Coaching Today, January 2012 Issue 1
For counsellor-coaches and other coaching professionals

Editorial

Welcome to the launch edition of Coaching Today. When I was appointed as editor for this, BACP’s 7th and newest divisional journal, I was aware that, along with representing the voice of BACP Coaching division, the key role of this publication would be to provide a fresh forum for discussion, debate and knowledge-sharing in this wonderfully diverse and rapidly changing profession of ours.

Any new publication on coaching launched today has to acknowledge and celebrate the breadth, depth and rich variety of the coaching world. It also has to take into account that, as a profession, there is still much debate around what coaching actually is, how it is used and how we differentiate it from counselling, psychotherapy and other therapeutic interventions. Finally, it has to acknowledge that, as a platform for debate and discussion and sharing of best practice, it will most likely ask more questions than it answers, which seems somehow apt for a coaching journal.

I hope that you will agree that in this first issue, we have the coaching conversation off to a good start. In two leading articles, Chair of BACP Coaching Linda Aspey and BACP’s CEO Laurie Clarke each tell the story of BACP’s relationship to coaching and the emergence of the coaching division from their own unique standpoints. Kate Anthony and DeeAnna Nagel of the Online Coach Institute look at the implications of advances in technology and the practice and ethics of using new technologies in your coaching practice. Elsewhere, we explore the issues of resilience and boundaries in relation to coaching and therapy, and also that between coach and client in articles by coach and psychotherapist Sarah Briggs, executive coaches Duncan Coppock and Marion Gillie and coach supervisors Benita Treanor and Liz Ford. We feature contributions from coaches, coach-therapists and other practitioners working in a variety of contexts – from private practice to HR and management to education and healthcare – using a variety of approaches, ranging from Gestalt therapy to positive psychology.

This is your resource, created for you. Use it to communicate with each other – your peers, your colleagues, those entering the field from counselling and psychotherapy and other related professions, as well as those of you who are coming to this journal from an entirely different background. Your contributions – your articles, your letters, your news, your views, your ideas, your dilemmas, your challenges, your successes – are all welcome and will help shape the future of this journal, the division and the profession itself. As our Chair Linda Aspey says in her article: ‘We always knew it’s the relationship that matters…’

So as the voice of BACP Coaching and the wider coaching arena, let’s see this journal as the start of a long, lively and in-depth conversation, facilitating the relationship between each other and the profession we are part of.

I’m delighted to be on board, and I look forward to working with you all.

Diane Parker
Editor
editorial@bacpcoaching.co.uk

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