By Mark Farrall, AICTP chair
Around 100 practitioners identifying professionally as therapists, coaches and/or somewhere in between gathered at the inaugural conference of the Association of Integrative Coach Therapist Practitioners (AICTP) on 21 January.
What stood out for me was just what richness and variety integrative practice means in the field of coaching. Examples provided by attendees ranged from a kind of collaborative working where a psychiatrist addressing direct clinical issues around substance misuse would then refer the client on to the coach to address related work and professional issues, to a coach who only works in settings one to one outside of the business environment and focusing on ‘therapeutic’ issues.”
These examples illustrate why ‘hard’ boundaries between ‘work’ and ‘home’ are illusory when it comes to coaching with a personal development aspect – the personal is professional. What was clear is that while some issues and areas are and will remain the domain of specific therapeutic input, requiring a trained therapist, professionals originating from a coaching background can enhance practice and increase competencies by integrating some aspects of therapeutic practice and awareness. The end aim of all of this is of course to provide a more holistic service and better outcomes for the clients.
Keynotes at the conference included Gill Fennings-Monkman, former chair of BACP Coaching, on how integration has evolved in her practice, and how this provides a powerful dynamic for change in any environment. Nash Popovic of University of East London, discussed what I think is one of the clearest frameworks for what integration can mean – are we integrating approaches, models, concepts? One of my personal integrative interests is in establishing a platform of universal ‘what works’ in coaching, a set of core human principles that can underlie and inform individual practice.
Workshops covered several approaches to coaching integration, from positive existential coaching that avoids the Gauloise-smoke gloom often associated with existentialism and uses the frame of reference of positive psychology, to a holistic coaching of ‘minds to feel and hearts to think’.
One discussion point raised was around the need for rigour in our coaching practice and claims: can (at least some forms of) post traumatic stress disorder really be ‘cured’ in one day’s coaching input? Maybe – there are very interesting examples of very effective brief work from the world of trauma-focused therapy. Certainly questions like these are likely to be of interest to coaching through the Future of Coaching group hosted by Coaching at Work, for example, and the interest in valid theory behind coaching practice and substantiating its effects – an interest we should all share.
One question posed at the conference was whether a coach who did not want to become a therapist could have a home at the AICTP? The answer is ‘absolutely’. Integrated practice is in its infancy, and the area of interest both at the conference and for the AICTP is in the middle somewhere: not therapist or coach but enough to be both/and. The next conference is set for February 2018, where the conversation will continue.