SGCP 5TH EUROPEAN COACHING PSYCHOLOGY CONFERENCE, LONDON, 10-11 DECEMBER 2015
Jackee Holder
To work with intuition in coaching, it’s important that there be trust in the coach-client relationship, and that the coach feel safe with not-knowing, and avoid offering interpretations, instead sharing a hunch with the client, according to Claire Sheldon.
Sheldon, lead coach and development consultant at Tall House Consulting, presented her research in her session entitled: ‘Trust your Gut, Listen to Reason: How Experienced Coaches Work with Intuition in their Practice’, at the British Psychological Society’s Special Group in Coaching Psychology’s annual conference in December.
Sheldon said that even though there is a need for more evidence-based research around intuition, “we can still draw data from personal experience”.
She presented case studies from her research among experienced coaches exploring how coaches are testing out the impact of intuition in sessions.
One of her findings was that coaches struggled to articulate their felt knowledge of intuition. Intuition can be defined as “a non-conscious, holistic, rapid and affectively charged way of processing and surfacing information and coming to conclusions” (Dane and Pratt, 2010; Hodgkinson et al, 2008)
Sheldon believes that while intuition isn’t always right, as it can be confused with values, prejudices and beliefs, it is an advanced and valuable coaching skill. She believes it is impractical to stop coaches using their intuition as it’s not possible to put brakes on the non-conscious. This means it’s important to examine the potential risks of working at the boundary between rational and intuitive ways of knowing, and to explore ways to develop and nurture skilful, intuitive coaches.
Sheldon completed her MA in Coaching and Mentoring Practice at Oxford Brookes University in 2012, graduating with distinction and a dissertation on the topic of intuition, but held back from sharing the research findings widely until recently.
Sheldon presented her research-based model, Working at the Boundary: Intuition and Maturing as a Coach, at the conference.