Why Do Coaching and Psychology Work So Well Together?

What are your first thoughts when you think of coaching and psychology? Coaching used to conjure up images of angry football managers throwing boots in changing rooms, the sound of whistles and my old personal trainer being unable to differentiate between the numbers 8 and 12.
Psychology, for me, provides images of Freud and frail women lying on couches, it also makes me think of my teenage self searching for meanings in my dreams.
Perhaps it makes you nervous of being analysed or that someone is looking deep into your psyche, maybe it makes you curious to know more about how our minds work and how our life experiences can shape our brains and ultimately who we are - after all, you’ve been reading these blogs! 

At Matter we combine these two concepts to support organisations to provide the best care that they can for their staff and their service users because we know from experience that when these skills are used together they can create excellent outcomes. 

In earlier blogs we covered the prevalence of traumatic events and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in the general population and that compound trauma and ACEs are much higher amongst people who are accessing services.
Using psychology to help us to understand trauma, ACE’s, mental health and neurodiversity can give staff in services a better understanding of the people that they are seeing every day, it can help staff to remain compassionate and empathetic towards difficult behaviours, to see reasons behind actions. It can lead to better relationship building and kinder, more informed policies within services.

The provision of reflective practice for staff can also help staff to work through their stressors and frustrations in a safe space with their peers. The reflective space relies on trust and confidentiality to allow people to share in confidence, giving the best opportunity for self reflection. It can give rise to meaningful discussion and allow space for ideas to flourish between teams. 

When we underpin our work with knowledge and combine this with coaching methodology we can look at the root causes of problems and the magic can start to happen. 

Coaching is still a reasonably new area and is constantly developing. I want to be very clear that coaching is not therapy - although it does use a lot of the same tools. The relationship between the coach and coachee must be built on rapport, trust and confidentiality to be effective.

You may be familiar with the acronym GROW (Goal, Reality, Options, Way forward) which was developed by Sir John Whitmore in the 1980s as a model of coaching. Since then there have been lots of models created that can be used for different types of coaching, you don’t have to stick with one because people aren’t all the same!
As well as coaching models, a successful coach will also be conscious of the different levels of listening and how learning styles impact on your coaching and how to be more adaptable to the needs of those you are working with.

At Matter we use a non-directive coaching style which relies on the idea that we already know the answers to problems within ourselves. The coach’s job is to be genuinely curious, to actively listen, ask probing, open questions and provide feedback/observations when appropriate. This supports the coachee to search for those answers and develop plans to achieve goals, exploring obstacles along the way. In order for coaching to be effective we must trust that the people we help know what issues they want to resolve and that they can find solutions. After all, aren't we more likely to engage with a solution we found for ourselves than one that is forced upon us?

In our sector we may not always coach in the traditional sense, because each day isn’t straightforward and the people we see are often facing complex and emergent problems; but using the concepts of coaching can help staff teams and service users in areas such as setting boundaries, becoming less action focussed and listening, help tackle limiting belief systems, support people to make different choices and to help encourage accountability in ourselves and ours service users.

When we move away from saviour mode and encourage people that they do know the answers and can make their own choices, we empower them to face problems with our support but eventually have the confidence to move forward without us. In my work I have used coaching methodology to support people with debt, addiction, seeking medical care, tenancy management and accessing social groups to ease loneliness.
Coaching shouldn’t be needed forever and will be dependent on the individual’s needs but together you can create a plan of action that will help to achieve goals.

Coaching sessions provide space for accountability with opportunity for review and discussion about what worked well and what didn’t go to plan. Coaching allows us to re-evaluate how our support works best for each individual and not having a one size fits all approach. Some people may not be ready for coaching and may need a more action led approach and this is fine but we can still use the methodology to empower people to live a life that is good enough. 

We aren’t saying that every session you have with your service user will have a miracle outcome but using coaching techniques can (over time) help us and our service users to identify obstacles, make different choices and tackle issues that we may not have been brave enough to deal with before. It can reduce the day to day fire fighting and it can help us to step away from work each day knowing that we have done the best that we can with the tools that we have. This combined approach works best when there is a golden thread of support throughout an organisation and management can identify appropriate coaching opportunities for staff too. It can also support a positive culture of conversation and listening, with more inclusive policies and the wellbeing of staff and service users aren’t considered secondary to company performance. 

When we combine clinical psychology and coaching we leave ourselves open to learning and developing. We can tackle problems knowing that we have the answers within ourselves but also we don’t presume to know the answers for others.
Most importantly the combination of knowledge and actions can build better relationships and services for ourselves and the people that need us the most.