Each person is unique as well as each question is unique. Therefore it is essential that коуч possesses different approaches. Besides classical coaching, we use the system-phenomenological approach of Bert Hellinger, NLP and many other methods.

An important question is who decides, on what level we should work? I can answer only – it’s your decision. In a dialogue between two adult people, there is no place to “ I’d know, wouldn’t I?”. Before to make a step, I always ask for permission.

Oleg's coaching

How far is coaching from psychotherapy?

With therapy, there is a therapist (and he’s standing higher, he’s more like a mom or dad) and there’s a patient (and he’s lower, he’s a kid). The therapist can explain to the patient what he should do and what should not be done. The position is: the therapist is OK, the world is OK, but the patient is not OK.

In coaching, the client and coach are on the same level, and they are both adults. With the client everything is all right, the world is all right, and with the coach, too, everything is all right. There is a task, and the coach helps to solve it. The coach can not explain what is right, because what is right for the coach with his background can be utterly unacceptable to the client. The coach can, together with the client, clarify the situation until the client becomes aware of what is happening and what to do about it and both will not be convinced that the best solution is found.

Inna's coaching

What is coaching?

There are many definitions, but for us, coaching is a kind of individual or group work when both the coach and the client are in an equal position. At the same time, coaches, like psychologists, as opposed to psychiatrists, work with those who are called “ordinary normal people”.

How does coaching differ from psychotherapy?

With therapy, there is a therapist (and he’s standing higher, he’s more like a mom or dad) and there’s a patient (and he’s lower, he’s a kid). The therapist can explain to the patient what he should do and what should not be done. The position is here: the therapist is all right, the world is all right, but the patient has a problem and asks for help.

In coaching, the client and coach are on the same level, they are both adults. With the client everything is all right, the world is all right, and with the coach, too, everything is in order. There is a task, and the coach helps to solve it. The coach can’t explain how it is right, because what is right for the coach with his background can be completely unacceptable to the client. The coach can, together with the client, clarify the situation until the client becomes aware of what is happening and what to do about it and both will not be convinced that the best solution is found.

I distinguish 4 levels of coaching, and I work on all four levels.

The classical coaching. This is what coaching began with. Clarify goals, resources, sources of resources, build strategies for achieving the goal, track progress toward the goal. This works great if the client operates in parallel with a psychologist. The psychologist works with the past, helping to cope with injuries, the coach helps to work in the future. Otherwise, such coaching is useless. Trauma will not be allowed to go forward. True, he can not do much harm either. No special techniques are used, the coach follows the established protocol.

The level of changing. This is when there is a task to quickly change your model of behaviour or state in a particular situation. For example, I’m afraid to fly by plane, and tomorrow I will have to fly. Or I am scared of public speaking, and a week later I will have to speak. Usually, NLP is used here. It reminds the emergency, the pros and cons are exactly the same. The symptom can be removed in 1-2 hours and sometimes it all ends. But if something serious is behind this symptom, it will come out in a different place and with greater force. In a situation where “it was necessary yesterday” is a great thing. The main thing is not to forget then to figure it out.

The level of learning. This is when there is a task to change your model of behaviour in all contexts. In this situation, you still have to look into the past, find the source of the problem and figure it out. As Inna Weinberg says, “when a person is injured, he is always in a dazed, trance state, that’s why getting him out of trauma is best also in a trance” – this is work for NLP and generative trance for Gilligan. If the coach, like Inna, really owns these techniques, he will cope alone. The therapist will not be needed.

The system coaching. Very often, neither third generation coaching nor psychotherapy can help to solve the problem completely. After a while, it returns, although the client does his best and there is not the slightest doubt in the qualifications of the coach and therapist. This means that the whole family system is injured. For Russians, whose families are behind the revolution and civil war, the White Terror, the Red Terror, the Big Terror of the 37th year, the Soviet Union – this is not surprising. The only way we know how to deal with this really is to use the Hellinger constellations, and this is more of a work for me. Not necessarily in a group, it can be done individually and even by Skype, in the end, all that happens is happening in the client’s head, but it is necessary to help restore the whole system.