English

I believe in helping people to become a better version of themselves. Whether it is about growing resilience, using your character strengths, appreciating what you’ve got – I believe in growth for both teams and individuals. This is why I work with positive psychology – the theory of using your talents, developing yourself and enhance your well-being.

For professionals

For coaches, trainers, HR-professionals and leaders who want to work with positive psychology, I deliver training on appreciative inquiry, character strengths, psychological capital and more. Such a training always builds on a foundation of theoretical knowledge and science, combined with practicing the techniques and interventions.

As a speaker, I talk about positive psychology-related topics. For me, a conference is an opportunity for learning and growth. Not just by transferring knowledge from speaker to public, but by engaging the participants in thought experiments, short exercises and the like. I find great joy and meaning in engaging an audience in dozens of small, constructive conversations across the room in which all people learn both the factual knowledge and experience the ideas as well.

For organizations

For teams and organizations I facilitate sessions on team development. These sessions can focus on the developmental goals of the team. I work with appreciative inquiry to help teams and organizations grow themselves. By appreciating success stories and learning from failures, and by focusing on the desired future, people are inspired to engage in the development of the team. For team building, I train teams in working with their and their team members strengths. By learning about each other’s strengths and using those strengths more often, teams perform better and people work with higher well-being.

Also for teams, organizations and leaders, I provide consultancy. Besides facilitating change processes as described above, I offer advice based on insight from the science and practice of positive organizational psychology. What works well always depends on the specific situation, goals, experience. In my role as a consultant I assist in understanding and creating a better way of working together.

For employees, I deliver training aimed at flourishing and well-being at work, optimal performance and stress management. By building on the positive psychological capital of participants, they learn how they can deal with challenges and setbacks. They become more hopeful and resilient. With a training in mindfulness & character strengths participants improve their coping skills, get to know their strengths and learn how to use them in a balanced way while at the same time becoming more mindful.

I work with a variety of techniques, all based firmly in science and practice and part of positive psychology. Nothing as practical as a good theory, as Kurt Lewin used to say.

Contact

Want to ask about positive psychology, inquire in possibilities for training or speaking, or something else? Contact me on info@msteeneveld.nl or (0031) 06 – 42 58 28 32.

Publications

Besides several Dutch publications, July 2019 saw our first international publication.

The Character Strengths Intervention Cards (Hogrefe, 2019) by Anouk van den Berg & Matthijs Steeneveld is a card set for coaching and training. It contains cards for the 24 VIA Character Strengths, as well as 16 ready-to-use intervention cards, a booklet for practitioners and more. Read more and order at Hogrefe.

Blogs

I write blogs about organizations, positive psychology and mindfulness.

Various blogs: