Strengths-Based Coaching
entry by Julie M. Marx, Global Family Expert at Expat Valley
A coaching approach that prioritizes the identification and amplification of a client’s existing strengths, resources, and capacities as the primary vehicle for achieving their goals, in contrast to problem-focused or deficit-remediation models. In the international living context, strengths-based coaching is particularly well-suited to working with TCKs, accompanying partners, and expatriate families, whose cross-cultural experiences generate genuine strengths that are frequently unrecognized or underutilized.
Comparable terms
Positive psychology coaching (coaching — equivalent; emphasizes the positive psychology theoretical basis) · Asset-based coaching (coaching — equivalent; emphasizes the resources frame) · Solution-focused coaching (coaching — related; emphasizes future-oriented solution construction rather than problem analysis) · Appreciative coaching (coaching — related; draws on appreciative inquiry methodology)
Why this matters
This approach fits global families whose mobility has already created real capacities. It counterbalances narratives that focus only on what has been lost or disrupted. For TCKs and partners, it can restore confidence and a sense of direction.
Cross-references
Intercultural Coach (Professional Support Roles); Expatriate Coach (Professional Support Roles); ICF (Professional Bodies); Neurodiversity-Affirming Practice (Neurodiversity & Medical Complexity Abroad); Positive Mobility (Transitions & Mobility); Flourishing (Wellbeing & Mental Health); FIGT (Professional Bodies). ICF provides the professional credentialing framework within which strengths-based coaching is practiced; neurodiversity-affirming practice is the domain-specific application of the strengths-based philosophy in neurodevelopmental contexts. Positive mobility describes the orienting framework within which strengths-based coaching is most effectively deployed with internationally mobile clients; flourishing describes the wellbeing outcome that strengths-based practice most explicitly aims toward. FIGT is the primary professional community through which strengths-based approaches to international living support are developed and shared.
Sources
Linley, P.A. & Harrington, S. (2006). Strengths coaching: A potential-guided approach to coaching psychology. International Coaching Psychology Review, 1(1), 37–46. The foundational paper establishing strengths-based coaching as a distinct approach within coaching psychology.
The application of strengths-based coaching to the international living and TCK population specifically is practitioner-led rather than research-documented. The most directly applicable source connecting strengths-based approaches to the expat context is: Rosinski, P. (2003). Coaching Across Cultures. Nicholas Brealey Publishing. For the positive psychology theoretical basis, see: Seligman, M.E.P. & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55(1), 5–14.
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