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THE NATURE OF GESTALT COACHING AND THERAPY

The nature of Gestalt coaching and therapy: a personal analysis

Paul Barber

Abstract

This article describes a reflective inquiry into the respective natures of coaching and therapy through examination
of my practice as a coach and therapist. To help capture and compare the influences at play a heuristic inquiry is
used to illuminate what I experienced as different in both domains. Intervention styles are contrasted in each area
and field analysis is performed to summarise findings.

Introduction

Over the past twenty years I’ve spent a good deal of time applying Gestalt to personal development
and professional education, facilitation training, organisational consultancy and team-building – areas
more commonly associated with coaching. These days as many coaches and organisational
consultants employ me as a shadow-consultant and supervisor as do therapists. But I had never
seriously considered: ‘How coaching and therapy differ?’ or ‘How might each demand a differing
facilitative presence?’ With these questions in mind I set out about exploring my performance coaching
and therapy.

To help answer these queries I employed the lens of heuristic inquiry (after Moustakas 1990) which
invites us into the following phases:

 Initial engagement: the inquirer embarks on a deep personal questioning of what precisely they wish to
investigate in order to awaken interest and passion;

 Immersion: the inquirer lives, dreams and merges with the research question in the hope of appreciating intimate
experiential and intellectual effects of the field;

 Incubation: the researcher allows the inner workings of intuition to extend their tacit understanding as new insights
percolate to awareness;

 Illumination: the inquirer reviews all their data plus that of co-researchers to expand awareness, identify hidden
meanings and refine what is in emergence until the ‘research product’ forms a comprehensive fit with experience;
 Explication: the inquirer attempts to examine all what has awakened in consciousness in an attempt to capture
the layers of meaning that surround the subject, inclusive of the universal qualities and the deeper meanings that
contribute to its phenomenological whole;

 Creative synthesis: the inquirer integrates their findings, inclusive of arguments for and against the particular
propositions surfaced, with a view appreciating the real significance of what people actually experience.

Akin to Gestalt, heuristic inquiry mines into personal experience to illuminate our phenomenological
reality; it is partial, relational and illuminates knowledge from out awareness born of passion and
presence. Armed with this frame I began an electronic diary and jotted down observations, notes from
readings and snatches of conversations with co-researchers (clients/colleagues), inclusive of dreams,
meditations, thoughts and feelings relating to my research questions.

Below are a few of the more significant reflections of my 18 month journey.

Initial engagement

Continuing my usual engagements as coach and therapist I noticed a renewed curiosity plus a jumble
of blurred memories arise:

“I realise I used to see coaching as a pale reflection of therapy. As ‘feelings’ were not kosher in the
business community I suspected therapy had been dressed up as coaching! That coaching was a ruse.
Later in my career I saw coaching as an educational intervention. But at root, such was my therapeutic
bias I deemed coaching at worst a superficial scratching of the surface, and at best akin to training. Since
this time I have noticed a more positive value creeping in – proportionate to the degree I have reviled
therapy’s elitism and begun to appreciate coaching’s ‘normalising’ of the helping relationship.”

These earlier impressions brought with them current conflicts:

“Pendulum-like I find myself swinging between the negative and positive views of coaching and therapy
alike. I note I am passionate around being more ordinary with my clients, more transparent about myself,
my life and selfhood. The flavour of Gestalt I support is heavily influenced by principles of humanism
(empowerment, experiential learning, holism and authenticity) and therapeutic community practice
(democracy, communalism, permissiveness and reality confrontation); I have also found I can befriend
certain coaching clients and still be effective in a therapeutic way.”

I am aware here of my questioning of established therapeutic introjects and a desire to normalise

rather than to mystify therapy while honouring humanism and aligning myself with ‘individual health’.

Immersion

As I progressed more vivid memories and intuitions jumped out and I re-surfaced a latent store of
‘experiential knowing’:
 “Mining deeper into my history I’m reviewing how I ‘become’ a coach. I remember teaching an
MSc in Change which drew consultants and organisational change agents. ‘Coaching’ was a
term they introduced to me. It had a performance-centred and prescriptive connotation. (…)
Coaching and therapy appeared to me as different as chalk and cheese, and I looked down on
coaching. While therapy was holistic, coaching seemed to remain largely focused upon the
world of ‘facts’ – the so-called ‘real world’. As my consultancy role grew organisational clients
started to request coaching of me. As I’d taught personal development and group facilitation for
many years I accepted the invite. I was emergent and holistic in my coaching style, informed by
Gestalt, group analysis and attentive to field dynamics (...) Nevertheless the coaching I
provided felt more contractual than therapy or group facilitation. All this was in the early 1980’s.
Nine years later coaching was defined by Warren Bennis (1989) as giving advice or feedback
that may improve the performance of the recipient while maintaining her or his self-esteem. The
person as well as their behaviour had entered the frame (…) Then I started to teach coaching I
felt at home with Timothy Gallwey’s (2001) description of coaching as the art of creating an
environment through conversation and a way of being, one that facilitates the process by which
a person can move toward desired goals in a fulfilling manner. As the cultural field caught up
with my Gestalt biases I settled more comfortably into becoming a coach.”

In the above I note my rocky transition from therapist to therapist-coach.

Incubation

“Writing two or more months well within the incubation phase intuitions still percolate thick and fast. l
realise I often forget when I’m a coach or therapist, and after the initial orientation I just respond to what is
surfacing. Yet there is nevertheless a qualitative difference. Therapy is more regular, more holding, more
intimate and intense; coaching a little more objectified, socially and culturally defined and contractual. I am
more likely to be surprised in therapy, to meet with confusion more powerfully, to feel at the mercy of
processes I am but dimly aware of, to be led by my uncertainty and by influences over and above me – it
is more spiritual. And coaching, well I guess I feel more educational, clearer in my intention and more
useful in a practical, male, action-based and problem-solving way!”

I started now to consider the in-between of coaching-therapy:

“I am mindful of some coaching clients who re-negotiated a therapeutic relationship, as if coaching opened
the door to a deeper level of address, but few if any who moved from therapy into coaching. This said, in
therapy groups coaching-like interventions can proliferate when we address ‘how to’ questions, field
feedback from group members or rehearse new strategies (…) I note a recent trio of highly successful
coaching clients who expressed therapeutic needs: ‘feeling deadened and bored with life’; ‘losing a sense
of purpose’; ‘wondering what the point of it all is?’ Coaching is seemingly being equated with therapy in
some business quarters.”

Illumination
 “As I review everything I’d previously written about coaching and therapy, rummage through teaching
notes and speak to past and present clients, especially those who moved from coaching into therapy or
came for therapy after first experiencing me in as a tutor, fresh connections arise (…) Both during and
after client contact I find myself returning to my research questions and reflecting ‘How similar is this act of
coaching to therapy?’ and vice versa, plus ‘How different or alike are my interventions in these areas?’”

Gradually, from out of my notes and reflections the following emerges in answer to my questions:

A comparative profile of the journey through coaching and therapy

In the pre-contact phase in coaching and therapy word of mouth referral from current or past clients
is the usual point of entry, though coaching clients appear more drawn by my association
management training and business associations.

In the orientation phase of the coaching relationship a pressure of talk prevails, (…) clients seem to
enter trusting my CV and supposed expertise; while in therapy emotional silences figure large and
trust is gradually built rather than taken for granted and stems from moment to moment assessment of
how accepting and respectful I am of their intimate sharing; they appear more attuned to my
empathetic response.

During the identification phase coaching clients ask many questions and give an abundance of work
related detail – they seem eager to impress and to be understood; they are attuned to socio-
conventional notions of reality and the world of facts, trusting of the status quo and clear as to ‘how
they will use me’ – they set agendas and I am often one of a battery of motivators, business coaches
and marketing agents they employ. Therapy clients, conversely, seem more prepared to feel their way
– don’t know how I can help but seem relieved to be talking about their issues. They are heavily
influenced by their emotional world and may be trapped in powerful imaginative projections; they are
unsure of themselves, unclear to what they need and in the grip of forces unknown.

In the exploration phase coaching clients continue to demonstrate a need to over-inform me and
focus on specific events – they strive to intellectually understand and emotional and projective material
is secondary – though this emerges in time. Self-esteem remains high and they look to increase skills
and insight with a view to developing ‘increased expertise’. I feel myself objectified and serving an
educative purpose, like a consultant being consulted. The individual’s sense of competence remains
intact. As a practitioner I often feel peer-like, instructive and collegiate. My intellect and sense-making
are readily involved and social reality is clearly in view. Clients are outwardly directed and we often co-
create strategic ways forward for application in the workplace. Movement is rapid, action comes first
and integration much later. Intellectually I feel informed by the client, emotionally less so. In terms of
the interventions I use these are primarily clarifying and challenging in the beginning with supportive
interventions coming somewhat later in the journey – as if I’m attempting to wake them up! Function
and performance inform the culture we co-create. Therapy clients speak reluctantly as if haunted by
intangibles and strive to emotionally accept their experiences; they are often heavily influenced by
emotional and/or projective levels of experience – simply they are in crisis. They are often
dysfunctional before re-gaining self-support, as the full impact of what was previous beyond
awareness arises, impacts and demands emotional release. As a practitioner I feel protective of the
vulnerable individual before me. I am intimately connected to my client and feel deeply respectful of
their process. My emotions and intuition are to the fore as I struggle to hear the unsaid and meet with
the tacit influences we are addressing. We experiment with crafting support for the individual beyond
the therapeutic hour. Movement is often slow. Understanding comes second to emotional integration
and I feel emotionally met. My interventions are mainly clarifying and supportive at the beginning with
challenging ones coming later. Respect and sensitivity to the human condition inform the prevailing
culture.

In the resolution phase as we debrief upon our time together; in coaching our journey of discovery is
readily discernable and easily described. After 6 months to 2 years when the client has explored what
they originally came for or need, they move on – or more rarely if they have surfaced an additional or
emotional menu they might re-negotiate a new contract. Clients often rate the success of our work
through newly won promotions or contracts and/or newly developed competences and/or skills and
improvements in team relationships. The journey through therapy is less tangible and more resistive to
verbalisation. After 3 – 5 years when they feel sufficiently self-supporting they leave therapy and/or
join a group to further integrate their identity and self-support. Clients often rate the success of therapy
in relational terms, self with self or self with others, plus their ability to withstand emotional pressures
and climates that previously over-awed them.

As for post-contact, coaching clients regularly return as new challenges arise in their work life. Many
leave their place of work within 18 months of completing coaching, Then again, Gestalt – in keeping
with much humanistic therapy I believe frees-up options and builds energy for ‘potential’ to be fulfilled
– and thus promotes individual change. Therapeutic clients return less regularly.

Explication

With a tacit model of the coaching and therapeutic relationship I now set about testing and checking-
out my experience against that of others. Valuable insights were received from ex-clients who read the
above synopsis and volunteered feedback. S, someone who initially met me in a teaching capacity,
subsequently came to me for coaching and much later switched to group therapy, wrote:

“When I talk to people about you, I tend to: first share your credentials, say who are you, how
are you qualified, what have you achieved (…) second, I give some of your story - psychiatric
nurse, worked on tug boats, lecturer and course designer, written books, runs groups, goes on
trips to foreign climes to train; third, I give an insight into your qualities – (…) easy to
understand, no magic, peer like, humanistic. When I think about this I think it’s because, people
are interested in results first, proof of those results second and lastly whether the person is a fit.
(…) we also have a culture of people with low social skills at the top of the tree (Alex Ferguson,
Alan Sugar, Gordon Ramsay to name a few). I've struggled in jobs where I moved to a new
 boss that had a different style that I found overly controlling or punishing, so you represent an
antidote to that.”

Typical of those from a coaching background, S looks mainly to external criteria. He suggests people
in his circle are primarily ‘interested in results’, ‘proof of results’ and ‘fit’ to the task at hand. But in
follow-up interview he confirmed that for him ‘the person’ and ‘presence’ of a coach and how they
handled ‘authority’ were important. He volunteered that he had experienced a critical and shaming
father and was sensitised to negative authority. As for the time when he finally realised he needed
therapy and his transition into the same, he observed:

“I always thought it was largely up to me, that given the right information and skills I could get
out of depression – I was coming from a life skill and coaching stance. But then I spoke to my
sister and realised how screwed up she’d been and she admitted she’d had years of therapy, I
then realised how much I’d forgotten and how I couldn’t coach my way out of it”.

S noted in interview that when starting therapy things got worse, that he was travelling deeper into his
depression but, interestingly, coming out of it quicker. ‘Therapy’ had been largely off his radar until he
spoke to his sister. After speaking to her it was something for people like him.

N, another rarity, one who had experienced me as a workshop tutor and coach before entering group
therapy, added the following:

“Having experienced you in both modes I would agree that these descriptions accurately reflect
how I have found those sessions/workshops. Reading the descriptions help me understand
what is happening for you as the prime ‘holder of the space’ be it in coaching or therapy mode
and what it is that you are doing. The one additional observation/hunch I might add is how
deeply your practice is informed by your nursing background. My sense is that the emotional
labour and therapeutic presence/being which lie at the heart of nursing merit a mention as key
ingredients of what informs your practice (rather than - to force a distinction-the intellectual
categorisation and intervention focus that could be said to be the domain of doctoring/doing).”

K, a participant on a workshop who subsequently joined a therapy group, volunteered: “I was gob-
smacked on your coaching and counselling workshop with how you coached. Blew my mind away. I
thought I want some that”. As to what exactly ‘blew his mind’ this appeared to be a combination of
‘attentiveness to what was unfolding’, my ‘following of minuscule cues of bodily response’ plus my
‘volunteering of what I was thinking and imagining’. This reminds me that skills common to Gestalt
may be seen as rarities in a business community, and that naïve clients may fail to distinguish
between the singer and the song.

Relating to the ‘success-mindedness’ of my coaching clients, I was reminded recently by a consulting

colleague that the reason Z, another consultant, rated me highly was because I had the trappings of
success: “…a big house, international clients, had written a book and drove a luxury car”.
Having gone some way to distinguish between coaching and therapy I now mined deeper into my
second research question: ‘the differing facilitative presence demanded by coaching and therapy’.

Using John Heron’s ‘Six Category Intervention Analysis’ (2001 and 1989), which differentiates
between two modes of facilitating, an authoritative style where a facilitator is seen as task-centred and
giving advice (prescribes), instructs and interprets (informs), challenges blind-spots and gives direct
feedback (confronts); plus a facilitative style where the facilitator enables a client to release emotional
tension (cathartic), promotes self-directed problem solving (catalytic) and approves and affirms the
clients worth (supportive). Placing the above intervention categories into a ‘frequency of use’ profile it
became possible to weight the influences within my facilitation style. In coaching and therapeutic
workshops where live coaching and therapy was offered as part of training, I first profiled myself then
received participant’s profiles of me, before discussing the same in plenary. Eventually the following
emerged:

Coaching:

Un-Informative 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Informative

Un-Prescriptive 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Prescriptive

Un-Confronting 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Confronting

Un-Cathartic 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Cathartic

Un-Catalytic 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Catalytic

Un-Supportive 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Supportive

Therapy:

Un-Informative 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Informative

Un-Prescriptive 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Prescriptive

Un-Confronting 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Confronting

Un-Cathartic 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Cathartic

Un-Catalytic 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Catalytic

Un-Supportive 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Supportive
My notes at the time record:

“I’m surprised by how informative and educational my coaching facilitation appears. But wonder
how much of this is due to ‘how I believe coaching should be’? I will watch myself more closely
for clarity here. I’m comfortable with high confrontation as I suspect this is connected to the
challenging of blind spots (…) Thankfully catalytic interventions directed towards illuminating
insight also figure large, which suggests I endeavour to help people find their own solutions. I
note I’m less supportive than I believed, and that in regard to the shadow side of coaching,
cathartic interventions seem particularly underused, while my profile in therapy suggests
cathartic and supportive interventions figure more frequently, suggesting to me a more person-
centred style”.

Subsequent discussion with colleagues, current and ex-clients confirmed that my facilitation became
progressively challenging as the facilitative relationship developed, and was more supportive initially.
Generally, my facilitation appeared to be more client-centred in therapy and more process-centred and
developing of relational skills in coaching.

Overall, my suspicions seem supported re my tendency to be educative and authoritative in coaching

and less so in therapy. At later stages of coaching confronting seemed to retain its frequency but
supportive and cathartic interventions increased, suggesting my coaching might edge into more
therapeutic territory over time. Conversely, as therapy progressed I was perceived as more
confronting and informative, suggesting therapy might edge into the normalising territory of coaching
before it ended – possibly as the client began to ‘take back transference’? This seemed to support the
thesis that my facilitation brings what is out of awareness into awareness in both modalities.

Reflecting more generally upon the influence of Gestalt informed facilitation, my journal records:

“I guess Gestalt in its loosening of the social world and attention to the whole does much to
arouse a client from unconscious incompetence (where they see no reason to change and are
unaware of the options) to conscious incompetence (where they are awakened to new
challenges of learning), then onwards to a stage of conscious competence (where they feel
encouraged to practice new skill or entertain a different reality) and thus to a stage of
unconscious competence (where they can integrate a new way of being). It appears to me that
this process is primarily experiential and non-verbal in therapy and more cognitive in coaching?”

The use of this intervention profile comes with a caution: facilitators can only profile their ‘intentions’ –
it is recipients who report the ‘effects’; the profile says nothing about a facilitator’s authentic presence
or interest in their client – core ingredients of Gestalt; although ‘interventions’ appear distinct they
shade one into the another, for instance, non-verbally, a facilitator might be ‘supportive’, ‘catalytic’ in
their felt presence, yet ‘challenging’ in tone of voice, ‘informative’ in content but ‘cathartic’ or
‘prescriptive’ in how they are received! Interestingly, silences were initially seen by coaching clients as
confronting, although largely supportive in therapy. I suspect silence confronts the ‘task agenda’ of a
coaching audience, but is possibly perceived as a ‘permission-giving’ in therapy.

Creative synthesis

To integrate the totality of my awareness to date I used questions derived from field theoretical
principles after Parlett (1991) to encapsulate my findings:

A field analysis of coaching and therapy

How are people and events organised (Organisation)?

Coaching Therapy

Coaching is heavily embedded in Therapy is heavily embedded in

the social world and largely process-directed. the emotional world and robustly client-centred.
Education and expediency rather than deep Personal growth and self-understanding
self understanding or intense experiential through the deepest of inquiries into self is
inquiry is expected. Social conventions are expected, as is a gradual return to health.
accepted by the client rather than challenged, Conventions and un-healthy norms are
though options within the prevailing culture are challenged within a supportive relationship.
explored, i.e. although formal role-based Reality is informed by the prevailing emotional
behaviours are appraised they are generally atmosphere carried in by the client. Familial
held as beyond question. Reality is initially roles and emotional patterns are examined with
developed from out a review and investigation a view to illuminating current behaviour. Naïve
into ‘what works best’ and ‘what is not working’ clients often associate therapists with doctors
– focussed primarily upon the work-place. and project out similarly
Coaches are often associated with tutors and authoritative transferences and/or projections.
teachers or subject specialists. Clients come Clients expect relief from their symptoms and
expecting knowledge. The client’s own gauge success in emotional terms. The
professional needs and specialist knowledge- therapist’s therapeutic school does much to set
base shape what is offered. Clients are often the relational tone. Confidentiality is expected
drawn to coaches who evidence success. as a professional given. Therapists are
Confidentiality is negotiated as appropriate and recommended by family or friends due to their
an exploratory and educative culture is perceived personal qualities. An intimate
cultivated. The facilitative relationship tends culture of care is cultivated. The facilitative
towards being both authoritative and facilitative relationship tends to be high in cathartic and
in style with a high ratio of informative and supportive interventions and to echo a nurturing
catalytic interventions. parental one.
How do current influences explain behaviour (contemporeneity)?

Therapy
Coaching

Clients look for support and understanding and

Coaches expect a work-facing focus and bring
generally come prepared to gradually let go of
an expectation of ‘the coach as expert’. The
emotions they have previously withheld. The
client often seeks to adapt more successfully to
social world and its conventional roles are
the social world and status quo they work
teased apart and deconstructed to liberate new
within. An appreciative inquiry into what works
health promoting ones. A phenomenological
best is often undertaken. Formality and values
inquiry into the individual’s human condition is
associated with the performance culture of the
undertaken where earlier behaviours may be
workplace tend initially to skew attention
evoked and prior parent-child dynamics emerge
towards conventional notions of ‘progress’,
for exploration and redress. Learning is often
learning and training. Initially, a learning menu
experiential, emotional in character and tends
may be consciously decided, negotiated and
to percolate to consciousness later rather than
pursued in a strategic way. There may be a
sooner. So much non-verbal or preverbal
flight towards premature closure and
learning is at play the client needs to stay within
understanding by the client. A coach’s
their experience than rush to make sense of it.
professional/therapeutic discipline exerts a
powerful influence upon what transpires.

How do unique influences impact current situations (singularity)?

Coaching Therapy

A client often enters with a mind-set alive to a A client tends to enter at a time of distress with
specific situation within their current working a unique emotional agenda that has developed
practice. Ideas of function and performance over many years. Idiosyncratic notions of
which are shaped by the individual’s unique life dysfunction and health are often to the fore
history may be to the fore but go largely along with re-stimulated earlier
unrecognised. The unstated likes and dislikes autobiographical events. The clients
of the coach and client although un-discussed transference and therapists counter-
nevertheless shape events. Developmentally transference are apt to exert a powerful
the coach-client relationship has similarities to influence. Developmentally the relationship
an adolescent to adult or father to son feels initially very young and dependent and
mentoring one. The evolving coach-client gradually matures and deepens as the work
relationship enables us to appreciate how progresses. The developing therapist-client
communication may be valuing of the person relationship co-creates a unique opportunity to
and mindful of what constitutes excellence in re-write the earliest of our emotional and
communication. behavioural scripts.

What is in the process of becoming (changing process)?

Therapy
Coaching

Movement from emotional conflict to self-

The initial focus upon ‘the problem’ gives way
support and self-acceptance are supported. An
to a wider and deepening understanding of self
appreciation of the influence of family and
and the emotional and social worlds the client
societal structures upon the self often surfaces.
is embedded within. An appreciation of the self
Exploration and illumination of the human
in a team dynamic or organisational community
condition, self actualisation and the potential to
is heightened. Illumination of the dynamics and
become a fully functioning human being in the
skills of social communication are explored.
world is on-going – in this way personal
Expanding awareness to what is tacit and
development and human growth is supported.
hidden from consciousness is on-going. The
Clients may work at a pre-verbal level upon
meaning of work and its place in a balanced life
issues of trust and belonging. As support is
is under constant review.
given and accepted and as the presenting
issue that brought them to therapy subsides,
As time progresses what was previously denied
clients come to accept themselves and their
or unrecognised begins to enter awareness,
emotional life as normal. By the close of
which allows emotional and projective levels of
therapy clients often report feeling more
engagement to be explored. By the close of
hopeful, self-supporting, and tolerant towards
coaching clients often report being better
self and better resourced.
equipped to manage themselves, their work
and their relationships with others.

What are we blind to or excluding (possible relevance)?

Coaching Therapy

Deeper emotional and psychological levels of Worldly issues relating to every-day life are
address are initially avoided. Spirituality and often displaced in favour of investigation of
transcendent aspects of the human condition what is personal and unique. The therapist’s
are not usually accounted for. Philosophical deepest concerns and anxieties are usually off
considerations of the meaning of life and our agenda. What the therapist reveals in their
existential position in the universe, plus our clinical supervision about the client and the
deepest feelings around death and our most client reveals to their friends remains largely
intimate relationships often go unreported, unknown. Much more occurs at the non-verbal
though these nevertheless shape reality. and out of awareness level than verbally and
Covert influences are largely denied in favour overtly. Simple solutions and educational
of what can be identified and readily remedies tend to be less evident than
understood. The importance and influence of experiential exploration. Clients are
our inner emotional life is often bracketed-off. encouraged to act into feelings rather than
Clients often prefer to make sense of feelings make sense of them. While eliciting the client’s
rather than to engage them. While the coach is own resources the therapist increases their
educating the client to healthier adaptation the own appreciation of the person before them,
client is educating the coach to the pressures, along with the human condition in general; in
structures and demands of the commercial this way we in turn are nourished through
world within a specific organisational setting. intimate contact and communication with our
clients.

Writing this article also served integration in this final phase of inquiry.

Epilogue

Looking outwards to the coaching literature this inquiry adds support to observations that many in the
business community might see coaching as an alternative to psychotherapy (Garman, Whiston and
Zlatoper 2000), but I disagree with these authors that this because it is seen as a ‘quick inexpensive’
option and more to do with the business community being uninformed about psychotherapy.

Observations of Sperry (1996) relating to the difference of coaching and therapy are also broadly
supported, namely that coaching is present and future focussed, action-orientated and growth and
skills centred (though this picture changes in the longer term) and that therapy is reflection orientated
and pathology centred, confidentiality clearer and fixed and that personality issues are usually worked
through. In later work Sperry (2004) draws a distinction between the mind-set of: Coach = proactive,
practical, energetic and optimistic, strategic, non-psychologically minded; Therapist = supportive,
interpretive, serious, reparative, directly and intentionally psychologically minded; Coach-Therapist =
active and facilitative, listens without interpretation, strategic, indirectly psychologically minded. The
latter I believe best describes what I do.

Personally, I remain cold towards notions of coaching which strive uncritically to communicate the
organisation’s purpose, vision and goals (O’Neil 2000), or cite it as primarily designed to remove
obstacles to business practice (Goldsmith, Lyons and Freas 2000), which reek of mentorship and
fitting clients into ‘the system’ – irrespective of the health of the said system! Personally, I tend to
describe what I do as ‘emergent coaching’ – as this describes how Gestalt informed practice works.
Though there are excellent business and managerial coaches around this is not the direction Gestalt
takes me as a coach.

What I’ve begun to suspect is that field conditions sculpt the natures of coaching and counselling.
Individuals walk in attuned to different realities, presenting different needs and expecting different
things and my Gestalt presence feeds positively into this mix. As our dialogical inquiry and relationship
matures my default facilitative style high in supportive, challenging and catalytic interventions
eventually emerges. So what might I do differently? Nothing! But I am mindful of what I do and hold my
biases are more gently. In this summary I feel I’ve arrived at an approximation of ‘my truth’. But any
model is a mere shadow of the whole, a metaphor created to get at another metaphor.

At the close of this study I am left acutely aware of the respective benefits of coaching and therapy,
plus their suitability to differing worlds. Both coaching and therapy offer valid interventions into differing
dimensions of the human condition. I believe more than ever that Gestalt, with its ability to illuminate
awareness and to facilitate phenomenological inquiry makes an enormous and valuable contribution to
coaching by bringing authenticity and exploration to the fore. Glibly, many years ago I compared
‘coaching’ to ‘therapy’ in motor-bike terms – ‘coaching’ was akin to servicing an engine and changing
the oil, while ‘therapy’ was comparable to stripping down and re-building the engine! Now I’m not so
sure.

Personally, as I draw to the close of this inquiry I am clearer as to what I do as a coach and therapist,
clear as to the respective terrain of coaching and therapy and how similar and different I am in both
places. I am more integrated although nothing has externally changed – before enlightenment
chopping wood and carrying water, after enlightenment chopping wood and carrying water (Zen
saying).

Knowledge is a superstition supported by culture. As I believe the more we define something the more
we loose it, whatever happens I endeavour to keep my impressions personal, felt and open-ended.
And your job as reader is to compare and contrast my experience with your own and to climb beyond
my assumptions to liberate your own experiential wisdom.
References

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