I often get asked, ” So, what is narrative coaching, anyway?” I had occasion recently to put the essence of it on one slide for a client. I found this process very helpful, particularly because so much of what I have done and taught since I midwifed narrative coaching is so experiential. In putting this together, I realised that narrative coaching is as much a philosophy as it is a set of practices, and it is as much about spiritual development as it is about practical change. In some important ways, it is a way of Being more than acts of Doing. I offer these to you, not as the definitive scripture, but rather as an invitation to a conversation.
Narrative coaching is:
1. A sacramental approach to holding space and working with the relational field as it emerges
2. A non-directive, real-time attention to the experience and narration, focused largely on the other person
3. A dynamic use of narrative material as the primary source and narrative pattern recognition as the primary skill
4. An appreciation of identity as situated in communities and embodied in discourse in supporting sustainable shifts in behaviors
5. A commitment to deep, generative listening based in understanding narrative structure, neuroscience, psychology and practice
6. A process of raising awareness, focusing attention, taking new actions and increasing accountability in yourself and others
7. A methodology for helping people, individually or in groups, to make shifts in their lives one story at a time and with increased agency
I look forward to you comments and your views on what you think narrative coaching is all about!
Tags: Coaching, consciousness, Development, Identity, narrative coaching, practice, Rites of Passage, stories
February 24th, 2010 at 12:29 am
I like this, David – particularly the emphasis on the relational field and the idea of identities as situated in communities and embodied in discourse. I tend to see different approaches to coaching as being located on a continuum between being and doing. I’m increasingly at the being end; perhaps the narrative perspective takes us in that direction. Not for the first time I notice parallels with Yalom’s approach to working with people firmly in the here and now.
February 24th, 2010 at 11:36 am
Thanks, Martin. I too see the connection with Yalom’s work, drawing on his four-step frame for inquiry as a central piece in this work. Narrative coaching shares existentialism’s focus on the central questions of life as it IS, a point of view that is modeled in this work through the attention to mindfulness. While would also place narrative coaching more at the Being end of your continuum, I find that in doing so it also is very generative in terms of new actions. It speaks to the dialectic between identity and behavior as accesses through people’s stories as they are told in the moment and across their lifetime. Thanks for sharing.