The final week of positive psychology was sad. I was just becoming comfortable with my fellow classmates and I was so used to my daily commute to class. One of our final group projects was a research presentation in which we were asked to formulate a research question based of coaching.
The concept of coaching is it focuses on the positive aspects of individuals, rather than the negative, irrational, and pathological aspects of life. Coaching is specific and goal-oriented on people strengths and abilities that can be used in different ways to enhance performances, feel better about the self, deal with challenges, achieve goals, and improve the overall quality of one’s personal and professional life.
Our group research question was based on stress and the benefits of having a coach vs having a therapist. Our conclusion we came up with for are research question was if you have a mental illness that is affecting your daily life then you should seek a therapist. On the other hand, if you want to better your life and accomplished goals then you should seek a life coach.
Our last essay was a case intervention plan, in which we had to come up with an intervention plan based on a peer coaching session that we did with one or two other classmates in positive psychology. I really enjoyed participating in this activity because I was able to practice being a life coach on a classmate.
Even though I want to become a mental health counselor in the future, I was happy that I was able to have some experience being able to see how it is being a life coach on an individual, as well as practice being a therapist. I definitely took things away from the correlation between positive psychology and coaching that I can incorporate into my sessions when I have clients.
During our final day of class, our professor brought everybody sandwiches and drinks to enjoy while we did some peaceful meditation and wrapped up class. During our last activity, we each had to write our name on a piece of paper and pass it clockwise, so everybody could write down on the paper what they admired and liked about each individual. This assignment made me feel really good about myself because I did not think that everybody in class would have something positive to say about me.
In conclusion, I have learned a lot of things from positive psychology that I plan on incorporating into my daily life once I return home. I loved that I was able to learn more about Danish culture and find out reasons as to why Danes are one of the happiest people in the world.
From this experience, I learned things about myself such that I am a strong individual that can handle any obstacle that come my way as long as I looked at the obstacle in a positive way. The next class I will be taking in Copenhagen is child development and I am super excited about it because I want to learn how do a different country approach childhood education and social issues.