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Gestalt offers options to psychologists interested in applying their professional formation creatively. It can provide coaching support, resources and stimuli to psychologists working with people in organisational settings unaccustomed to psychological interventions, other than 'routine' psychometrics.
Coaching in Gestalt style
Coaching can be described as conversations which enable a person to enrichen his or her own life and that of others; in an organisational setting, it involves the dual goals of enrichening both the individual and the organisation.
Gestalt provides a phenomenological approach to coaching. It enables by challenging both coach and the learning partner to be alive to how they engage in the world, to exercise responsibility for what they choose to do and not to do and to make it possible for others to behave likewise, in so far as reasonably practicable.
The world as 'figure', 'ground' and 'field'
While Gestalt is best known as a therapeutic approach originated by Fritz Perls, its origins lay in cognitive and social psychology. In the early twentieth century, when psychology was a relatively unified discipline, German psychologists coined the word 'Gestalt' to refer to the process of patterning that characterises perception; they highlighted how alternative viewpoints contributed to differences of perception and ensuring action. In a nutshell, needs or beliefs of an observer or listener shape perceptions of data into a 'field' against a background of 'noise'.
One of these early Gestalt researchers, Karl Lewin contributed a further landmark in the early stages of social psychology. He contributed the concept of 'force field' to denote the diversity of psychological factors that influence perceptions in the domain of an observer. According as a 'field' changes, is enlarged or reduced, relationships between 'figure' and 'ground' are also observed to change. Radical changes in vital relationships between a person, as an agent, and his or her field can amount to . 'transformation' or 'metanoia' which make possible very different actions and experiences.
There are some important links between this Gestalt way of framing behaviour and the practice of coaching.
Critical attention to cognitive and linguistic processes
One link, often taken for granted, is the construction of the field, ground and figure of coaching by processes of perception and mental processing (memory, imagination, reasoning, deduction) of both coach and the coached individual, whom in this context, I refer to as the learner. Part of the potency of a coach lies in enabling the learner to recognise many more options for changing links between 'field' and 'ground' in the learner's activities. In this respect, an appreciation of ways of applying psycholinguistics and semiotics unobtrusively can help; as Gestalt is often practised with permission to laugh, psychologists who enjoy and practise humour also feel authentic - though how they might include this in the 'CPD logbook' might well be challenging and a special kind of fun of its own!
'Cycle of experience'
The second link between the Gestalt way of framing behaviour and the practice of coaching is a tool or metaphor that makes changing the field-ground links possible.
Called in Gestalt circles the 'cycle of experience', it offers a model to highlight punctuation points in the experience that the learner is engaged in. There are seven main punctuation points: sensation, awareness, energising, action, human contact, satisfaction, completion.
Where problems in performance arise, the coach can facilitate innovative ways of addressing them by making it as easy as possible for the learner to explore interruptions in the cycle of experience. The Gestalt 'cycle of experience' framework is often particularly valuable where individuals or groups experience a crisis, as in sharp conflict especially within management, unexpected redundancy or a safety incident shrouded in ambivalence
The cycle of experience is also a tool for affirmation. When you realise you have taken part in a wonderful performance, in coaching or elsewhere, the Gestalt model of the cycle of experience can be a refreshing way of recognising how everyone involved contributed to links in shared figure-ground-field that did the job that provided a shared sense of completion or fulfilment.
Skilful management of boundaries
Expectations of others along with personal aspirations at work and at home often lead men and women to adopt such a variety of roles that they experience intolerable demands and conflicts. At the same time, changes in the marketplace, legislation and technology tend to add further demands for role extension or result in role ambiguity.
Attention to the completion and withdrawal stage of the cycle of experience in the Gestalt mode of coaching facilitates skilful management of boundaries in roles.
One of the healthy consequences of this attention to boundary management has been a tradition in Gestalt of challenging the extent to which perfectionism adds value. If psychologists experience pressure towards obsessive compulsive behaviour in much of their own formation as 'chartered' professionals, this may provide a refreshing corrective and reminder of the cardinal value of attention to communication with clients and colleagues.
I find these titles particularly useful in relation to coaching
Clarkson, P. (ed.) Changes in Organisations. Whurr Publishers Ltd. 1995
Houston, G. Brief Gestalt Therapy. Sage Publications, 2003
Nevis, E.C. Gestalt Approach to Organisational Consulting. Gestalt Institute of Cleveland Press. 1987
Sherrington, M. Added Value. The alchemy of brand-led growth. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003
Kieran Duignan
The Enabling Coach
Tel. 020 8654 0808
[email protected]
www.enablingpeople.co.uk
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