Very Brief Cognitive Behavioural Coaching (VBCBC)

Windy Dryden

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351987929
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Psychology
• Categoria: Industrial & Organizational Psychology

In Very Brief Cognitive Behavioural Coaching Windy Dryden presents VBCBC: a unique approach to coaching from a cognitive behavioural perspective which takes place over the course of one to three sessions. The approach is designed to help coachees identify at least one major objective, discuss and select ways to achieve it and, if necessary, deal with obstacles that they experience in pursuing it.

The book presents the basic assumptions of the Very Brief Cognitive Behavioural Coaching (VBCBC) approach, how it can be understood from the perspective of working alliance theory and recommendations concerning when it can be used and when not. Dryden begins by defining coaching and explaining the aims of VBCBC, before examining the input factors which can increase its effectiveness and concluding with a seven-stage process view. The book also includes a transcript of a real VBCBC session, with commentary.

Written clearly and accessibly, this will be essential reading for coaches of all backgrounds interested in brief approaches, including those in training, coaching psychologists and coach supervisors.

Part I

Introduction

In this opening part of the book, I discuss the two building blocks to the approach that I am presenting in this book and that I have called ‘Very Brief Cognitive Behavioural Coaching’ (VBCBC). First, I make clear what I mean by coaching, considering a number of important issues related to its nature. Then, I discuss the defining features of cognitive behavioural coaching which is basically the coach’s application of cognitive behavioural theory and practice to the coaching process.

Chapter 1

What is coaching?

As coaching is still a relatively new professional activity, most books on the subject tend to discuss, at the outset, the author’s view of the nature of coaching. In this opening chapter I do the same as it sets the scene for what is to come. I was initially tempted to provide a definition of coaching, but after reviewing many existing definitions of coaching and coaching psychology (see Passmore, Peterson, & Freire, 2013), I resisted the temptation to add to the confusion that exists in this definitional quagmire. So my focus instead is to consider some important features of coaching as they particularly pertain to VBCBC.

1.1Coaching is primarily for issues of development

Fifty years ago, Alvin Mahrer (1967) edited a book where he invited leading practitioners of the day to write a chapter on the goals of psychotherapy. In his concluding chapter, Mahrer summarized the views of his contributors and concluded that there are basically two goals of psychotherapy and that they are sequential. The first goal is to help clients deal with their emotional suffering and, once this has been achieved, the second goal is to help them grow as persons. I argued much later that an additional goal in between the two nominated by Mahrer was to help clients deal with dissatisfaction, where they are responding to an adversity in a healthy manner but still have to decide what to do with the adversity (Dryden, 2015). I thus distinguish between work that is focused on client disturbance, client dissatisfaction and client development.

When a client is disturbed, it is usually about some type of adversity. The goal of interventions with adversity-related disturbance is to help the person deal with the adversity in more productive ways, emotionally, behaviourally and cognitively. The approach to cognitive behavioural practice that informs my work is known as Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) and Coaching (REBC) and distinguishes between unhealthy negative emotions and healthy negative emotions. The former represents the affective side of psychological disturbance while the latter represents the affective side of dissatisfaction that is free from such disturbance. Thus, when an adversity exists it is healthy to feel bad but undisturbed about it and, as I have just mentioned, REBT calls this state ‘dissatisfaction’. The goal of work with adversity-related dissatisfaction is to help the person change the adversity if it can be changed or to adjust constructively to the adversity if it can’t be changed and then to move on with their life.

Once the person has been helped to deal with their issues of disturbance and dissatisfaction (preferably in that order), they are ready to focus on issues of development or personal growth. While psychotherapy is seen as the intervention of choice with people who experience psychological disturbance, it is now generally agreed that coaching is the intervention of choice with people wanting assistance with issues of development or growth. With respect to issues of dissatisfaction, I would say that both therapists and coaches can deal with this area.

I see coaching, therefore, as a way of working with people whose lives are basically OK, and as being designed to help them get more out of themselves, their work, their relationships and all relevant aspects of their lives. In my view, coaching has seven stages which I will briefly outline below.

1.1.1The seven stages of coaching

After you¹ and your coachee² have agreed that coaching is the right form of help for the coachee, then the following stages typify the work.

1.1.1.1Stage 1: Engagement and contracting

At the outset, you and your coachee need to get a sense that you can work together and that you are, in fact, the best person to serve as your coachee’s coach. If not, you should recommend a colleague who is better suited to this role. This may be a matter of the interpersonal fit between you and your coachee not being right or that you do not have the specialized skills or knowledge that the coachee needs their coach to have.³

Once you have decided to work together, then you and your coachee need to agree on such matters as (1) your fee: who is responsible for paying it and how this is to be done; (2) how many sessions the two of you will have and how these sessions will be spaced and (3) the confidentiality of the process. On this latter point, you need to make explicit exceptions to absolute confidentiality. If your coachee’s coaching is being sponsored by a third party it is crucial that you and your coachee agree on what information, if any, is fed back to that third party. I will not focus on such matters here, but refer the reader to Iordanou, Hawley, and Iordanou (2017) for a more extensive discussion of them.

1.1.1.2Stage 2: Setting coaching objectives

As mentioned above, coaching is primarily to help coachees identify and develop their potential in a number of life domains. Thus, the second stage of coaching is designed for you to help your coachees to set objectives that they can work towards that will encourage them to do just that. As I will show later, persistence towards such objectives will be enhanced when the objectives are based on your coachee’s core values, and what is meaningful to them as well as what will facilitate their development.

1.1.1.3Stage 3: Designing and implementing action plans

Once objectives have been set, you and your coachee work together to design ways of working towards these objectives. This involves reviewing your coachee’s resources so that those that are relevant to the work at this stage can be identified and integrated into specific action plans designed to help the coachee reach their development-based objectives. In addition, any skills that your coachee needs to develop are identified and strategies to learn them are incorporated into the action plans.

Once action plans have been designed, then you and your coachee agree on how the coachee is to implement them. The remainder of this stage is devoted to reviewing the coachee’s progress towards their objectives and making changes to the action plans on the basis of their experiences in implementing them.

1.1.1.4Stage 4: Dealing with obstacles

When coaching goes smoothly there are no obstacles encountered and thus this stage can be omitted. However, this is fairly rare and most coachees experience one or more obstacles to implementing their action plans. Indeed, in a study of coachees’ experience of coaching, the researchers discovered that 84 per cent of their sample reported a barrier to coaching during their time as a coachee (Carter, Blackman, & Hicks, 2014). These obstacles may be external to the coaching relationship or due to factors within that relationship. In this book I will focus on helping coachees deal with obstacles that arise when they encounter adversities to which they respond unhealthily. I will discuss this issue later in this chapter. While I have listed this subject as Stage 4, I have done so because most obstacles occur during Stage 3 of coaching. However, it is important to note that coaching obstacles can occur at any point during the process, so placing this issue at Stage 4 is somewhat arbitrary.

1.1.1.5Stage 5: Maintaining change

After obstacles to the coaching process have been dealt with, the work of Stage 3 can be resumed until the coachee has achieved their objective. Once this has happened, the work turns to helping the coachee to maintain their gains. Indeed, most coaching objectives have no definite end-point. Thus, if a coachee is working towards doing work tasks on time rather than procrastinating on them, it does not make sense for this objective to be finally reached once and for all. As Marilyn Grey once said: ‘No one ever has it “all together”. That’s like trying to eat “once and for all”.’

The person is still liable to procrastinate unless they maintain their gains. Maintaining change involves identifying factors which if not dealt with when they occur as lapses may lead your coachee to relapse.⁴ Indeed, as humans are ‘lapsing organisms’ it is important for you not only to help the person to prevent lapses, but to respond healthily to lapses if and when they occur.

Finally, as relapse occurs when lapses are not dealt with effectively, some coaches hold that helping coachees deal effectively with relapse is important, while others consider this strategy to be overly negative and pessimistic – qualities with which these coaches do not want to be associated.

1.1.1.6Stage 6: Ending the process

The sixth stage of coaching involves ending the process on a positive note. This is best done when your coachee effectively has learned to become their own coach, a process facilitated by your increasingly handing over responsibility for the coaching process to your coachee. Most coaches do this by agreeing to see coachees at increasing intervals between sessions and this is marked by a change of contribution from the coach whose role is more as a consultant to the coachee’s process than active coach.

When formal coaching sessions end it is usually with the knowledge that the coachee can return for additional coaching sessions if they hit an obstacle to maintaining change that, try as they might, they cannot address effectively. Returning for one, two or three sessions of coaching, either with the original coach or with a VBCBC coach, normally helps the coachee get back on track. Indeed, as will be discussed, one of the reasons I developed VBCBC was to provide a very brief intervention for coachees who wanted expert help with adversity-based obstacles that they could not overcome on their own.

1.1.1.7Stage 7: Following-up

While carrying out a follow-up session takes place after the formal end of coaching, in my view it should be regarded as an integral part of the coaching process. Why? Because follow-up provides coaches with two types of feedback. First, coaches discover the fruits of their joint labours with their coachees (outcome evaluation) and second, they learn how they might improve their coaching based on the feedback of their coachees (service evaluation).

1.2When adversities happen during coaching

The distinction that I made earlier between therapy being for those struggling with issues of psychological disturbance and coaching being for those free from such issues who want to further their own development may seem a neat and tidy way of dividing up the field; however, people’s lives don’t fit so neatly into such discrete categories. In particular, as I have discussed, when you are helping your coachee to implement an agreed action plan as a way to meet their development-based objectives (Stage 3 of the coaching process), it may be that your coachee encounters an adversity and reacts with disturbance to this adversity. In my experience, there are two common scenarios in which this occurs. Let me now outline them.

1.2.1An example of an adversity encountered that is related to the pursuit of coaching objectives

First, let me consider a situation where a person experiences an adversity that is directly related to their pursuit of a coaching objective. Henry has sought coaching because, in order to do a job he really wants to apply for, he needs to give short but inspiring presentations about the company that he works for. He considers himself to be a reasonably good public speaker, but not inspiring and he has set ‘to be more inspiring when giving talks’ as his development-based goal in coaching. His coach helps Henry to construct an action plan to pursue his goal. This involved Henry joining ‘Toastmasters’ (an international organization that helps people improve their speaking skills in a friendly atmosphere) and then to watch and listen to inspiring speakers live and on YouTube. Initially, Henry w...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of contents
• List of tables
• Preface
• Part I Introduction
• Part II What is Very Brief Cognitive Behavioural Coaching (VBCBC)?
• Part III Input factors that increase the effectiveness of VBCBC
• Part IV The process of VBCBC
• Epilogue
• Appendix: Transcript of a VBCBC session (12 minutes 2 seconds)
• References
• Index