Alanna O'Broin

The programme proposed:

1. An examination of the personal pressure points of the coaching psychologist in coaching and how to manage them:
(i) In the critical early stages of setting up a contract and assessment;
(ii) Later in the coaching process, in working within our personal level of competence, and in managing our ‘inner dialogue.’

2. An exploration of how to help our clients manage their stress:
(i) Examining the sources of stress in our clients;
(ii) Looking at coaching models helpful in coaching stressed clients;
(iii) Overviewing which interventions and skills can be effective in helping our clients handle stress.

3. A ‘Stress Coaching’ Practice session: In dyads, triad or small groups, a session to practice ‘real-time’ stress coaching using the theoretical models presented

A number of theoretical models were selected by Jenny for their potential usefulness in working with clients who are stressed.

Beck’s Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (1976) initially demonstrated the links between thinking and emotion in the treatment of depression and was subsequently developed by Beck and others (1979) to understand and provide emprically validated treatment for a broad range of psychological and emotional problems.

CBT views the client in an individualised way, seeking to understand why the client appraised an event in a particular way and why the client feels as they do. Often, the client will exhibit ‘thinking distortions’ which lead to distress. Enabling the client to identify and label negative thinking and understanding how thought, emotion and behaviour interact in a negative cycle help the client understand their emotions. Building on this self-awareness, the client can be encouraged to learn and practice ways to actively challenge negative thinking and engage in alternative, more helpful thinking and behaviours.

Psychodynamic approaches draw on Freud and the object relation theorists (see Elliott, 1994), with emphasis on early development and the vital role of early parenting in the later formation of self and relation to others. The quality and nature of the relationship with the client can be an especially important area of focus for change.

The basis of Transactional Analysis (TA) (Berne, 1961, 1964) is psychoanalytic or psychodynamic. Berne describes Ego States, or a system of feelings accompanied by a related set of behaviour patterns. These ego states fall into three broad categories, those resembling parental figures, those which are directed towards objective appraisals of reality, and those fixated in early childhood. At any given time, an individual will exhibit either a Parent, Adult or Child ego state, which shifts interchangeably.

Noam Chomsky’s Linguistic Theory (1957) and the notion of ‘transformational grammar is useful in examining Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). Chomsky describes three processes by which people create the filters for their individual model of the world. These are deletion, distortion, and generalisation. Deletion is a process whereby we delete information in an effort to retain as little information as is necessary; distortion is either ‘hallucination’ or ‘creativity’ whereby we change external information to something different; generalisation is where we take a few examples and create a general principle. Bandler developed the notion of distortions further, developing 60 or more specific kinds of deletions, distortions and generalisations which she called ‘meta programs.’

The models and theories covered in the workshop all offer approaches and translatable interventions useful in coaching stressed clients. However, as Jenny emphasised, use of these approaches is subject to the coach’s knowledge, training, competence and experience, and the coach themselves needs to decide how far they can go in using a particular approach, particularly with regard to boundaries between coaching and counselling.

Jenny used numerous examples from her own practice to illustrate the use of the theoretical frameworks and interventions discussed and tried out in the workshop in real stress coaching situations. Further applications of each framework are described below.

CBT is a comprehensive framework that can be helpful in a variety of stress coaching situations where the client’s unhelpful thinking and emotion is blocking the achievement of goals and creating and maintaining stress responses. Not just in therapy situations, but in everyday life, we can all experience negative thinking that can interfere with our objectives or performance. CBT provides a number of thinking and behaviour-based strategies that can be learned and employed by the client to challenge and change their unhelpful thinking and behaviour.

Particularly in the mode of ‘transformational coaching,’ Jenny described how, in a psychodynamic approach, using the coaching relationship to help the client understand why they are reacting in a stressed way can be helpful.

Transactional Analysis (TA), as Jenny noted, has many practical applications for work-based stress, citing situations where there is a sense of little or no control over a situation or person who influences your career. Feelings of lack of control can often be a major factor in work place stress. The TA model can be useful here in helping the person to tap into their adult reaction. This is because it is possible to change the response by changing the transaction, i.e. a controlling-parent response reinforces a child-parent transaction, whilst an adult response will elicit an adult-adult one.

Although it is necessary to undergo specialised training to be a NLP Practitioner, it is possible to use some of the principles and exercises associated with NLP in working with stressed clients. For instance, bearing in mind that both external and internal sources of stress exist, working with stressed clients on identifying and challenging negative filters.

The Ladder of Inference, developed by Agyris (see Senge, 1990) is a model with similarities to Chomsky’s ‘Generalisation’ filter that looks at beliefs. Seen as part of a process beginning with sensory input, actions are performed following a ‘filter’ through selection of data and meaning based on assumptions and beliefs, in a reflective loop. Jenny suggests that this model can be used as a practical tool with stressed clients to enable them to realise how much their internal filter or belief is influencing their level of stress about a particular situation or issue and to help them develop a new belief or set of beliefs, thus reducing their internal feelings of stress.

Jenny’s relaxed and inclusive style of facilitation, in combination with the collaborative and interactive initial icebreaker exercise effectively set the scene for what proved to be an informal and participative day. In Transactional Analysis terms, I would describe it very much as Adult-Adult transactions.

A programme of flexible exercises interspersed throughout the day enabled experiential learning geared to each of our needs relative to our level of experience and produced a varied day of learning opportunities.

An exercise combining an experiential element of the workshop with a practical tool or idea you could take forward was one on the giving of feedback. This offered very concrete learning opportunities for all of us in the group I was working in, both from direct discussion of how to use of the model, and from observation and reflection on the example of a member of the group’s experience of an example of giving feedback which was reviewed before using the model and after.

Applying an adapted form of the STAR approach, used widely as a behavioural interviewing technique, to the area of giving and receiving feedback in the coaching context.

1. In a situation where you will deliver feedback to a coaching client or colleague.
2. Apply the STAR approach to the client’s situation in 1. above. Verbally talk through the stages of the STAR model in relation to the client’s performance,Focusing on the specific Situation or Task which the client needed to accomplish, the Action which the client took, and the Result(s) of that action.
3. Add a further level to the STAR model - Confirm/Change. Having provided your client with feedback to the point of the result of their behaviour, encourage the client to elicit possible changes that the client can make for more productive behaviours going forward, or if appropriate, provide your own suggestions for proposed changes in behaviour.

References

Beck, A.T. (1976). Cognitive therapy and the emotional disorders. New York: International Universities Press.

Beck, A.T., Rush, A.J., Shaw, B.F. & Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive therapy of depression. New York: Guilford Press.

Berne, E. (1961). Transactional analysis in psychotherapy. Evergreen.

Berne, E. (1964). Games people play. London: Penguin

Chomsky. N. (1957). Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton

Elliot, A. (1994). Psychoanalytic theory. Oxford: Blackwell

Senge, P.M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline. The art and practice of the learning organisation. London: Random House.