Mindful Habit Change (Daniel Goleman and Tara Bennett-Goleman)

More than 650 coaches and aspiring coaches from around the world came to Boston in September for the seventh annual Coaching in Leadership and Healthcare Conference at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel.

Offered by McLean Hospital, the Institute of Coaching and Harvard Medical School, the conference brought together world-renowned leaders in the areas of leadership, health and well-being, coaching, positive psychology, behavioral psychology and neuroscience, according to Dr. Christopher Palmer, Director of McLean’s Department of Postgraduate and Continuing Education.

“This conference has gotten bigger every year,” says Dr. Palmer. “A lot of people say it is the best conference they have ever come to. They feel very inspired by the speakers to do a better job in motivating their clients or patients to make beneficial changes in their lives.”

Among the keynote speakers and track leaders were Daniel Goleman, PhD, internationally known psychologist and author of the bestseller Emotional Intelligence; Steven C. Hayes, PhD, renowned psychology professor; Yael Farber, playwright and director; and Dr. Richard Kogan, psychiatrist and concert pianist.

Dr. Kogan concluded the two-day conference, held Sept. 12-13, with a presentation on Beethoven, which included his playing of some of the composer’s works. The talk was entitled “Beethoven’s Deafness: Emotional Crisis and Artistic Triumph.”

In addition to the plenary sessions featuring these speakers, there were breakout sessions on leadership, health care, positive psychology and advanced practice coaching. Attending coaches come from various fields including business and health care. Participants came from as far away as Asia, South America, Australia and Europe.

Conference directors, in addition to Dr. Palmer, included Carol Kauffman, PhD, director of the Institute of Coaching and assistant clinical professor in psychiatry at HMS; and Margaret Moore of the Harvard University Extension School faculty and co-director of the Institute of Coaching.