Stephen Stacey

Specialist in understanding how positive psychology can improve ones capacity for success both in one's professional and family life

I am deeply interested in how people relate, and how one might get the best out of one's relationships. While lecturing at university, my first interest was in cross-cultural competences. I then moved on to trying to understand the most important dynamics that are at play within the couple relationship - the ability to work as a team, to be friends and to create intimacy. After a while it became clear to me that it wasn't so much the dynamics within the couple relationship that caused couples most problems. Instead, it became evident that the quality of the couple relationship was mainly bound up with each individual's capacity to express emotional well-being - the attitudes of the partners towards each other, their ability to be appreciative, their core values, or maybe their inner sense of security. Because of this insight I've spent the last 3 years looking at the emerging field of positive psychology and how it can help the individual improve their capacity for creating positive outcomes - either at home or in the workplace.