IT ONLY SEEMS LIKE yesterday when some of us discussed the possibility of setting up of a peer reviewed international coaching psychology journal to be supported by the BPS Special Group in Coaching Psychology and the APS Interest Group of Coaching Psychology.

We and our colleagues at the SGCP and IGCP believed that this journal would help to establish coaching psychology as a new branch of psychology. Almost a decade later after our initial discussions, we are now publishing Volume 8, with papers on a range of topics which are a testimony to the development of the field. The journal has been the conduit that brings the SGCP and IGCP to work closely together, with our representatives attending each other’s conferences and also other projects with other professional bodies such as the international congresses of coaching psychology.

In this issue we have a selection of stimulating papers on a range of topics. It is noteworthy that so many of our contributors i this issue have submitted articles that use quali ative research, and which focus on the experience of the client and the implications for practice and research. This focus both complements quantitative research in the field and demonstrates a growing scientist practitioner approach within coaching psychology.

The scientist practitioner model has been a goal in psychology since the Boulder Conference of 1949, and it is very welcome in this journal. The first paper is Signalling a new trend in executive coaching outcome research by Erik de Haan and Anna Duckworth in which they argue for a new way of studying executivecoaching outcomes. They suggest that it is time now to be creative and pull together the limited resources for research we have in coaching psychology and as a profession we should make the most of this opportunity to discover how we might improve our service to our clients.

Our second paper was a study utilising a qualitative design by Brenda Roche and Kate Hefferon on The assessment needs to go hand-in-hand with the debriefing’: The importance of a structured coaching debriefing in understanding and applying a positive psychology strengths assessment. Their objective was to test the impact of a structured debriefing following completion of Realise2, an online strengths assessment, in relation to strengths application. The study found that all 20 participants benefited from having a structured debriefing after completing a strengths assessment.

The debriefing led to a greater understanding and utilisation of the strengths assessment. They suggest that this pairing has practical implications for those involved in strengths-based coaching and development.

Our third paper by Qing Wang is entitled Towards a systems model of Coaching for Learning: Empirical lessons from the secondary classroom context. Wang aimed to investigate how coaching implemented in enquirybased learning, would make a difference to the knowledge construction process, the development of positive learning dispositions and learning agency in secondary students. Wang concluded that the nature of coaching in learning can be captured in the systems model of Coaching for Learning.

Our fourth paper by Ho Law and Reggie Aquilina is a case study which used an executive coaching programme in order to support nurse managers in achieving organisational objectives. The research was undertaken in Malta. Action Research approach was adopted for this study and the Universal Integrative Framework was used to evaluate the impact of the coaching programme.

The authors concluded that the structured coaching programmes had a substantive impact on developing nurse ward managers’ leadership skills. In the next paper Kimberly Allen argues that it is time to begin a global discussion on the topic of family life coaching as a unique field of study. She highlights the similarities and differences between family life education and coaching psychology, and creates a framework for professionals to begin a global discussion about how to integrate the two fields in order to create a theory and evidence-based practice in family life coaching.

The last paper is a dual case study focusing on the experience of team coaching. The authors, Catherine Carr and Jacqueline Peters compared the experience of team coaching between their two leadership teams using a qualitative case study methodology that tracked the participants experiences. They concluded that the participant’s descriptions of team coaching offered insight into valuable aspects of team coaching that informed the proposed evidence-based high performance team coaching model.

They assert that the model can be used and studied by team coaching practitioners and researchers alike. In the next section we have a response by Hugh McCredie to a previously published paper by Lesley Martin, Lindsay Oades and Peter Caputi. Their original paper was entitled What is personality change coaching and why is it important? McCredie argues that whilst there is support for long-term plasticity of Big 5 personality scores, the case for shortterm coaching effects is unconvincing and coaches may be better served by focussing on the achievement of clients’ personal goals.

Martin, Oades and Caputi respond to his points in their rejoinder. In the Reports section of this issue, in addition to the usual SGCP and IGCP news, we have a write-up on the BPS Special Group in Coaching Psychology 8th Annual Conference held last December in Birmingham and the concluding article announces the SGCP Research Award Winners 2012.

Last year the APS IGCP held a very successful coaching psychology congress in Sydney. Congresses were also held by coaching psychology groups in other countries too. The next event in the International Congress of Coaching Psychology calendar is being organised by the Society for Coaching Psychology Italy and is being held in Rome on the 16-17 May. It will have speakers and delegates attending from around the world.

We look forward to seeing you.

Correspondence
Stephen Palmer
Coaching Psychology Unit,
Department of Psychology,
City University London,
Northampton Square,
London, UK.

Email: [email protected]

Michael Cavanagh
Coaching Psychology Unit,
Department of Psychology,
Sydney University,
Sydney, Australia.

Email: [email protected]

International Congress of Coaching
Psychology website:
http://www.coachingpsychologycongress.org

Full article: International Coaching Psychology Review Vol. 8 No. 1 March 2013 Page 4-5