About Positive Psychology Reflections

Hi, I’m Kathryn Britton. I combine experience as a technical leader in information technology (IT) with a deep interest in people and what makes them flourish. Recently I completed a Master of Applied Positive Psychology degree after studying the science of human flourishing for a very intense year. We explored wonderful topics such as subjective well-being, savoring, resilience, self-efficacy, character strengths, meaning in and at work, high-quality connections, and positive psychology in coaching.

Some people in positive psychology are particularly interested in empirical research that tests theories about what makes people’s lives go right and whether particular positive interventions work, but somebody has to create the positive interventions before they can be validated, and that’s more my line. I build on theory and empirical results, but I leave to others to do the meticulous empirical validation.

I retired from technology to put my entire focus on what makes life go well for people. I am particularly interested in how people flourish on the job. There are many actions we can all take without waiting for someone in authority to do it for us.

I have a coaching practice, Theano Coaching LLC, that I base both on extensive experience mentoring professionals at IBM and on what I learned with the MAPP program. I mentored many people at IBM - male, female, newcomers, experienced people, people from the United States and others from China, Taiwan, India, England and Germany. It’s one of the pleasures of working for a global company — chances to work with people from all over the world. I was also a member of the Program Committee for 5 North Carolina IBM Women in Technology conferences. Now I am on my own, but I haven’t forgotten how demanding corporate work can be, and I still understand how to run a company maze.

I am also a monthly contributor to Positive Psychology News Daily, a site that collects articles from various positive psychology practitioners reflecting on applications in their lives and businesses. I like to get involved in the discussions as well, so I’ve written a number of comments.  July 2008:  I’m now an associate editor.  I help maintain the quality of the content and produce some of the indexing tools that help people find the articles that interest them.  We have more than 250 articles written since January 2007 on a wide range of topics.