Comparación de resultados para el usuario más cercano y el más lejano con

Therapeutic interventions generally involve one-to-one relationships, which are largely confidential, between a paid worker (therapist) and customer (client) and employ a series of techniques to help a person achieve a goal set at the start of the relationship.

As a one-to-one working relationship, counselling’s hundred year history has provided evidence from thousands of studies. There is a good understanding of what works, shared assumptions about why it works and evidence-based practice, which has emerged as a result of this history of research. Fillery-Travis and Lane (2006) asked of coaching; does

63 it work? Research on counselling suggests that it works and the evidence for coaching is following a similar indicative path. In psychotherapy and counselling a meta-analysis of 375 controlled outcome studies concluded that at the end of the treatment the average client was 75 per cent better off than a similar untreated client (Smith et al., 1980). This meta-analysis compared studies of similar interventions in psychotherapy or counselling with a control group of no intervention and the self-report outcomes are based on measures linked to the appropriate area of mental health or psychological functioning such as a depression scale. Other meta-studies have reached similar conclusions for the impact of counselling (Howard et al., 1986; Lambert et al., 1996) although with different rates of gain for treated over untreated clients. The trend is clear – counselling as an intervention produces beneficial results as evidenced in multiple control group studies.

Psychotherapy outcome research has demonstrated the importance of developing a positive relationship between practitioner and client termed ‘the working alliance’ or ‘the therapeutic alliance’ (Horvath and Symonds, 1991), encompassing the collaboration between therapist and client and also the capacities of both to negotiate an appropriate contract for the relationship. As described, it is common to draw on a theoretical framework for coaching in psychological principles and processes (Judge and Cowell, 1997), as within this dimension clients with issues presenting as problems or personal difficulties can gain new insights and perspectives. Indeed, many coaching programmes are preceded by a psychological assessment or ‘diagnostic’ such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® an instrument based on Jungian psychodynamic models. The links to psychology also provide practitioners with a commitment to confidentiality, a code of ethics, provision of feedback and personal supervision of practice.

Judge and Cowell (1997) indicate that there are differences between Executive Coaching and traditional psychotherapy. They note that the coaching contract is usually pre-defined

64 and relatively short-term, meaning that there is usually insufficient time to develop the ‘therapeutic alliance’. They use the term ‘developmental partnership’ to describe the coaching relationship. Coaching, they assert, contains more of a systems approach than psychotherapeutic interventions usually do. In coaching, there is likely to be involvement, clearly from the coach and coachee, but also from other stakeholders within the

organization. In addition, they maintain that coaching has a much more specific focus relating to the management or leadership context, whereas psychotherapy is less context- specific. Their views are supported by Sperry (1993) who argues that, unlike coaching, psychotherapy involves the individual in a close, collaborative relationship which may require longer-term therapy, a situation which ‘time-poor’ executives may find

inappropriate. A further dimension separating coaching from psychotherapy is the focus on business rather than personal issues (Saporito, 1996).

It is an error, however, always to associate psychotherapeutic processes with long-term relationships. Solution-focused or brief therapy as described by O’Connell (2003) gives an emphasis to the agreement and setting of achievable goals linked to the client’s preferred outcomes. It is a structured approach in which objective stages are progressed through, based on goals, competencies, resources and strengths. Therefore, some literature aims clearly to differentiate coaching from psychotherapeutic interventions whilst other specific therapies work in a similar way to coaching to achieve similar things. Sometimes the term ‘psychotherapy for the well’ has been used to describe the crossover area, though the use of this term openly with a senior organizational executive is likely to be unacceptable.

Change studies in therapy outcome research have consistently shown that factors such as conducting the relationship in an empathetic way; attempting to facilitate a degree of collaboration with clients; caring, warmth and acceptance of the therapist; congruence or

65 authenticity of therapist, to be demonstrably effective in producing positive psycho-

therapy outcomes (Lambert and Barley, 2001; Castonguay and Beutler, 2006). Also, in line with findings in therapy outcomes, Jowett and Cockerill (2003) suggest that the basic ingredients of the ‘helping relationship’, such as empathic understanding, honesty, support, acceptance, co-operation, caring, respect and positive regard, are also present in effective coach-athlete relationships.

The similarity of coach - athlete, coach - client and therapist - client is further suggested by Frank and Frank (1991) and through Common Factor research by Lampropoulos (2001). It is argued that psychotherapy change processes can be understood more clearly by comparing them with other social change processes such as parenting, educational relationships, mentoring and coaching of any kind. This approach makes two assumptions about the commonalities among such change-inducing relationships:

They are educational, helping and change processes

There exists a problem, need, difficulty, demand or lack of product or service.

Speaking specifically about the therapeutic relationship and its progression from transference to alliance, Horvath states that, ‘Most therapists believe that the quality of the relationship between themselves and their clients has an impact on how successful the therapy will be’ (Horvath, 2000:163). He goes on to say that:

Freud believed that a positive attachment between the patient and the analyst provided the latter with a cloak of authority, strengthened the patient’s belief in the analyst’s interpretations and gave the patient the personal strength and confidence to deal with the painful experience of facing the freshly exposed traumatic material. (2000:163)

The therapeutic alliance, the relationship in psychological interventions, is open to interpretation due to transference, the process where the relationship is influenced by the

66 projection by the client of influences of past unrelated relationships. Freudian theorists (Horvath, 2000; Crits-Cristoph, 2003) believe that the therapeutic process is one which moves between reality-based attachment and positive transference. For coaching the relationship is, as has been said, much shorter in time than the therapeutic relationship.

Behavioural theorists focused more on process and technique within the therapeutic relationship. They rejected concepts of attachment or emotional bond, concentrating rather on observable behaviours. The client/therapist relationship was seen, in their understanding, as a function of the effectiveness of the therapist. In coaching terms this puts the weight of responsibility onto the coach. Again, it would be appropriate to observe in coaching relationships whether the dynamic puts the weight of responsibility for the effectiveness of the relationships and for delivery of outcomes onto the coach or whether, as espoused in the various definitions of coaching, there is a co-created partnership striving towards established and agreed goals.

The therapeutic relationship was the centre of the therapeutic process according to Carl Rogers (1961). He coined the notion of ‘unconditional positive regard’ and through this suggested that the most important contribution of the therapist to the client’s progress is an interpersonal one rather than a cognitive or skills-based one. He believed that it is paramount to serving the client regardless of the theoretical stance or style of the therapist. He termed this the ‘client-centred’ approach and it is widely adopted in therapies and in coaching today. Rogers went on to suggest that it is the therapist’s responsibility to create these relationship conditions, thus agreeing with the behaviourist approach, putting the onus firmly on the therapist to craft the relationship for the benefit of the client whose contribution is not taken into account.

For the therapeutic intervention and perhaps also for coaching, Roger’s empirical work showed that the biggest impact on the therapeutic outcome is the client’s perception of

67 the relationship. For this research the result is a very strong indicator of the direction of study. What are the coachee’s perceptions of the relationship and is this all that matters in assessing whether coaching is effective or not?

The therapeutic alliance has undergone further study in more recent years. By the 1970s there emerged the ‘pan-theoretical’ concept of the alliance, which postulated that there was little evidence to suggest that any one therapeutic approach was superior to any other. This engendered a search for the ‘pan-theoretical’ model of therapeutic relationships. Bordin (1976) claimed that the therapeutic alliance was a common denominator in all therapeutic intervention types regardless of theoretical stance. However, he contradicted Rogers by suggesting that collaboration and agreement with the client was essential to the alliance.

These different ideologies have resonant factors for the research of the coaching

relationship. What can be observed regarding the dynamics and relative responsibilities or contributions between the coach and the coachee? Does the coach take responsibility for the relationship, or is there a co-creation between the two parties? Is unconditional positive regard an element of a successful coaching relationship? In the pan-theoretical model, would coaching join the long list of therapies to which the conditions and importance of the therapeutic alliance apply?