Stephen Palmer & Michael Cavanagh

Welcome to the International Coaching Psychology Review. Since our last issue plans for the 1st International Congress of Coaching Psychology are moving forward at a good pace. Currently eight coaching psychology bodies from around the globe are collaborating on this joint project. Each participating society has an entry on the central congress website where you can find details about their aims and purpose as a society, and details about their congress event. See: www.coachingpsychologycongress.org/

The British Psychological Society Special Group in Coaching Psychology (SGCP) have now invited well-known keynote speakers to give their papers and run masterclasses at their December 2010 congress event to be held in London at City University. Plans are also developing to hold congress events in Ireland and Scandinavia. The Australian Psychological Society Interest Group in Coaching Psychology (IGCP) is teaming up with psychology and coaching psychology groups in the southern hemisphere. Peter Zarris discusses these exciting developments further in his IGCP news update.

This issue has an eclectic mix of papers. Our first paper, by Kristina Gyllensten, Stephen Palmer, Eva-Karin Nilsson, Agneta Meland Regnér and Ann Frodi, is a qualitative study that focuses on participants’ experiences of cognitive coaching. It is noted that since the study was first undertaken, in Sweden the approach would now be referred to as cognitive-behavioural coaching. It is interesting to see how coaching develops differently around the world. The main theme discussed in this paper relates to ‘new cognitive and emotional knowledge’ with the two sub-themes of ‘working with thoughts’ and ‘regulate emotions’.

Erik de Haan, Colin Bertie, Andrew Day and Charlotte Sills research into critical moments of clients and executive coaches by using a direct-comparison study. Eighty-six critical-moments descriptions were collected by independent researchers from measurements straight after independent coaching conversations. The authors conclude that coaches need to be prepared for quite different circumstances in ‘run-of-the-mill’ coaching and in the presence of exceptional tensions and ruptures.

In the third paper, Dusan Stojnov and Jelena Pavlovic consider the shift from personal construct therapy to personal construct coaching. Their main argument is that Personal Construct Psychology stood for a coaching psychology long before the term ‘coaching’ gained popularity. They cover the main principles of Personal Construct Coaching which are elaborated and a general framework for practitioners is provided.

In the following paper, Mark Duffy and Jonathan Passmore explore the process of ethical decision making in coaching psychology and they develop a model for use within coaching psychology which may complement existing codes of practice. The study used a semi-structured interview design within a qualitative approach and a focus group. Their ACTION ethical decision making framework could be used to assist coaching psychologists in making decisions of ethical concern and in solving ethical dilemmas.

Reinhard Stelter and Ho Law provide a theoretical foundation and formulation of practice for narrative coaching. They suggest that coaching as narrative-collaborative practice should form the new wave (third generation) of coaching practice and encourage coaching and coaching psychology communities to engage in its practice and research. This paper takes a detailed look at the topic and has a cultural dimension. It provides an interesting perspective on narrative coaching.

Our final paper is by P. Alex Linley, Nicky Garcea, Jonathan Hill, Gurpal Minhas, Emma Trenier and Janet Willars. They note that many coaching psychologists use strengths approaches in their practice. Their research focused on developing and validating a Strengthspotting Scale that could be used by researchers, and also by practitioners for the self-assessment of their own strengthspotting preferences and capabilities. An online survey was used to collect data on the newly-developed Strengthspotting Scale. Analyses used included exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation, correlation analysis and multivariate analysis of variance. They conclude that a reliable and valid Strengthspotting Scale was developed.

In the last section, Ho Law and Peter Zarris bring us up-to-date with SGCP and IGCP news.

We hope to see you at one or more of the International Congress events. The Congress promises to be an historic occasion for the developing field of coaching psychology. We both hope to be attending a number of the events and will be happy to provide guidance about the submission of articles to the International Coaching Psychology Review. We invite the Congress speakers to consider submitting their papers to this publication.

Correspondence
Stephen Palmer
Coaching Psychology Unit,
Department of Psychology,
City University London,
Northampton Square,
London, UK.
E-mail: [email protected]

Michael Cavanagh
Coaching Psychology Unit,
Department of Psychology,
Sydney University,
Sydney, Australia.
E-mail: [email protected]