Biopsychosocial Life Coaching With an Emphasis on Well-being

Presentation (Apresentação)

This course is held by the Instituto de Psicologia e Ciências da Educação [Institute of Psychology and Educational Sciences], at Universidade Lusíada – Norte (Porto) [Lusíada University – North (Porto)], in collaboration with the Centro de Investigação em Psicologia para o Desenvolvimento (CIPD) [Psychology for Positive Development Research Center] and the Anthropedia Foundation, a not-for-profit charitable organization USA.

The course was designed by the Anthropedia Institute, Anthropedia’s Scientific Advisory Board, in collaboration with the Center for Well-Being at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, USA. The course has been designed to prepare helping professionals for work in the fields of psychology, counseling, coaching, public health, and preventive health and well-being. The course consists of ten 4-day blocks over the course of 1 year.

The student is exposed to a mixture of teaching practices: didactic learning, experiential learning, personal study, and physical movement. The course addresses calls from world health organizations (e.g., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization) and federal governments for making changes in public health promotion strategies to reduce health care costs and to help individuals to make informed choices about their own health. Given the burden of lifestyle and stress-related illness in the world, there is a need for a new profession on health and well-being promotion that can complement and bolster the work accomplished by other health care professionals.

The attending students may come from different work environments, such as, community centers, clinics, hospitals, private practice, corporations, schools, and other health care venues. At the end of the course, besides credits, students may apply for becoming certified life coach with an emphasis on well-being by the Anthropedia Foundation. The graduates are expected to be experts in lifestyle transformation, stress management, and well-being promotion. All methods used in Anthropedia’s coaching methods are evidence based, and studies have shown that participants in the training and those receiving coaching have statistically significant increases in character development and subjective well-being as measured

The course is currently be offered at St. Louis University in St. Louis, MO, at the Academie Francaise de Coaching de Vie in Vallauris, France, at the University of Rome, Sapienza, in Rome, and at the Centre of Competence, Karlskrona, Blekinge, Sweden.

Objectives (Objetivos)

At the end of the course students should be able to:

1.1 Knowledge and Comprehension
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding in the field of well-being, including knowledge of the area’s scientific foundation, and knowledge of applicable methods in the Science of Well-Being.
• The student is expected to demonstrate comprehension on the basic concepts covered in the Know Yourself DVD Series and the Coaching Skills modules.

1.2 Skills
• The student is expected to demonstrate competency in the use of the exercises demonstrated during the program.
• Demonstrate the skills required to work independently as a coach by delivering at least 5 pre-sessions and maintaining two clients.
• Demonstrate the ability to search, collect, evaluate and critically interpret relevant information in a problem and to critically discuss phenomena, issues, and situations.