All about Coaching – ITP Style
ITP Offers New Global Certificate in Coaching
Coaching of all varieties has exploded over the past ten years. Life coaching in particular is attractive to many because it's proactive and delivers positive results. As the popularity of life coaching grows, more people are starting to ask, "What is life coaching, and how does it differ from therapy?"
"Coaching is the latest trend, and I wanted to know what it was all about," says Paula Casella, a recent graduate of ITP's new Global coaching program.
Coaching main information page
Life coaching is much like coaching sports. In sports the goals are clear and the techniques to accomplish them are learned by those playing them. The players attempt to perform as required, while the coach reviews the techniques with them, making sure they practice the right actions to accomplish the desired results. During a game, the coach watches to see if the proper techniques are applied, and motivates the players to perform them. The coach may also discover, and help the player overcome, any self-limiting beliefs.
Unlike therapy, coaching is directive, generative, and results oriented. Therapy often focuses on unresolved issues from the past, which affect an individual's personality and behavior in the present. Rather than looking into the past to understand the present, coaching takes the client from the present moment forward. "As coaches, we're looking at what obstacles the client is putting in the way of achieving the outcomes they say they want," says Dr. Rosie Kuhn (PhD '01), coach, therapist, and facilitator of ITP's Global Coaching Certificate program. "We deal only with the functional aspects of an individual… with accountability and integrity. Therapy is more about strengthening ego identity to help the client to become functional."
Coaching works mainly with the conscious mind, and it works well with people who are eager to move to a higher level of functioning. These individuals seek focus and strategies and are motivated to act on their own behalf toward desired outcomes. They are willing to design their future, learn new skills, and seek more balance in their lives. They are willing to be courageous in the face of the unknown.
The client/coach relationship is cooperative. The client directs the focus, while the coach shares the tools that will evoke action on the part of the client. The intention is to generate new interpretations of how the client sees themselves in their life and in the world. Interpretations create thoughts, feeling, behaviors, actions and results – those we want and those we don't want. Through the process of shifting interpretations we can shift the qualities of being we bring into any situation or environment. This evokes inspiration and transformation and enables the client to realize his or her desires.
"What I liked most about ITP's coaching program is that it offered me a very applicable skill while honoring the transpersonal nature of our field," says Casella. "As a teacher I tell people about facts. As a consultant I recommend, offer specific suggestions, and am heavily immersed in the process and outcome. As a Transpersonal Coach I am an agent facilitating the process so that the group or individual has full accountability for the process and outcome."
Coaching, as taught at ITP at least, has a very spiritual aspect. "Is the client willing to step into their truth? That's the spiritual aspect of it...It's goal driven, but it's faith driven too," says Rosie. As a coach, when she can get her clients to articulate what is keeping them in a holding pattern, they begin to see how that choice is creating their reality. For transformation to occur, the client must be willing to engage in the conversation of how they're creating/attracting what's showing up in their lives. Their willingness to practice something different, to let go of the known for the unknown, is the spiritual aspect. Coaching supports people to take risks, to take that leap of faith.
For more information about ITP's Global Coaching Certificate Program, including cost and registration information, contact us at the ITP Admissions office, global.admissions@itp.edu, (650) 493.4430, extension 240, or go to the coaching main information page.
