The trend in therapy is towards integrative approaches, and in coaching the question is not if we should integrate practice but what and how, suggested Nash Popovic in his keynote at the Association for Integrative Coach Therapist Professionals’ inaugural conference on 21 January
Popovic leads the MSc Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology at University of East London, and is co-author of Personal Consultancy. His keynote covered some broad spectrum thinking about what integration can mean – are we integrating approaches, models and concepts? He argued that practice may be described along four main dimensions:
- Being with the client – doing with the client
- Inner change – visible ‘behavioural’ goals
- Past and present focus – present and future focus
- Non-directive versus directive.
Nash used the analogy that practice on only one or the other end of the dimension creates foundations but no house, or a house without foundations; essentially that one has depth (insight) but not necessarily action and the other has action but perhaps not sustainable long-term change.
As was pointed out, practitioners can split their practice along these dimensions – but not their clients; the personal is professional and exists in a reciprocal relationship.
“For me, this is some of the clearest thinking about integration, and it’s a false division to imply therapy as not being about behavioural change, and coaching as being all and only about it. Certainly I know we can establish a platform of ‘what works’ in coaching (as in therapy), and teach concrete skills to facilitate this, translating into a ‘good enough’ integrative model flexibly moving along these dimensions,” said Mark Farrall, chair of the AICTP.
Mark Farrall
Director, Ignition Creative Learning
Chair, AICTP