Coaching and The Way of Gestalt Therapy
By: Mark Magerman, LCSW, BCD and Debra Brosan, MA, ODDate Posted: 6/10/2003
The definition of a "coach" has gone beyond SPORTS -- the idea of coaching has become commonplace in everyday life and in business life -- but what does it really mean? This article will briefly discuss ideas about coaching and how the theory of Gestalt Therapy can enhance this work.
Coaching is a practice, a process and a belief system. A coach is a guide, mentor, facilitator, advice giver, sounding board and listener. Coaching facilitates choice, change and the development of individuals. We all coach! We coach our colleagues, our children, our friends, the young, and the elderly. We are all placed in the coaching role when helping or working with another. Coaches act as a safe anchor in the sea of change by attending to someone else's experience.
Coaching can be integrated on many levels: individual, group and organizational. A coach can have a wide population to practice within. There is personal life coaching, work/life balance coaching, gender coaching, career development, business coaching, marketing coaching, systems coaching and management coaching, just to name a few.
Coaching on an organizational level can be viewed as a management tool. Many companies are incorporating the coaching process into their business strategy because they value the development of their people and see the connection to higher performance and individual satisfaction. Applications of coaching include one-on-one coaching to increase awareness, group or team coaching to assist in group process or collaboration, developing organizational skills, personal skills and knowledge transfer.
After a search on the various coaching styles in the field, we have found that most programs were based on fixed models or maps. These models typically include grounding in current reality, looking at possible future reality and measuring the gap in between. The gap then becomes the place of work. The gap is used as an instrument to create goals and action plans. Conventional coaching programs stress getting from point A to point B in a linear fashion.
Too often, a coach will be called into an organization to "fix" a problem. The doctor/patient diagnostic model can stimulate advice giving. Conventional coaching, utilizing a linear approach can be useful at times when knowledge or skill transfer is the objective.
The basic premise of Gestalt Coaching is that all individuals have their own unique answers. Our experiential process encourages exploration through dialogue and the use of creative experiment. We seek to raise each individual’s awareness as to their options, rather than imposing answers upon them.
Today, many coaches are providing services that are not based in a clear theoretical or philosophical framework. Each coach functions from a set of beliefs, values, wants, needs and personal characteristics which effect their actions. In Gestalt Therapy terms we call this the "use of self." Actions lacking this awareness can lead to undesirable reactions, causing harm to relationships in the system. This is one of the reasons that we believe that coaching professionals could benefit from developing a theoretical orientation to support their work.
The theory of Gestalt Therapy is based on a person-in-environment concept of human functioning. Within this holistic framework, attention is given to the individual and the environment as well as the interplay between them. Therefore, the Gestalt Coach attends to experience as it is happening to the coach him/herself, to clients, and the relationship between them. As models, we can help to transform relationships among people, and between people and organizations.
Through increasing awareness of present experience, Gestalt coaches support and challenge individuals to become better observers of themselves and of others. As a result, individuals can improve their ability to be more fully present and authentic with others. Through this process, individuals can learn to recognize and change limiting disruptive patterns and beliefs, utilizing expanded knowledge to make choices and mobilize energy into deliberate action.
Case Study:
As part of a planning group for the Gestalt Coaching program at the Gestalt Institute of Philadelphia, we discussed the following case:
Debra was coaching a senior manager at a large pharmaceutical company to help create development plans for his reports. What kept coming up for this individual was an experience he had with a new, ambitious, 30 year old junior manager. The incident that surfaced occurred when they were at their off-site national sales meeting. My client was not this manager's direct boss -- there was a manager in between them. This individual was given the opportunity to cover a larger territory. At the sales meeting, in a very inappropriate time (off hours), the manager confronted my client and said: "I’m willing to take on the additional responsibility, but what's in it for me?" My client was so taken aback by this -- he had never encountered such "bravado." My client had a meeting with this individual's direct boss but to no avail; he received no satisfaction and consequently this experience kept coming up for him.
In our GTIP meeting, an elegant example of Gestalt Coaching was illustrated. What transpired was a sharing of how each of the group members would have approached the situation. Each was different and unique in their approach. The learning was not in the outcome, but in the process of attending to each group member's experience. A democratic process of attending to each member's commentary of this case illustrated how a dialogue can be healing and helpful. Each of us had the opportunity to express and witness each other's individual and unique style. There were no judgments, just a sharing of style and information.
Each member of our group had different ways of how they would handle the case. The view wasn't the most important part but rather the interaction and inquiry from that experience that helps the client move toward satisfaction. Each coach/therapist created a possible formulation of how they would work. The commonality was the experiential process used to raise the level of awareness of how the client could work better with the junior manager.
The following were the possible ways to approach working with the client. One felt that generational issues were blocking my client. Another thought values and family of origin beliefs were embedded in my client and were blocking his view. Another asked me what I thought and helped me formulate my ideas on the matter. Issues about power and control were discussed as well as organizational alignment.
I took some of these ideas back to a follow up session and asked:
"What do you make of this bravado?"
"What is the story you are telling about this bravado?"
"When you are confronted with a situation like this, what do you experience?"
"How do you wish you could have been more like that junior manager?"
"What would it be like to place yourself in the position of that junior manager?"
This case study is a wonderful "proof of concept" -- for as we were discussing the case, Debra was also being coached by the group as they shared their unique view and approach in the way they work.
Regardless of the type of coaching that one practices, it is important for the coach to be grounded in a theoretical framework. Developing one’s "use of self" and individual style exemplifies the value of the Theory of Gestalt Therapy as a way to inform coaching.
