Understanding Person-Centred Coaching: Growth through self-discovery
If you’re looking for a careers coach, you may come across the phrase “person centred”. What does this mean?
Person centred coaching is an approach that comes from the world of psychotherapy, and was developed by the psychologist Carl Rogers. It places importance on self-exploration and acceptance. Through developing a good idea of who you are, you’ll be able to be fully yourself, minimise influence from others and feel empowered to chart your path forwards.
This is different from, for example, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which is framed around identifying and challenging unhelpful beliefs and behaviours. In CBT, knowing yourself isn’t required – just knowing how to change the way you think about certain things.
In person-centred coaching, the relationship and interaction between counsellor (or in our case, the careers coach) and client is seen as important. Rogers defined six “core conditions” which need to be in place for change to happen:
The client and coach are effectively communicating with each other (known as “in psychological contact”)
The client is in a state of incongruence. This means that there’s a difference between where you are at the moment, and where you’d like to be (it’s this that has brought you to see the coach!)
The coach is authentically present – i.e. the coach is being themselves, and not hiding behind a professional facade, for example.
The coach has unconditional positive regard for a client. This basically means that the coach is completely accepting of you as a person. Whilst they might call you out on some of your choices or decisions, they believe that you are a fundamentally decent human.
The coach experiences empathy for the client. They might show this by reflecting back or summarising what you’ve said.
The communication has been successful to the extent that you are aware of the coach’s empathy and unconditional positive regard, and you feel understood. It’s important that you feel that you matter to the coach, and are not just another appointment to them.
Rogers holds that if all of these conditions are in place, change will inevitably happen.
Person-centred coaching is an approach, rather than a set of techniques. That said, in a session you might experience some of the following:
Client-Centred Goal Setting: The coach is likely to ask you what you want to get out of the session(s) that you have together. While they might help you to define your goals, ultimately it’s you who will decide what you want to work on (rather than them telling you).
A non-directive approach: A client centred approach holds that it’s you who is the best person to come up with ideas and goals for yourself. That means that the coach is not going to tell you what you should do. This might feel like the exact opposite of what you’re looking for: it’s likely that you’ve come to a coach because you’ve been struggling on your own! But you’ve been thinking about your issues a lot, whilst the coach can only ever get a snapshot of your thoughts. Any ideas you come up with are likely to be better than ones that they generate for you. What a coach can do is to help you to structure your thinking, explore options, and to provide you with the support you need to make a decision and move forward. And also remember that unconditional positive regard? The coach believes that you do have the ability to resolve your issues, and is there to empower you to do so.
There’s likely to be more space for reflection and thinking than in a normal conversation. In general conversation, we often finish each other’s sentences, or reply as soon as we’ve got the gist of what they’re saying. Our thinking tends to be fairly quick. Conversation is likely to be slower in person centred coaching. Your coach is likely to leave time for you to think about what you’ve just said They’re also likely to reflect back to you, or summarise
A person-centred approach assumes that we all have a drive to grow, develop and improve our lives. Your coach will look to provide you with the support in order to move forward.