Person-centred coaching psychology

Stephen Joseph

Coaching psychology provides a new way of thinking about psychological practice and how we can facilitate optimal functioning. Coaching psychology contrasts with traditional psychological approaches which have been concerned with alleviating distress and dysfunction. But, the idea that we should focus on developing potential is not entirely a new one. It can be traced back to the person-centred approach originally developed by the psychologist Carl Rogers (1951, 1961). In this article, I will argue that coaching psychology can learn from the person-centred approach for grounding its practice in the meta-theoretical assumption that people are their own best experts. A consideration of person-centred theory shows that how we define the territory of coaching psychology is bound up in our meta-theoretical assumptions. Currently coaching psychology has tended toward the medical model, but I argue that the principles of coaching psychology are actually more congruent with the person-centred approach.

First of all, it is important to note that the person-centred approach is just that, an approach. It is not a form of therapy or of coaching per se, it is a philosophical stance that can be applied in one to one settings, small group settings, the wider community, and to social policy. In essence, the personcentred approach is simply the principled stance of respecting the self-determination of others (Grant, 2004).

Full article: Volume 1, Issue 2 pages 3 - 5