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10/9/2013
Coaching vs Counselling I work with a lot of Employee Assistance Programme clients, people who refer themselves for support because something is affecting the way they function at work. Before they meet me they go through an assessment that focuses on goals and outcomes but almost every time, when the client comes to their first meeting they forget about them.
When I began EAP work I tried hard to coach and not counsel, to keep the person with their nose to the grindstone but it always felt wrong like whipping an overworked horse, so I soon stopped. People are generally very compliant, they’ll do what they’re told, so it would be easy to force someone to do this and that but it would be entirely counterproductive and unethical. The group I trained as a coach with is an excellent organisation that was very clear on ethics. This organisation was full of talented people but it was just a bit too full-on for my liking. Everything was wonderful! brilliant! exciting! Anything that wasn’t 100% positive was subtly disapproved of. Using their techniques I’ve been able to help clients who are totally ready to move on find their own way forward very successfully, it takes a couple of sessions and one or two top-ups a year. This kind of coaching is perfect for people who are just a few moves away from success. They would not approve of me allowing someone to ‘slack off.’ It would not be ‘exciting’ or ‘motivating’. They’re kind and at your service but not really interested anything you’ve got to say that isn’t about how excited you are about working towards your wonderful future. So it was a real pleasure to spend Saturday with Dr Raj Persaud, Liz Hall, Windy Dryden and Ho Law at the excellent City CBT and Coaching College event Four Perspectives on Coaching. These four excellent speakers have a different approach to coaching and the lines between coaching and counselling are less clear-cut. They agreed (and so do I) that it’s important to know what the differences are between coaching and counselling but that the relationship between practitioner and client, rather than any technique, is what really moves things on. Coaching requires that the client is facing forward, looking to the future ready to make the next move. Counselling doesn’t require anything other than that the client turns up and therapeutic boundaries are maintained. Coaching focuses on goals and outcomes, counselling on feelings and emotions. Coaching is progress driven, counselling is process driven. But when you come down to it, whether you use counselling or coaching or divination or prayer a client who is able to move forward will do that and a client who can’t, won’t. There are ways to engage people who are really desperate and exhausted, to move them towards recognising and fulfilling their own goals rather that their employers goals – and you may be surprised how many people need to tease those apart. The person who is going to be made homeless will find little value in spending all the session talking about their childhood, but if they’re not allowed to talk about it they’re less likely to work with a counsellor or coach to find ways of keeping a roof over their head. A good counsellor or coach is responsive to the individual in front of them, both want the best outcome for the client and will want to listen and talk with the authentic you rather than the person you think you should be, and in return if you feel that you're being pushed in a direction you're not comfortable with let your coach or counsellor know. |
CategoriesAll Abandonment Abuse Ancestors Anger Anxiety Ash Wednesday Attitude Banking Bereavement Birthday Breivik Bystander Effect Camila Batmanghelidjh Carnival Cbt Challenger Charlotte Bevan Childbirth Childhood Children Christmas Coaching Compassion Contemplation Control Counselling Culture Dalai Lama Death Death Cafe Democracy Depression Domestic Violence Dying Eap Earth Day Empathy Employment Eric Klinenberg Ethics Existential Failure Family Annihilation Founders Syndrome Francis Report Gay Cure Genocide George Lyward Goldman Sachs Good Death Greg Smith Grief Grieving Grooming Groupthink Happiness Hate Hungary Illness Interconnectedness Jason Mihalko Jubilee Kids Company Kitty Genovese Life Light Living Loneliness Love Mandatory Reporting Meaning Men Mental Health Mid Staffs Mindfulness Money Mothers New Year Nigella Lawson Optimism Organisational Collapse Oxford Abuse Panama Papers Panic Panic Attacks Parenthood Petruska Clarkson Pleasure Politics Positivity Post Natal Depression Power Priorities Priority Productivity Psychotherapy Ptsd Red Tent Reflection Rena Resilience Riots Rites Of Passage Ritual Robin Williams Sad Sales Savile Seasonal Affective Disorder Self Preservation Self-preservation Shock Sin Singletons Sport Spring Status St David St Georges Day Stress Suarez Suicide Support Talking Terry Pratchett Time Transition Trauma True Self Truth Understanding Unemployment Valentines Day Viktor Frankl Violence Whistleblowing Who Am I Winter Blues Women Work Archives
August 2017
CategoriesAll Abandonment Abuse Ancestors Anger Anxiety Ash Wednesday Attitude Banking Bereavement Birthday Breivik Bystander Effect Camila Batmanghelidjh Carnival Cbt Challenger Charlotte Bevan Childbirth Childhood Children Christmas Coaching Compassion Contemplation Control Counselling Culture Dalai Lama Death Death Cafe Democracy Depression Domestic Violence Dying Eap Earth Day Empathy Employment Eric Klinenberg Ethics Existential Failure Family Annihilation Founders Syndrome Francis Report Gay Cure Genocide George Lyward Goldman Sachs Good Death Greg Smith Grief Grieving Grooming Groupthink Happiness Hate Hungary Illness Interconnectedness Jason Mihalko Jubilee Kids Company Kitty Genovese Life Light Living Loneliness Love Mandatory Reporting Meaning Men Mental Health Mid Staffs Mindfulness Money Mothers New Year Nigella Lawson Optimism Organisational Collapse Oxford Abuse Panama Papers Panic Panic Attacks Parenthood Petruska Clarkson Pleasure Politics Positivity Post Natal Depression Power Priorities Priority Productivity Psychotherapy Ptsd Red Tent Reflection Rena Resilience Riots Rites Of Passage Ritual Robin Williams Sad Sales Savile Seasonal Affective Disorder Self Preservation Self-preservation Shock Sin Singletons Sport Spring Status St David St Georges Day Stress Suarez Suicide Support Talking Terry Pratchett Time Transition Trauma True Self Truth Understanding Unemployment Valentines Day Viktor Frankl Violence Whistleblowing Who Am I Winter Blues Women Work |
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