Description
Book SynopsisCoaching and Mentoring: A Critical Text is a unique contribution to the field. It traces coaching influences back to pre-modern times showing connections with ‘soul healers’ of the past, taking a journey through modernity to post-modernity and making links that helps us better understand coaching today. Positioning coaching as working between the ′wounded-self′ (of therapeutic culture) and ′celebrated-self′ (of the human potential movement), it reveals four discourses that underpin contemporary coaching practice:
1. The Soul Guide Coach: coaching the ′inner-self′, focusing on values, authenticity and identity.
2. The Psy Coach: coaching the ′outer-self′, using psychological techniques to focus on personal performance and how we relate to others.
3. The Managerial Coach: coaching the ′role-self′, focusing on work, task, output and productivity.
4. The Network Coach: coaching the ′networked-self′, focusing on the wider networks in which we live and work.
This vital new book brings a fresh and critical perspective on coaching and mentoring, challenging its taken-for-granted assumptions and narratives. It is written by a practitioner-scholar, and develops an exciting vision for coaching today.
Key features:
- Accounts for the diverse influences on contemporary coaching practice
- Reveals how coaching is the new ′post-modern confessional′
- Develops a meta-theory of coaching that acts as a baseline for future developments
- Offers frames of thinking to guide coaching and mentoring practitioners and educators.
Trade Review′In my view the Psy Expert Discourse chapter is in a class by itself. The theme here is the influence of psychology and psychotherapy on coaching. The author analyses this impact by taking different current psychotherapeutic approaches as points of departure. All are strutinized in terms of strengths and weaknesses they imply for coaches′ -
Gunnela Weslander
International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching ′Finally an in-depth inquiry into coaching and why it is so popular. Coaching and Mentoring contains a profound analysis of the cultural background of coaching and reveals its dominant discourses, which makes it a must-read for experienced practitioners. This "critical text" challenges popular coaching assumptions and sets out a robust theoretical outlook for future best practice′ -
Erik de Haan
Director of Centre for Coaching, Ashridge, and Professor of Organisation Development and Coaching, VU University Amsterdam
′I see a lot of books on Coaching, and this is without doubt the most stimulating, original, thoughtful and and well-founded account... this is an authoritative, well researched, critical and appreciative account of coaching that has at its heart a profound concern for people, for social life and for the predicaments we face. It will be really helpful for anyone in coaching, for coaches and educators, for students of organization and work′ -
Professor Jonathan Gosling
Professor of Leadership Studies, University of Exeter
′Explaining that he will use ‘coaching’ to mean mentoring also, the author sets out his aims as being to account for how coaching has emerged, to develop a meta-theory, offer ‘frames of thinking’ that resource practice, and to apply an emancipatory, ethical and critical approach so practice shifts from technocratic and functional to generative and progressive. Situating coaching as a predominantly Westernised phenomenon, he explores the contemporary social dimensions of wounded self and celebrated self between which he believes coaching is positioned. He critiques both ‘selves’, describing how the psychotherapy focus has led to huge increases in those with "emotional ills", whilst New Age approaches have created a culture of entitlement′ -- Julie Hay
Table of ContentsAbout the Author Acknowledgements Introduction: Coaching - the Merger of the ′Wounded-Self′ and ′Celebrated-Self′ PART ONE: SCOPING THE FIELD WITH A CRITICAL LENS A Critical Theory Approach To Coaching Scoping The Field: Definitions and Divergence of Practice PART TWO: FROM FRIENDSHIP TO COACHING: A BRIEF GENEALOGY OF COACHING Introduction Pre-Modernity: Helping Relationships Modernity: Experts, Tools and Technology Post-Modernity: Coaching Hybridity Conclusion PART THREE: THE DOMINANT DISCOURSES OF COACHING Introduction The Soul Guide Discourse: A Mirror to the Soul The Psy Expert Discourse: Coaching the Outward Self The Managerial Discourse: Coaching the Role Self The Network Coach Discourse: Influencing the Network Discourse Mapping: Coaching across and between Discourses PART FOUR: THE FUTURE OF COACHING Developing Coaching Theory Creating a New Coaching Meta-Theory: The Micro-Practices and the Macro-Social of Coaching Coaching Formation: Coach Education and Pedagogies Epilogue Appendix References Index
