings to the conversation may not necessarily need to be presented as privileged information or the way to do things, but rather as material that can stimulate productive conversations.

For example, if something that a client is telling me reminds me of a research paper I have read from positive psychology, I can mention it and ask if he or she would be interested in hearing more about this topic. If the client agrees, I can put the information on the table and explore how it can connect or be useful with his or her current situation. For example, I had a client that was changing careers and was telling me about some of the regrets that she had and how she felt it was hard to let go of some goals even though she knew she had to in order to pursue her new path. This reminded me of the work on “lost possible selves” (and “found possible selves”) done by King and Raspin (Raspin, 2004). I told her that what she was sharing reminded me of something that had actually been studied and I wondered if she would like to hear a little about the notion of “lost possible self.” She did, and after hearing about it we had a conversation that was very meaningful to her and she said she wanted to think of ways of saying good-bye to her “lost selves.” The next time we met, she said thinking about this had been very helpful and she was feeling more excited about the next stage in her life.

I often tell clients that most of the results from quantitative research describe means, trends, and statistical probabilities, but they cannot predict anything about a particular person. So I share the evidence as interesting information that may help them understand and improve their situation, but together we try to see to what extent it is applicable in their case.

There is so much evidence about what contributes to well-being that it would be impossible to try to list it in this chapter. Just to mention some examples, there are findings on savoring, positive emotions, passions, character strengths, flow experiences, creativity, gratitude, curiosity, elevation, positive relationships, happy marriages and families, goal setting and achievement, optimism, grit and perseverance, resilience, meaning and purpose in life, the effects of meditation, the benefits of physical exercise, life satisfaction and well-being among nations, and positive psychology and its contributions to public policy and social change. There is a treasure trove of information that life coaches can draw on to enrich their work and that can have a positive impact on clients' lives.

Positive Interventions and Activities

The third way to integrate positive psychology in life coaching is using “positive interventions” (Pawelski, 2011; Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005; Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009), “positive activities” (Layous et al., 2013), or “positive psychology exercises” (Huffman et al., 2013). The nomenclature seems to be changing recently, moving from the term intervention to activities or exercises, but the various terms refer to the same thing: Activities or exercises that are based on positive psychology, the effectiveness of which has been proven through rigorous scientific research.

I think that when most people think of “applied positive psychology,” what immediately comes to mind are positive interventions: Specific, deliberate activities that a professional recommends to clients to increase their well-being.

If you recall, Lyubomirsky and Layous (in press, 2013) state that the following positive exercises have been proven to increase well-being.

Positive Psychology as Accompanied Self-Help

The fourth way in which positive psychology can enrich life coaching is as a complement or supplement to coaching sessions. Several outstanding positive psychology researchers and practitioners are making their findings available to the general public in highly readable books with a solid foundation (see Parks, Chapter 14, this volume).

We can use these books in different ways: to reinforce or expand on what we discussed in a session, or as a project that clients can take on (such as workbooks), and they can share their progress and reflections with us. We can also use the countless resources online or new apps that are designed to increase well-being.