Coaching Psychology Research Articles

Motivational Interviewing – a model for coaching psychology practice

This is the first in a series of papers to look at Motivational Interviewing (MI) as an approach suitable for use with coaching clients. This paper presents a brief overview of MI for readers unfamiliar with MI and directs readers to other sources for a fuller account. The paper aims to set the scene from a practitioner perspective for subsequent papers in this and future issues within The Coaching Psychologist in the Coaching Psychology Techniques Section, rather than offer a detailed account of MI’s application in coaching. Each of these subsequent papers will present a short description of a technique suitable for working with a coachee’s ambivalence.

World Café discussion

A report of a discussion which took place at the 1st International Congress of Coaching Psychology, City University London, on 15 December 2010.

1st International Congress of Coaching Psychology: UK Event, London, UK, 14-15 December 2010

1st International Congress of Coaching Psychology: UK Event, London, UK, 14-15 December 2010

Educating coaching psychologists: Responses from the field

This paper responds to Grant (this issue), Developing an agenda for teaching coaching psychology. Representatives of key stakeholder groups were asked to respond to the issues raised in Grant’s article. These groups included practicing coaching psychologists, coaches, coach educators, Professional bodies in coaching psychology and corporate purchasers of coaching. An agenda for training is intimately bound up with issues of identity for coaching psychology. It raises the questions of how we define ourselves and our relationship to the world. Our respondents also focused on four key questions.Purpose/Agenda – What is the curricula trying to achieve and for whom?Contextual issues – important considerations beyond psychology that might shape training in coaching psychology education.Curriculum content – topic areas, theories, models, approaches and perspectives.Teaching process – Considerations about how the curriculum should be taught.A range of perspectives are brought to bear on these questions. The diversity of responses reflect the reality of working in a diverse world. This is not something to be overcome, but embraced by coaching psychology. Any discussion of the training of coaching psychologists should include multiple models of training, and multiple curricula. In this way we reflect the adaptive quality of the coaching conversation, and its ability to incorporate cross-disciplinary insights and understandings. This is what gives coaching its unique responsiveness to the emerging needs of our clients.

1st International Congress of Coaching Psychology: UK Event

Hosted by the British Psychological Society Special Group in Coaching Psychology (SGCP) and held at City University, London, 14–15 December, 2010.

A new frontier of research and practice: Observation of coaching behaviour

This paper gives an overview of recent observation studies of coaching behaviour and the coaching relationship. It follows a keynote at the 2nd European Coaching Psychology Conference, December 2009, in London. Models influencing the research are drawn from studies of the behaviour of psychotherapists that help to understand the effects of therapeutic interventions. The background to the article is a process-theory of coaching. It reformulates and integrates general factors derived by Gassman and Grawe (2006) from behaviour observation studies. The process-theory assumes that the effects of coaching in general depend partly on seven hypothetical success factors of coaching behaviour that can be assessed by ratings of the observed behaviour of coaches: (1) Appreciation and emotional support of the client; (2) result-oriented problem reflection; (3) result-oriented self-reflection; (4) reflection and calibration of affects; (5) clarification of goals; (6) resource activation; and (7) support of transfer into practice. In a pilot study, trained observers rated the behaviour of coaches using video recordings of coaching sessions. The results show that outcome criteria can be predicted by specific success factors. To understand better how coaching works and how to improve coaching effectiveness, more research and multidisciplinary methods are recommended.

A wider role for coaching psychology – applying transpersonal coaching psychology

This paper aims to address the wider role of coaching psychology by showing how:1. The coaching profession is entering a new realm of coaching consciousness that is beyond the current state of engagement – that is – transpersonal coaching psychology.2. Transpersonal coaching can be grounded in transpersonal psychology.3. Transpersonal coaching psychology can be used to lever social change that could have a significant impact upon our environment.The above is based on our contributions to the 2nd European Coaching Psychology Conference’s symposium entitled ‘Transpersonal Coaching Psychology and the Environment’ in December 2009. The paper also forms a continuous dialogue in response to Outhwaite and Bettridge’s (2009) call for coaching to be used as a means to meet an organisation’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as well as an individuals’ psychological, cultural and spiritual needs.

SGCP Conference Report: Changing Perspectives

A report on the 2nd European Coaching Psychology Conference, 15–16 December 2009, sponsored by the British Psychological Society Special Group in Coaching Psychology (SGCP).

Balancing business empathy and psychology in coaching practice

The skills-based session at the 2nd European Coaching Psychology Conference prompted coaching psychologists who work with businesses to reflect on three areas: where they may focus their continuing development as a business coach; how to manage their boundaries more adequately or to provide different support to clients; and how they present their coaching practice to clients. The session used some practical, unpublished frameworks called the ‘three-legged stool’ to consider the different knowledge and experience bases business coaches draw on and the ‘supply and demand framework’ for exploring the dynamics of offering a successful service to clients. Finally, the session used Sull and Houlder’s (2006) article ‘How companies can avoid a mid-life crisis’ to explore how knowledge and application of a business tool can add value to a coaching psychologist’s coaching range.

The Psychology of Executive Coaching: Theory and Application

With the first edition of this text, Peltier drew on his extensive experience in both the clinical and business worlds to create a comprehensive resource that brought psychological and coaching concepts together. It quickly became a practical and invaluable guide for both mental health practitioners looking to expand their practice into coaching and business professionals interested in improving their own coaching skills. In this updated edition, topics reflect the latest developments in the field of executive coaching. Peltier describes several important psychological theories and how to effectively translate them into coaching strategies; essential business lessons in leadership, marketing, and the corporate viewpoint along with vocabulary for the therapist; the challenges women face as managers and executives and effective coaching methods for working with them; and lessons from successful athletic coaches that can be integrated into consulting skills. This edition includes four new chapters, one describing psychopathology likely to be encountered by coaches. Another describes and evaluates emotional intelligence, a third summarizes adult developmental theory for coaches, and a fourth sorts out the popular and scientific literature on leadership and leader development.

<img src="http://openjournals.net/files/pics/CEU.gif"/> A competence executive coaching model

Orientation: Psychologists in industry are increasingly required to provide executive coaching services in their organisations or as part of their consulting services. An evaluation of coaching models as well as the development needs of individuals being trained as coaches, both locally and internationally, has led the authors to believe that there is a need for a competence executive coaching model.Research purpose: The purpose of this article is to address the training and development needs of these consulting psychologists by presenting a competence executive coaching model for the planning, implementation and evaluation of executive coaching interventions.Research design, approach and method: The study was conducted while one of the authors was involved in teaching doctoral students in consulting psychology and executive coaching, specifically in the USA. The approach involved a literature review of executive coaching models and a qualitative study using focus groups to develop and evaluate the competence executive coaching model.Main findings: The literature review provided scant evidence of competence executive coaching models and there seems to be a specific need for this in the training of coaches in South Africa. Hence the model that was developed is an attempt to provide trainers with a structured model for the training of coaches.Contribution/value-add: The uniqueness of this competence model is not only described in terms of the six distinct coaching intervention phases, but also the competencies required in each.

Ethical navigation in coaching psychology – a Socratic workshop

This article first gives a brief overview of the evolving professional context for coaching psychologists. It then provides an overview from a Socratic dialogue workshop at the SGCP 1st European Coaching Psychology Conference in December 2008. The workshop introduced participants to the basic features of Socratic dialogue and then worked within that frame during the session to discuss ethical dilemmas that they had faced. The approach allowed engagement with particular ethical challenges and enabled the learning to be shared. The Socratic dialogue also gave a frame for wider debate about ethics in coaching psychology.

What assessments do coaches use in their practice and why?

This short research note commences with a review of the limited literature on psychometrics in coaching. It then presents results from a survey of over 100 UK and international coaches, and thus extends the findings presented as a poster at the first European Coaching Psychology Conference in December 2008. We note that psychometrics are of benefit to coach, coachee and the coaching process and highlight avenues for future research.

Coaching Hypnosis: Integrating hypnotic strategies and principles in coaching

Coaching psychology has not given much thought to hypnosis, despite its long history of applications in enhancing human abilities and potentials. Since a range of psychotherapeutic strategies have been successfully transitioned to coaching and are commonly practiced by coaches and coaching psychologists, it is suggested that hypnotic techniques and principles can also be successfully employed to meet coaching objectives. This paper mainly discusses: (a) the use of self-hypnosis for the coachee; (b) adapting age-progression and age-regression to fit coaching needs; and (c) the use of indirect suggestions in the coaching dialogue to enhance coachee receptivity. The term ‘coaching hypnosis’ is proposed when referring to the use of hypnosis in coaching as it will help to separate links with hypnotherapy and encourage it to build an identity of its own.

Coaching the Narcissist: How difficult can it be? Challenges for Coaching Psychologists

Paper presented at the 1st European Coaching Psychology Conference, December 2009.This study will investigate how coaching psychologists have managed the coaching process when dealing with narcissistic personalities. It explores some of the problems that coaching psychologists might encounter in working with narcissists and how they have addressed these in order to facilitate effective psychological coaching. It will also address the paradox that while often attracted to coaching, narcissists can present difficulties in that they do not see much area for improvement. The primary objective is to explore the psychological coaching process from the coach’s standpoint. The narcissist profiles include traits such as charm, confidence, a strong sense of self-belief. Narcissistic personalities are often highly confident, charming, exploitative and with an overbearing sense of entitlement (DSM-IV, 1994). Such strengths, however, can often combine with a lack of empathy for others, a failure to recognise their shortcomings and an inability to reflect on their mistakesThis study considers two different data collection methods to assess for narcissistic personality profiles; 360° feedback and psychometric test scales. The hypothesis is that individuals with narcissistic personalities profiles (indicated by 360° feedback ratings) and high scores (>90th percentile) on the Narcissistic cluster (Moving Against profile) of the Hogan Development Survey (HDS) will be most resistant to coaching, particularly towards those aspects which challenge the person’s self view.Interviews with coaching psychologists will also be conducted to explore the psychological coaching process from thecoach’s perspective, and determine what difficulties, if any, they found in coaching Narcissistic personality types and how they address these.

Creating an emotionally intelligent organisation

Paper presented at the 1st European Coaching Psychology Conference, December 2008.Emotional intelligence (EI) is now well established as a model and process for coaching individuals and to a lesser extent teams. However, there is far less research and practice on creating emotional intelligence within the organisation. For example; what defines an EI organisation? How may this be measured? Do EI individuals necessarily produce EI teams and organisations? How can coaching enable EI at the organisational level? These and other related questions will be explored through this paper.

Achieving effective supervision for coaching psychologists: Exploring a peer supervision/reflective learning group model

Workshop presented at the 1st European Coaching Psychology Conference, December 2008.Following the establishment of a peer supervision group for coaching psychologists in late 2007, this paper provides a progress report on how the group is working, together with background on why it was set up, its aims and practical arrangements. It also provides a summary of the discussions at a workshop held as part of the 2008 SGCP conference. The workshop provided information on the supervision group and asked those who attended about their supervision arrangements, and their views on what works well and what could be different in supervision for coaching psychologists.

Highlighting the Psychology in Coaching

1st European Coaching Psychology Conference, 17–18 December 2008.

Using Coaching Psychology to identify the return on investment for workplace coaching

Using Coaching Psychology to identify the return on investment for workplace coaching

Coaching Psychology in Australia: The Interest Group in Coaching Psychology: The Third National Coaching Psychology Symposium

Coaching Psychology in Australia: The Interest Group in Coaching Psychology: The Third National Coaching Psychology Symposium