Psychotherapeutic Coaching

What’s it all about?

8th July 2016

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When most people think of therapy they think about lying on a couch, pouring out their tale of 'woe is me' and telling stories about how 'my wife/partner doesn't understand me!' It's true that originally the psychoanalytic approach may have encouraged some of that. The therapist wasn't really a person or a human being but more of a blank canvas to the client. These days therapy has come a long way. It's true there is some value for some people in telling their story because when you hear yourself speak out loud as a client you do get insights into the way you think about yourself and how you choose to judge yourself for the ups and downs in your life. But therapy is so much more.

For me one of the ways that coaching and therapy can meet is that they are both about presence and relationship. For me presence is about the quality of my attention and that includes my awareness, internal and external responses and my ability to stay connected to another human being in the moment and track their mental and emotional processes. Simultaneously it's about noticing the impact the other person has on me and using that information to inform my thinking and responses in the room. Relationship is about the complex interplay of 'self and other' and the coaches ability to create a safe container for the client to express their vulnerability, greatness and everything in between. Relationship is truly an art and I have found that what serves me as a coach is to present myself as a human being not as 'Mrs Perfect who has got her life so very together' because that gives the other person permission to 'tell it like it truly is'. Meeting another human being is an experience in relationship. A great coach will reflect aspects of 'the experience they have of their coachee' back to them so that they gain insight in what it's like to be around them. This can be a life-changing experience.

Many coaches speak about how when the 'chemistry' is good between them and a client, there is some kind of alchemical process at play and exploring this was Carl Jung's life work. They say as a coach you can only really take a person as far as you have journeyed yourself in terms of your self-development. I agree that we all have a spectrum inside from light to dark and the more we know ourselves the more equipped we are to be a great catalyst in someone's life. Roberto Assagioli the founder of Psychosynthesis - a psychology that spoke about the integration of all aspects of ourselves believed that a great therapist needs to own every part of his/her character - the good, the bad and the ugly in order to support an individual to be open and feel safe to do the same. As we know great moments in coaching occur when a person has an insight or expresses something of their vulnerability which may enable them to move on or feel safe to be open about themselves in a way they have never felt able to before. A great coach has faced their own neurosis, prejudices, defences, insecurities and greatness and brings all of that to the relationship with the coachee and this in itself becomes the platform for growth. Of course we all have blindspots but it really helps as a coach if you hold the intention to face into your 'stuff' so that the dysfunction doesn't get played out in the mirror of the coaching relationship.

The skill of a great coach is in sensing where an individual needs to go and trusting the process of growth unique to that individual to present itself. Some people need to go backwards in order to go forwards e.g. I coached an individual who was bullied as a child by his father. Later in his career he had a very tough relationship with his boss and it severely knocked his confidence in disproportionate ways. We did half a dozen sessions looking at the echoes from his past which led to him having some open conversations with his father. Shortly afterwards he was made redundant and he went on to fulfil his entrepreneurial dream of starting his own business. Another coachee I worked with had worked in the military and couldn't understand why he was so not liked by his team. After building the relationship I was able to give him some tough feedback about what it was like to be in a room with him.....he was all about control. At this point he spoke openly about what it was like as a young man in the forces and how that behaviour had served him in his life. In time he was able to drop his defences, have a bit more human interaction and a laugh with his colleagues and invite them to signal to him when he was getting a bit too directive.

The heights and depths of the human psyche really do fascinate me and I genuinely want to support people to crack the one thing that holds them back and from what I've seen for many people this requires some inner work and an avalanche of empathy. Setting goals is extremely valuable and so is increasing our awareness. There is something so refreshing and unusual about a leader who knows how to connect with people at a human level. I think some definitely have it naturally and others need to do a bit of work so that they can get their EQ levels as high as their IQ. Great coaches and therapists never stop learning and that's not only about intellectual knowledge - it's about increasing awareness through reflection, asking for feedback and using the mirror of relationship as a doorway to potential. In this information age we all know too much - but we do struggle to live what we know. I'm interested in working with people who want to show up more fully as themselves in all areas of life. I also work with leaders and coaches who would like to do some therapeutic work for their own development.

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