The Essence of the Coaching Relationship

As wellness and health coaching grows and organizations look for more and more cost-efficient ways to provide these services the quest is for that elusive optimal combination of efficiency and effectiveness. How to make wellness coaching scaleable to a large population remains a quandary. How long does wellness coaching take? How many sessions? How many minutes?

The temptation is to down-size. The mistake is to “dumb-size”. Bottom line is, like always, you get what you pay for. If a coaching program is not careful at maintaining quality it may degenerate into the information-based programs that coaching was designed to supplement and replace. The computer-assisted programs are just that…assistants to the real-live coach who is working with their client. Let’s remember why we went to coaching in the first place…we discovered that people change more effectively when they go through the change process with an ally. What makes that ally effective? For that I propose a small stretch over to the world of counseling psychology, which has been studying what facilitates behavioral change since it’s inception as a professional discipline.

I am a counseling psychologist and the foundation of my training was in the research that looked at what it was that allowed therapists of many different theoretical schools to get effective results. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Three academics, Robert Carkhuff, Bernard Berenson and Charles Truax took the work of Carl Rogers and made it objective enough to study through behavioral science. What they found was that regardless of what approach to therapy someone took (psychoanalytic, behavioral, gestalt, client-centered, etc.), their effectiveness came down to their ability to provide what Rogers called “the facilitative conditions of therapy”. When a therapist provided empathy, unconditional positive regard, and was authentic and genuine in their interactions with the client, the therapy worked, regardless of theoretical orientation. Since those days we have seen other research substantiate this and point to the “therapeutic relationship” as the key determinate of therapeutic effectiveness (In 2001 Hazler and Barwick summarized much of this in their book, The Therapeutic Environment:Core Conditions For Facilitating Therapy.)
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Henry David Thoreau, Charles Darwin and Anne Frank all kept journals and the world is a richer place because of it. The personal journaling that you may keep enriches your own life and can be a great companion

Being reflective through writing brings us insights we never would have achieved by simply sitting around thinking about things. We learn as well through our conversations with others but why not use all three methods for our own growth…reflective thinking, journaling and conversation with others?

One real advantage of journaling is that it is always there for you. Pen and paper, or computer keyboard readily equip us to reflect, ponder, dream, express, track, and plan. As we work on improving our lives it can also be a place where we keep track of our efforts and our progress. Self-deception is reduced when we write it down!

Knowing the power of journaling and combining it with the methodology of the Wellness Mapping 360° Wellness Coaching approach has resulted in our creation of a whole series of publications: The Paths of Wellness Guided Wellness Journals. Volume One is Your Journey to a Healthier Life. This first volume is for anyone to work on their wellness and improve their life either on their own, or preferably, working with a wellness coach individually or in a group. Subsequent volumes will be similar, but will focus on providing a guided journal for people who are facing specific health challenges such as heart issues, diabetes, arthritis, etc. It gives wellness seekers a place to put all their wellness efforts in one place, respond to powerful questions, crystallize their own well life vision, create a wellness plan and keep track of their behavior, reflect and find inspiration.

Your Journey to a Healthier Life is available through our publisher, Whole Person Associates (www.wholeperson.com) and wellness coaches and organizations can get significant quantity discounts by contacting Whole Person Associates (1-800-247-6789).
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