Research: Coaching in “Safe Territory”

Are you coaching in “safe territory?” Are you sure?

The frontier between coaching and therapy remains a hot topic among coaches and therapists. Increasingly, coaching researchers are seeking to define the boundary that remains less than fully understood. According to researcher Eve Turner, the border between the two disciplines is considered “fuzzy.”

“There is some evidence of an increasing interest in this area, from recent publications and new courses in coaching psychology,” said Turner. “However, with the remaining reticence in examining this area as part of some coach training, and no requirement for regular, professional supervision regardless of how experienced the coach, there is a risk of letting down both coaches and, ultimately, clients.”

Turner, an executive coach, has recently published a Master’s dissertation on the role of “unconscious dynamics” in executive coaching.

The dissertation, which was honored with a 2008 research award from the British Psychological Society Special Group in Coaching Psychology, aims at shining a light on the frontier between coaching and therapy–to determine how coaches decide what’s coaching and what’s therapy, and to explore the role of “unconscious dynamics” in the coaching process.

To better understand coaches and the unconscious, Turner interviewed coaches from several UK-based coaching organizations, including the Association for Coaching (AC); the UK chapter of the ICF; and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). Nearly half the coaches who participatd in the study were experienced–coaching for five years or more.

The results?

Nearly 90 percent of coaches believed unconscious processes were important to their work as coaches. “Many felt they provided rich material in exploring underlying patterns of behaviour,” said Turner, who quoted one of the study’s participants as saying, “There is always something going on at the subconscious level with a client.”

Another coach explained it this way: “I think the job of a coach is to raise awareness of the unconscious…so [clients] have a greater self-awareness and achieve greater authenticity and autonomy.”

Coaches identified unconscious processes as keys to understanding clients’ habits and actions–identifying triggers and patterns that might help answer the “why” questions when a client has become stuck. Where things get tricky is knowing when answering “why” questions becomes therapy, and not coaching.

As Turner found, the past was something of a danger zone for coaches, who “had concerns dwelling on the past might keep clients stuck, believing that ‘why’ something happened was more the preserve of therapy,” she wrote.

How best to handle the uncertain terrain?

Fully nine of ten coaches interviewed in the research felt coaching training programs should include study of unconscious processes. Other coaches suggested formal supervision arrangements might help protect coaches from venturing away from “safe territory.” Some even advanced formal regulation of coaching as a next step.

For her part, Turner advances a model for coaching practice that incorporates a wide variety of “knowledge bases”–including leadership theories, organizational development, mental health, and psychological theories of the unconscious. “The approach could become a coaching model for the future in terms of training, practice, and supervision,” said Turner. “It (provides) coaches with all-around awareness to practice safely and competently.”

How do you keep your practice in “safe territory?”