Handbook of Coaching Psychology

A Guide for Practitioners

Stephen Palmer, Alison Whybrow, Stephen Palmer, Alison Whybrow

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138775312
• eBook ISBN: 9781317636397
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The Handbook of Coaching Psychology: A Guide for Practitioners provides a clear and extensive guide to the theory, research and practice of coaching psychology.

In this new and expanded edition, an international selection of leading coaching psychologists and coaches outlines recent developments from a broad spectrum of areas. Part One examines perspectives and research in coaching psychology, looking at both the past and the present as well as assessing future directions. Part Two presents a range of approaches to coaching psychology, including behavioural and cognitive behavioural, humanistic, existential, being-focused, constructive and systemic approaches. Part Three covers application, context and sustainability, focusing on themes including individual transitions in life and work, and complexity and system-level interventions. Finally, Part Four explores a range of topics within the professional and ethical practice of coaching psychology. The book also includes several appendices outlining the key professional bodies, publications, research centres and societies in coaching psychology, making this an indispensable resource.

Unique in its scope, this key text will be essential reading for coaching psychologists and coaches, academics and students of coaching psychology, coaching and mentoring and business psychology. It will be an important text for anyone seeking to understand the psychology underpinning their coaching practice, including human resource, learning and development and management professionals, and executives in a coaching role.

Part 1
Perspectives and research in coaching psychology

Introduction

In Part 1 the context is set with an overview from the editors of this handbook; ‘Past, present and future’ takes a view of the history, current state and future potential of the profession of coaching psychology. The wealth of development in the field of coaching and coaching psychology over the last decade and a half has been significant. Building forward, we see that coaching and coaching psychology is well placed as areas of practice challenge existing assumptions about how the world is and offer a full range of evidence-based methodologies to support the emergence of new narratives and ways of being as leaders, teams and whole organisations across the for-profit and not-for-profit landscape. This first part continues with a look at some of the more recent developments in the field of coaching psychology. We explore neuroscience (Chapter 2) and how that body of work might be used in coaching practice. In ‘Coaching and neuroscience’, Patricia Riddell explores how much we might need to know about the brain in order to contribute to an understanding of how coaching works, and how we might apply this with our coachees and clients. Diana Aguiar Vieira and Stephen Palmer take us into a more established area of psychological understanding in their chapter, ‘Self-efficacy within coaching and coaching psychology: an integrated Self-efficacy Coaching Model’ (Chapter 3). They note that the construct of self-efficacy has been capable of explaining and predicting human behaviour and/or change in several domains and that coaching psychology is not an exception. Goal-focused coaching, a mainstay of coaching practice for both coaches and coaching psychologists, is explored by Anthony Grant in ‘Goals and coaching: an integrated evidence-based model of goal-focused coaching and coaching psychology’ (Chapter 4). Considered by some as the forefather of modern-day coaching psychology, Anthony notes that although coaching is inherently a goal-focused activity, it is only of late that there has been interest in applying the considerable body of literature on goals and goal setting in the psychological literature to coaching practice. Through this chapter he aims to add further impetus to that trend. The growth and development of positive psychology has paralleled that of coaching psychology and has been an important influence in the growth and practice of coaching and coaching psychology. Positive psychology forms a significant thread in so many coaches’ practice. In their chapter ‘From positive psychology to the development of positive psychology coaching’ (Chapter 5), Sheila Panchal, Stephen Palmer and Suzy Green bring together this rich framework and explore its application as a coaching approach.

The final part of Part 1 is dedicated to understanding the research base underpinning practice, and how to evaluate emerging research to understand its application in practice. The attention to what works, with whom, and in what context is an ongoing quest for coaching psychology research as it is with other branches of psychological practice. This focus is also important in the wider coaching world. Whilst an exhaustive illustration is neither possible nor the goal of these two chapters, they do illuminate some key aspects and some ways of making sense of the current research landscape. In ‘Research and the practitioner: getting a perspective on evidence as a coaching psychologist’, Annette Fillery-Travis and Sarah Corrie bring to the fore the importance of the research evidence to facilitate the provision of excellent, sustainable and individually tailored services to coachees and their organisations (Chapter 6). Building on those principles, Yi-Ling Lai and Stephen Palmer (Chapter 7) bring us up to date with the evidence base of coaching psychology in ‘Understanding evidence-based coaching through the analysis of coaching psychology research methodology’.

1
Past, present and future

Alison Whybrow and Stephen Palmer

When we first edited this handbook in 2007, the world was a very different place. The global financial crash in 2008, the shift in global power, the Arab spring, the centrality of the digital world, Big Data, the imminent rise of machines, the changing nature of war, diabetes as a fully fledged global health crisis – these events had yet to happen. Prior to these changes, coaching and coaching psychology were flourishing. Now a decade later, we find that coaching and coaching psychology are still flourishing. Increasing complexity in the global landscape, future uncertainty and greater ambiguity mean the need for deeper self-awareness, psychological flexibility, deep collaboration, curious conversations and co-creation is growing. The need for coaching and the skills of coaches and coaching psychologists is certainly not diminishing, but it is changing. There is a maturity and confidence in the field that is reflected in the growth of coaching, its depth and its breadth in particular, moving coaching from a primarily 1:1 focus to a much more holistic and systems focus. A profession, however, is not merely defined by practice. Other aspects have also matured. The development of professional frameworks and standards, an evidence base to underpin practice and take us into new areas of thinking and robust learning and development pathways, including advanced degrees and doctorates, all combine to build the foundations of the professions of coaching and coaching psychology.

Whilst coaching and coaching psychology maintain distinctions, their paths are aligned; walking together rather than divergently, each learns from and is informed by the other. And whilst a particular practitioner may have a preferred professional ‘home’, clients and coachees themselves benefit from a rich collaboration of which this handbook is an example.

In this chapter we build from the first edition, sharing the historical roots of coaching psychology, key aspects of the current state of play and some exploration of the trends of the last decade with a view to useful assumptions we might make at this point in the evolution of this sub-discipline of psychological practice.

From Socrates to the twenty-first century

It could be argued that Socrates’ dialectic method of inquiry, the Socratic method, was an early account of what we would now call a coaching technique being used. This method, stimulating critical thinking through logical questioning, has been used in different professions, including psychology and therapy, for many years. In essence, psychologists have been practising coaching for decades (Filippi, 1968). If we look back, it was in the 1920s that the father of sports psychology in the United States, Coleman R. Griffith, associate professor of educational psychology at the Laboratory for Research in Athletics, University of Illinois, wrote his groundbreaking book, The Psychology of Coaching: A Study of Coaching Methods from the Point of View of Psychology (Griffith, 1926).

The laboratory was established in order to look at three key areas which clearly reflected psychological principles: “a) toward the discovery of pure psychological fact and theory, b) toward the discovery of facts about human behaviour that have a bearing upon athletic skill and athletic mindedness, and c) toward increasing the effectiveness of coaching methods” (Griffith, 1930, p. vii). Griffith’s work focused on the psychology of coaching in the sports field. Griffith believed a coach was more than an instructor. “He is a teacher, in the ancient sense of the word… a character-builder; he molds personalities” (1926, p. 2). Griffith believed that the coach should be an athlete, a physiologist and a psychologist. In his book The Psychology of Coaching (Griffith, 1926), Griffith covered aspects of coaching such as handling spectators, sports stars and ‘jinxed’ players, the problems of over-coaching teams and the laws and principles of learning. Griffith was very productive academically. His publications and work in the field were rediscovered by the sports psychology fraternity in the 1960s as proponents attempted to establish sports psychology as a discipline of psychology in America. Griffith’s use of psychological theories emphasising the importance of psychology in coaching, which informed coaching practice based on his research, can be considered the springboard to coaching psychology many years later.

Grant (2005, 2006) reviewed papers from the behavioural sciences and scholarly business databases, focusing on executive, workplace and life coaching papers. An early scholarly paper was by Gorby (1937), who described how newer employees were coached by older employees to reduce waste and thereby increase profits, which would maximise profit-sharing programme bonuses. Grant noted the exponential escalation in peer-reviewed research and studies from 1995 to 2005, indicating an emerging body of empirical support for the effectiveness of workplace and life coaching. The impact and effectiveness of psychological principles in coaching and coach training has not always been clearly considered. Some coach training courses may have been based on psychological principles, but more implicitly than explicitly (Linley & Harrington, 2007). Additionally, some proprietary models and frameworks developed by early coach training providers were not subject to rigorous research. Grant (2007) suggests influences on the emergence of coaching psychology as we know it today include: humanistic psychology (e.g. Maslow, 1968), the 1960s human potential movement (HPM) and, more latterly, the positive psychology movement (e.g. Seligman & Csikszentmilhalyi, 2000).

The turn of the twenty-first century marked a pivotal period in the development of coaching psychology. The positive psychology paradigm, with its focus on well-being (rather than ill health) underpinned by research, provided psychologists who coached from a scientist practitioner background with an alternative perspective, differing at that time from clinical, counselling and organisational psychology. By 2005, there were coaching psychology interest groups established within the Australian Psychological Society (APS) and the British Psychological Society (BPS).

A global movement

We can now say that the development of coaching psychology theory and practice is global. There are at least 21 formal interest groups including those in the APS and BPS (see Table 1.1). In some countries, a separate coaching psychology group has not been formally developed, yet the interest exists within psychological bodies. For example, in the US, the American Psychological Association’s Division 13 has become actively involved in coaching psychology, although it currently does not have a specific interest group.

The collaborative development of coaching psychology around the world has been intentional. In 2009, Peter Zarris (chair IGCP) and Stephen Palmer (past chair, SGCP), in conversation with colleagues, developed a proposal focusing on how coaching psychology could be further developed internationally. The International Congress of Coaching Psychology (ICCP, 2010) was set up to:

• promote the development of the coaching psychology profession around the world;
• bring together the coaching psychology community;
• share within the psychology community the theory, research and practice of coaching and coaching psychology;
• engage all professionals interested in coaching and coaching psychology.

This collaboration has had a positive impact. Chapter 43 builds a rich picture of the development of coaching psychology around the globe.

Table 1.1 Coaching psychology interest groups around the globe

The Australian Psychological Society, Interest Group in Coaching Psychology (APS IGCP)	Australia 2002
British Psychological Society, Spec...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Editors
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface and acknowledgements
• International Society for Coaching Psychology
• PART 1 Perspectives and research in coaching psychology
• PART 2 Coaching psychology approaches
• PART 3 Application, context and sustainability
• PART 4 The profession and ethical practice of coaching psychology
• Afterword
• Appendix 1: Coaching and coaching psychology professional bodies
• Appendix 2: Coaching- and coaching psychology-related publications
• Appendix 3: University-based coaching psychology units and centres
• Appendix 4: International Society for Coaching Psychology (ISCP)
• Index