Resilience coaching
Resilience coaching strengthens you from the inside out. Resilience is the ability to cope positively, be in control of the way we respond to situations and bounce back from adversity. It helps you manage stress, prevent burnout and navigate periods of uncertainty.
Coaching gives you a one-to-one focus to equip you to cope better with stress and train you in psychological techniques to manage the negative thoughts and pessimistic thinking that undermine your wellbeing and threaten your performance.
Resilience is a learnable skill. We know from neuroscience that we can develop greater resilience with practice. Resilience coaching draws on Positive Psychology, CBT and Mindfulness practices. The silver lining is that tough times will test your resilience but can also strengthen 
you so that you’re better equipped to meet future challenges. Coaching can help you develop three forms of resilience.
- Resistance: So that you have the inner strength to adapt and keep going through tough times.
- Recovery: So that you regain confidence and bounce back after adversity.
- Reconfiguration: So that you emerge post adversity with new skills and greater strength.
Coaching for Depressives: Aimed at teaching you practices that lift the mood and disrupt the downwards spiral into depression. This can help if you feel at risk of depression, experiencing a mild-to-moderate episode or have emotional flatness, chronic low mood or burnout. The coaching draws on evidence-based practices from the book Positive Psychology for Overcoming Depression. This coaching uses a different method to counselling or therapy. It focuses on the techniques that build your wellbeing. A bibliotherapy study has shown that this approach does work. It is not a substitute for clinical treatment but does complement it. All the techniques in the book are evidence-based so we know they work.
“I turned to Positive Psychology because everything else I had tried in order to beat depression had eventually failed. Positive Psychology looks at where you want to be, rather than where you’ve been. Even just writing that sentence is refreshing! I was a little anxious to begin with but Miriam’s friendly and kind disposition soon put a stop to those feelings. It’s not easy putting decades’ worth of bad habits behind you but – and this is the important bit – neither is it so hard that you can only see failure. The coaching is clear and straightforward; the science behind it strong yet simple. The most prominent part for me was the session on optimism and pessimism. Miriam guided me through two ‘issues’ which had plagued me for some years. I could not believe that in less than one hour, I was able to dismiss the ugly feelings around these matters. I have now finished my coaching and finally feel I have a strong base from which to work from. For the first time in 30 years, I feel ‘positive’ about my depression.” Becci M, Glos.
Miriam Akhtar MAPP is a resilience expert and has trained people across many sectors including frontline workers in medicine and the military. She has facilitated the renowned Penn Resilience Programme and ‘trained the trainers’ at the Defence Academy of Great Britain to deliver a resilience programme to senior leaders. She has worked with the Gulbenkian Foundation to develop resilience workshops. Miriam is a featured expert in the Psychologies guide to resilience – Real Calm and has written chapters on resilience in her books Positive Psychology for Overcoming Depression and What Is Post-traumatic Growth.
We have resilience expert Dr Chris Johnstone on board as one of our consultants. He is the author of the excellent Seven Ways to Build Resilience and has developed many of the tools we use in resilience coaching and training.
