Cognitive Behavioural Coaching

Distinctive Features

Michael Neenan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351188531
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Michael Neenan clearly and accessibly introduces the 30 Distinctive Features of cognitive behavioural coaching (CBC), an approach which applies the principles of CBT to coaching.

Cognitive Behavioural Coaching: Distinctive Features sets out the key theoretical and practical features of CBT and discusses how they integrate into the generic model of coaching. The book covers the four key elements in developing a coaching relationship, provides psychological and practical problem-solving models, shows how to deal with stuck points in coaching and identifies which individuals are unsuitable for CBC. As well as providing research evidence to support the effectiveness of CBC, the book demonstrates the smooth transition of CBT into CBC, and coach–coachee dialogues are interspersed throughout the text to show CBC in action.

Cognitive Behavioural Coaching: Distinctive Features will be particularly useful to CBT therapists interested in adding coaching to their practice. It will also appeal to coaches in practice and in training and other professionals in coaching roles seeking an effective and straightforward coaching model.

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Part I

COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THEORY

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Eliciting meaning

‘At the very heart of the C[B]T model is the view that the human mind is not a passive receptacle of environmental and biological influences and sensations, but rather that individuals are actively involved in constructing their reality’ (Clark, 1995: 156). In order to understand a person’s emotional response to particular life events, it’s important to discover the meaning they attach to these events: their subjective construction of reality. For example, a person whose partner has left them believes they cannot be happy or cope on their own and becomes depressed; another person whose partner has departed feels relieved as they believe they have been freed from a ‘stifling relationship’; a third person feels guilty as they view their bad behaviour as the reason for their partner’s departure – the same event for each person, but not the same emotional reaction to it as each reaction is mediated by the person’s view of the event. In order to change the way we feel about events we need to change the way we think about them. Meaning isn’t static but changes over time, that is, your viewpoint alters.

This conceptual cornerstone of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) derives from ancient Stoic philosophers such as Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius and their views on mental control. That is to say, our thoughts and beliefs are within our control whereas many things that happen to us in life are outside of our control; therefore, we can choose how we respond to events. Events themselves do not cause or dictate our reactions, for example, losing your job in a recession is outside of your control but losing your self-respect as well is a judgement you have made about being jobless (for a fascinating discussion on the links between Stoic philosophy and CBT, see Robertson [2010]. I’ve met executives who proudly showed me their copies of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations and Epictetus’s Handbook which they said taught them how to develop the inner stability to cope with the unrelenting pressures of the workplace).

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Modern CBT doesn’t argue that a person’s emotional problems are simply created in their head but that the impact of adverse events (e.g. being burgled) can be greatly exacerbated by the person’s unhelpful thoughts and beliefs that interfere with their ability to cope constructively with such events (e.g. ‘I can never ever feel safe again in my own home no matter how many locks I put on the doors and windows’). Clients are helped to develop adaptive viewpoints in order to tackle their problems (e.g. ‘If I keep things in perspective, I know that the increased security measures will help to keep me safe in my home and my mind, but I realize and accept, without liking it, that there can be no guarantee I won’t be burgled again’).

Developing an alternative viewpoint underscores the CBT principle that there is always more than one way of seeing things, no matter how unpleasant these things are. Even in the unspeakable horrors of Auschwitz, Viktor Frankl, a famous psychiatrist, observed that ‘everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way’ (1946/1985: 86). Coutu (2003) states that Frankl’s theory is the basis for much of the resilience coaching in the business world.

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2

Distorted information processing

Cognitive theory is based on an information-processing model ‘which posits that during psychological distress a person’s thinking becomes more rigid and distorted, judgements become overgeneralized and absolute, and the person’s basic beliefs about the self and the world become fixed’ (Weishaar, 1996: 188). In a calmer frame of mind, the person is likely to check their impressions and appraisals of events in order to obtain clear and accurate information. However, everyone engages in distorted information professing such as jumping to conclusions or mind-reading (see below) but these distortions ‘only become a problem when the bias is chronic or too extreme’ (Kennerley et al., 2017: 193).

When emotionally upset the person will usually distort incoming information by introducing a consistently negative bias into their thinking, for example, they are upset when not invited to a friend’s party because they interpret the lack of an invitation to mean that they are an unlikeable person. Instead of ascertaining the reasons for not being invited, or keeping an open mind about it, the person dwells on their supposed unlikeability, lowering their mood in the process.

Distorted thinking underlies psychological problems. These distortions usually stem from deeper negative beliefs that are activated during emotional distress, for instance, a person experiencing depression after the break-up of their relationship insists ‘I’ll always be alone’ (fortune-telling) because they believe they are unattractive (core belief). Common information-processing errors or biases found in emotional distress include the following.

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• All or nothing thinking: situations and individuals are viewed in either/or terms, e.g. ‘Either you’re a success or failure in life. It’s as simple as that’.

• Emotional reasoning: believing that feelings are facts, e.g. ‘I feel repulsive, so it must be true’. ‘I feel repulsive’ is actually a belief (‘I believe I’m repulsive’), not a feeling, and therefore is subject to examination like any other belief.

• Jumping to conclusions: judgements are rushed rather than considered, e.g. a client says 15 minutes into the first session: ‘This isn’t going to work as I don’t feel any better’.

• Mind-reading: discerning the thoughts of others without any accompanying evidence to support such claims, e.g. ‘My boss didn’t smile at me this morning, so that means she’s unhappy with my work’ (she praised their work previously without smiling at them).

• Labelling: attaching global negative labels to oneself, others or the world, e.g. ‘I didn’t understand what he said, unlike others in the group, so this must mean I’m stupid’ (they’re also mind-reading in assuming that everyone else in the group understood what was said).

Teaching clients how to identify and correct these errors or biases in their thinking facilitates the return of information processing that is more evidence-based and balanced (non-absolute). In the example above, the person discovers that their friend had invited them but ‘my mother forgot to pass on the message. If I hadn’t got so upset, then I wouldn’t have jumped to conclusions’. If they hadn’t been invited and it was expected that they would be, then they need to contact their friend to find out why they have been excluded from the invitation list. Even if their friend deliberately excluded them, this does not mean they are an unlikeable person, but a person not immune to their friendships ending and having to learn to adapt to this unwelcome reality.

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Levels of thought

There are three levels to consider.

1. Negative automatic thoughts (NATs) are situation-specific and involuntarily ‘pop into’ a person’s mind when they are experiencing psychological difficulties. They appear plausible to them and are difficult to turn off. NATs often lie outside of immediate awareness but can be quickly brought to the client’s attention by asking, ‘What was going through your mind at that moment when you got to the meeting late?’ (Client’s reply: ‘I’m always late. I’m undisciplined, sloppy. My colleagues will look down on me’). NATs can be triggered by external and/or internal events (e.g. pounding heart: ‘I’m having a heart attack. Oh God! I’m going to die’).

NATs can also occur as images, for example, a person sees himself ‘dying of embarrassment’ if he makes a faux pas as best man at his friend’s wedding. Clients are usually more aware of how they feel than of the thoughts that prompted the feeling. In coaching as in therapy, NATs are usually the starting point for investigation. The alternative thoughts to NATs are not PATs (positive automatic thoughts) as they can be equally distorted (e.g. ‘Once the problem is gone, it won’t reoccur’), but thoughts based on reason and evidence that remove cognitive distortions from the person’s view of events.

2. Underlying assumptions (e.g. ‘If I impress others, then I should get ahead in life’) and rules (e.g. ‘I should not let people down’) guide behaviour and set standards. These assumptions and rules are often unarticulated and can be difficult for clients to detect, unlike NATs. Underlying assumptions are usually identified by their ‘if . . . then’ or ‘unless . . . then’ construction, and rules are usually expressed in ‘must’ and ‘should’ statements. These assumptions and rules are the means by which individuals hope to avoid coming ‘face-to-face’ with their negative core beliefs (e.g. ‘I’m incompetent’). The ‘truth’ of these core beliefs is not usually questioned and, therefore, assumptions and rules serve to maintain and strengthen them.

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Trouble looms for the person when their behaviour is not what it should be, standards are not met or rules are violated – ‘trouble’ is the activation of the negative core belief from its dormant state. Beck et al. (1985) suggest that unhelpful assumptions often focus on three major issues: acceptance (e.g. ‘I’m nothing unless I’m loved’); competence (e.g. ‘I am what I accomplish’); and control (e.g. ‘I can’t ask for help’). Worries about not being seen to be in control of oneself or events, acting incompetently or losing the respect/approval of colleagues are common themes in coaching. Assumptions and rules are cross-situational and are also known as intermediate beliefs because they lie between NATs and core beliefs (J. S. Beck, 2011).

3. Core beliefs are the deepest level of thought. Negative core beliefs are overgeneralized and unconditional (e.g. ‘I’m hopeless’). They are usually formed through earlier learning experiences and lie dormant until activated by relevant life events. For example, the person believes they’re worthless without a partner: they’re anxious when the present relationship goes through turbulent times (‘Is this the end?’) and depressed if it does end thereby confirming their core belief. Once activated, negative core beliefs process information in a biased way that confirms them and disconfirms contradictory information (e.g. ‘I can’t learn to live on my own for a while and be more independent. I must find someone else’). Core beliefs can be about the self (e.g. ‘I’m unloveable’), others (e.g. ‘I can’t trust anyone’), and/or the world (e.g. ‘Everything is against me’). Once the distress has passed (e.g. they’re relieved when they find a new partner), negative core beliefs become deactivated or return to their latent state and a more positive outlook is re-established.

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Core beliefs are usually the targets of change in longstanding problems. Core beliefs can be modified indirectly by targeting NATs as they are situation-specific expressions of core beliefs. This indirect targeting also helps to reactivate quiescent positive core beliefs (‘I’m likeable’) which became inactive due to the dominance of the negative beliefs. Dobson and Dobson (2009) suggest that it’s quite likely that negative core beliefs change gradually without directly modifying them if clients continue to think and act differently over the longer term. In coaching, negative core beliefs are targeted for change if required; for example, a highly successful executive takes little pleasure in their achievements ‘because, at bottom, I’m a fraud’ and wants to stop seeing themself in this way.

How do these three levels interact? A person feels depressed when they fail to get a first in their university exams. Their dormant core belief, ‘I’m a failure’, is activated by their inability to live up to their rigid rule that they must meet the high expectations placed on them by others and their mind is flooded with NATs: ‘I can’t show my face at university. Run away and hide. The whole university is laughing at me. I’ve lost the respect of my friends.’

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Thoughts, feelings, behaviour, physiology and the situation are interconnected

In the cognitive model, uncovering the meaning (thoughts and beliefs) that people attach to events is crucial for understanding their emotional and behavioural reactions to events. However, cognition in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is not viewed in isolation from other response systems within the person but recognizes its interaction with behaviour, physiology and emotions. These systems interact within the wider context of a person’s environment such as having noisy neighbours or living in a high crime area. Each one of these elements is capable of influencing the others in an interactive cycle. Seeing the linkages between these five areas of a person’s experience can...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Cognitive Behavioural Coaching
• Coaching Distinctive Features
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Introduction: From CBT to CBC
• Part I Cognitive Behavioural Theory
• Part II Cognitive Behavioural Practice
• Appendix
• References
• Index