Coaching Today, January 2016 Issue 17
For counsellor-coaches and other coaching professionals

Editorial

A very happy new year to you all! Whether or not you are in the habit of making new year’s resolutions, this time of year often invites a process of reflection and taking stock, accepting where we are before moving forward with a focus on where we want to be. This is as true for us as practitioners as it is for our clients, and for the profession in developing therapeutic coaching practice as a whole.

As I write this, on a cold and bright day at the end of November, there’s a nip of pre-festive anticipation in the air, and a sense of gathering or harvesting resources before bedding down for the winter. In the same way, I’ve spent the past few weeks gathering together the range of contributions for this January issue, and it has struck me again how wonderfully diverse our profession is as it continues to grow, transform and expand. The range of applications of coach-therapy and integrated practice is impressive in its breadth and scope, and as I sit down to write this with my commissioning plan open before me and take in the variety of contributions featured in this issue, I waver between despair at ever identifying a cohesive theme on which to base this column, and awe and delight at the diversity in front of me.

This issue encompasses work with a range of audiences, from leaders in organisations, to children and young people, to traumatised and vulnerable populations. Our cover feature, by Erik de Haan of Ashridge Business School, explores leadership and how coaching and coach-supervision can provide a level of quality assurance for organisations in ensuring not only that our leaders and managers are ‘fit to practise’ but that our executive coaches are also aware of their own shadow when working with leaders. He also examines the consequences of remaining blind to our shadow in business through excellent case examples, and presents a compelling argument not only for coaching in organisations, but for rigorous supervision of our coaches in these settings.

From leaders in organisations, we see the effective application of therapeutic coaching with children and young people in Eleanor Patrick’s reflection on her own practice; and Denise Yusuf and Evan George also make a welcome return to Coaching Today, examining how solution-focused mentoring can be of benefit to both mentors and mentees when working with this population. Lecturer in law and criminology, Julie T Davies, shares the findings of a pilot study examining the effectiveness of a new model, utilising therapeutic coaching in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); and Ann Knights turns her attention to us, the practitioners, in the first of a two-part series looking at how we work with our own sense of impotence and omnipotence and stay in relationship with our clients through our own trials and tribulations.

With interesting developments on the horizon for us as a division as well as for the profession of therapeutic coaching and integrated practice as a whole (see our Chair’s Message), it feels a very exciting time to be involved in this work, part of a community of practitioners, exploring what it means to be a coach-therapist practitioner in the UK in 2016, with a wealth of knowledge and experience that we are developing individually and together as a group of professionals. We are each of us pioneers in our field, and we all have a contribution to make. I urge you to get involved, to make connections and collaborations, to join one of our growing networks, or to offer up an article here and share your ideas with fellow readers and other members. This is your platform – you have a voice and we want to hear it.

Wishing you a fruitful and creative 2016.

Diane Parker
Editor 
editorial@bacpcoaching.co.uk

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