About
Miriam Akhtar
Positive Psychology Training is one of the leading providers of positive psychology coaching and short courses. It is an association of qualified positive psychologists, founded by Miriam Akhtar, who work as coaches and trainers and have expertise in health, education, business and the media. Our associates have either trained on the Masters in Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) or directly with Prof Martin Seligman, co-founder of positive psychology or with us. Seligman established the MAPP to train the world’s first positive psychologists with a goal of helping people to flourish and thereby increasing the tonnage of happiness on the planet.
Miriam Akhtar is one of the UK’s leading positive psychology coaches and was one of the first positive psychologists to go into practice in Europe. She holds the Masters in Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) with Distinction from the University of East London (UEL), to which she now returns as a visiting lecturer developing the next generation of positive psychologists. She works with individuals and organisations, including Rolls-Royce, Skills for Health, In-Volve, Herts County Council, Bristol PCT, Alpro Soya and How to Thrive, a social enterprise which delivers the Penn Resilience Programme in the UK – Miriam is one of a handful of UK trainers of the PRP. She is a founder member of both the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) and the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology (CAPP) and has carried out research at the University of Bath.
Miriam’s purpose in life is to put people on the path to happiness. She loves working one-to-one and doing groupwork and gets great satisfaction from witnessing clients transform as they begin to flourish. Before her own transformation into one of the UK’s first positive psychology practitioners, Miriam worked in the media which is where she first investigated the science of well-being. She is an award-winning BBC Radio 4 producer and a past recipient of the Medical Journalists Association Gold Award. She brings her strength of communication into positive psychology through the audio CD The Happiness Training Plan and her new book – Positive Psychology for Overcoming Depression, Self-Help Strategies for Happines, Inner Strength & Well-being (Watkins, 2012). She also writes for the websites Positive Psychology UK and Positive Psychology News. Miriam is a highly engaging speaker and has delivered keynote speeches at the Bristol Happiness Lectures and the Rolls-Royce Women’s Annual Event. She has also appeared on programmes including Woman’s Hour, Off the Page & Sunday on BBC Radio4 and BBC2′s Secret Life of the Airport.
Miriam is the author of 4 books including the first self-help guide to using positive psychology in depression. She is one of the 100 ‘happiness professors from around the world’ who contributed to The World Book of Happiness (Marshall Cavendish, 2011) which was sent by the President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy to all world leaders in 2012.
Miriam’s top five VIA strengths are Curiosity, Emotional, Social & Personal Intelligence, Appreciation of Beauty & Excellence, Love of Learning and Creativity. According to Gallup’s Strengthsfinder her top five are Intellection, Input, Strategic, Activator and Futuristic.
