ABSTRACT
The end of the second millennium marked a contradictory time for western societies and their priorities. For decades, it had been assumed that economic progress could be taken to equal human progress, that the growth in industrial production would inevitably lead to more wealth, and more wealth to greater well-being. Yet the data simply did not bear this out. While wealth was increasing, happiness remained flat (Myers, 2000), and the prevalence of depression was even on the increase (Lane, 2000). Suddenly, the focus on ‘the mighty dollar’ as the solution to the needs of humanity seemed, at least in part, like an empty promise, and people began to turn their attention elsewhere. At the macro-level, governments started to take an interest in well-being (Donovan and Halpern, 2001), and psychologists (Diener and Seligman, 2004), economists (Kahneman et al., 2004) and policy think tanks (Shah and Marks, 2004) began to pose the question of how governmental priorities might be organised if well-being, rather than money, were the desired outcome. In parallel, at the micro-level, more attention was focused in the psychological sciences on what psychologists should do in terms of their research and practice, with the ever-growing recognition that as a discipline, we had made great strides in treating mental illness, but had often neglected the topic of human wellness. It was in this climate that positive psychology and coaching psychology, as we now know them, were born.
