Ilona Boniwell

London: PWBC.
111 pages. £7.99.

Reviewed by Carol Kauffman

Do not judge this paperback book by its cover, or maybe just a little. At first glance one sees a playful shining sunny-faced figure stretching out its little stick arms, having just popped open the nutshell that previously encased it. Weighing in at a mere 111 pages of text (the book is seven millimetres thick) it is a fraction of the size and cost of most positive psychology primers. Crack open this book, however, and one finds a surprisingly powerful addition to the positive psychology library.

The areas covered in the tiny text are covered in 14 short chapters. Each includes an introduction, walk through the related research, tables, diagrams and lots of ‘tips and tools’ boxes with pithy application comments. What can easily escape the casual reader is that each of these chapters is, in fact, a somewhat frothy-appearing version of a very serious literature review and incisive critique of the field.

In chapters 5 and 6, the book steps back and examines the components of subjective well-being, and takes a more serious look at the pros and cons of feeling good and some of the problems the field faces along with a comparison of emotional happiness and the contrasting perspective of eudaimonic well being. This is an application of Aristotle's concept of living in congruence with one's potentialities (daimon = true nature), and leads to a slightly different concept, psychological well-being. From here on the book includes more of a focus on applications of these ideas including examining issues such as self determination theory, intrinsic motivation and values. From this flows a discussion of goal setting and a theoretically based look at how we use time. Then focus shifts to how to harness the tenets of positive psychology to grapple with complexities of life, making choices with work and in relationships as well as identifying our character strengths and an initial foray into coaching and organisational psychology.

Most of the chapters flow fairly well into one another. The organisation is concept driven rather than divided by how people might put it into practice. At times the topic changes seem a bit choppy, but making them smooth would have doubled the size of the book. In addition, the balance of its small size and large scope does not allow this book to be an in-depth study. The chapters often make you want more than they can offer. The latter is also the strength of the book. One can read it as a first foray into the field to see if one would like to explore the classic tomes of Positive Psychology in Practice (Linley & Joseph, 2004) or Snyder and Lopez's Handbook of Positive Psychology (2002), or their newest text on Positive Psychology (2006). These weigh in at about a stone.

As the reviewer I should acknowledge that I have given a half-dozen copies of this book to clients and potential donors to the non-profit Coaching Psychology Institute at Harvard Medical School. These individuals were able to absorb the information with little background in psychology and found it quite useful.

And because as reviewer I get the last word, I have to end where we began, at the cover. Dr. Boniwell, can you have your publisher put out a second edition of the Nutshell, with a bit more sober accoutrements? You know - with no smiley face, more serious illustrations? Then I can give this book to my executive coaching clients without a five-minute explanation how it really is a very serious book.

Linley, P.A., & Joseph, S. (Eds.). (2004). Positive psychology in practice. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Snyder, C.R. & Lopez, S.J. (Eds.). (2002). Handbook of positive psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.

Snyder, C.R. & Lopez, S.J. (2006). Positive psychology: The scientific and practical explorations of human strengths. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.