sind Referenzrahmen, die der Coach diagnostisch nutzt. Er stellt dem Coachee selektiv authentisch seine Wahrnehmungen und Einschätzungen zur Verfügung. Ob sie stimmig und zutreffend sind, darüber entscheiden beide im Dialog.
Die Verantwortung für den Coachingprozess liegt bei Coach und Coachee. Der Coachee als Initiator und Fragesteller, dessen Engagement den Prozess trägt, der Coach als Experte für die Steuerung von Lernprozessen. Zudem nimmt der Coach den Coachee auch in seiner existenziellen Verantwortung für sich und sein Leben wahr und respektiert dessen So-geworden-Sein.
Bezogen auf das Konzept der paradoxen Theorie der Veränderung arbeitet der Coach ausgehend vom Hier und Jetzt der aktuellen Situation und lässt Veränderungsimpulse geschehen, statt sie herbeizuführen. Die Verantwortung im Sinne von Befähigung für jede Veränderung liegt beim Coachee. Voraussetzung für eine Veränderung ist das Anerkennen dessen, wie es jetzt ist. Der Beratungsprozess im GestaltCoaching ist deshalb zunächst bewusstseinsorientiert und erst in zweiter Linie aktionsorientiert.
Mit diesem Verständnis von GestaltCoaching stellen sich gestalttherapeutisch arbeitende Coaches aktiv in das Spannnungsfeld von Personeninteresse und Organisationsinteresse. Sie unterstützen die Person darin, sich auf ein, wie der irisch-amerikanische Dichter David Whyte es nennt »wirkliches Gespräch« mit ihrer Umwelt einzulassen:
»In order to get a real conversation with the world you have to drop artificial language, you have to drop politics, and you have to drop an environment based on fear and hiding. People must be encouraged not only to know their craft, their products, their work and the people they serve, but know a little of themselves. In order to respond to the world of wants, they must know something of what they want themselves. Just as important they must know what they do not want.«101
Sie tun das in einem Organisations-Umfeld, das (immer noch) von einem eher eindimensionalen Managementverständnis geprägt ist:
»Manager is derived from the old Italian and French words maneggio and manège, meaning the training, handling and riding of a horse.
It is strange to think that the whole spirit of management is derived from the image of getting on the back of a beast, digging your knees in and heading it in a certain direction. The word manager conjures images of domination, command, and ultimate control, and the taming of a potentially wild energy. (…) All appropriate things if you wish to ride a horse, but most people don’t respond very passionately or very creatively to being ridden (…)«102
Dieses Spannungsfeld zwischen Interesse der Person und Interesse der Organisation als den produktiven Ort »dazwischen« zu verstehen, an dem GestaltCoaching stattfindet und wirkt, ist die Herausforderung, vor die sich jeder Coach immer wieder gestellt sieht.
Sandra Čanić
Gestalt Coaching – From Awareness to Change
1. Introduction
Coaching, as professional development method, is influenced by many different theories. Among these, the Gestalt therapy approach has shown a great potential in understanding and explaining the dynamics of the coaching process, especially the way in which the client’s change and development occur.
During the past decade many authors have referred to the term Gestalt coaching, describing it as a particular approach to the developmental process in coaching that is based on Gestalt therapy concepts (Stevenson 2005, Siminovitch and Van Eron 2006, Simon 2009 and others). The basic premise assumed in Gestalt coaching is that the client represents a whole, healthy and resourceful person who seeks individual autonomy and creative, efficient adaptation in the environment. The presence of the coach and his interaction with the client stimulate the client’s awareness of what is available here and now. This awareness opens the possibility of different choices and enables the client’s growth, learning and development. The client is responsible for the change, while the coach has a supportive role. In Gestalt coaching the goals are achieved primarily through a dialogue between the coach and the client, also known as the »I and Thou« dialogue.1
In formal aspects, such as contracting, creating the coaching agenda or process evaluation there should be no significant differences between Gestalt coaching and other approaches to business coaching. Therefore, this approach can be used with a wide range of coaching goals such as developing managerial skills, preparation for a new role, solving specific performance problems, etc. Gestalt coaching can also be successfully applied to other forms of coaching such as team or organizational coaching.
In the following paragraphs I will describe several Gestalt concepts that jointly define the basics of as well as the change process in Gestalt coaching and provide some examples from a business environment.
2. Basic Concepts in Gestalt Coaching
Gestalt
Gestalt is a German word meaning form or pattern. From the 1920s, Gestalt psychology has made the landmark influence through significant discoveries in the fields of visual perception, motivation and action. One of the earliest discoveries was that a person senses the world in an organized way, seeking completed forms rather than separate parts.
Gestalt psychology significantly influenced the development of the Gestalt therapeutic approach on multiple levels. One level is represented by the Figure & Ground interplay – (each gestalt that is formed is also a figure that stands out against its background) that will be discussed later. Another level is the holistic view of a person in Gestalt work: wholeness of a person and integration of individual experiences that amounts to much more than the individuals’ separate parts. Together, thinking, feeling and sensory awareness result in a unique experience of the person and its environment. The Gestalt way of working is always oriented towards what is missing. For example, if the client keeps talking extensively and explaining without showing emotions, the coach might wonder what the client feels.
Our roles are also viewed in a holistic manner. For example, in the business environment one often hears how work needs to be separated from one’s private life, but it is never as simple as that. We are not merely the sum of our roles in life. You go through the day without any breaks in your consciousness and with the same self-awareness. In each role you play you must engage that whole person in order to be truly effective (Downs 2002).
Field
The Gestalt approach advocates more than a holistic view of the person. In Gestalt, the person and the environment do not exist as separate entities. At every moment a person is inevitably a part of a field (Wollants 2007). For example, when we talk about consciousness, we don’t refer to the awareness of internal processes, but to the awareness of person-world interactions that include knowing how the person is affected by the world, how this interaction manifests itself and what needs to happen in a particular situation (Nuttin 1955, according to Wollants 2007). Similarly the needs we experience are, on most occasions, a result of our interaction with the world. The situation is always a product of a reciprocal relationship between the person and the world: personal needs affect the way one experiences the world, and the forces from the environment affect personal needs (Wollants 2007).
Regardless of the type of the problem addressed in coaching, which is most commonly related to the professional environment, a coach always has to keep in mind the complete and whole person in front of him as well as her current situation.
The goal of Gestalt therapy, which can be transferred to the area of coaching, is to support the client in gaining freedom to adequately respond to the demands of the situation and thus complete arrested development. Reorganization may mean changing
