Coaching Archives - Page 2 of 4

Post Traumatic Growth

June 30, 2019

Post Traumatic Growth Post Traumatic Growth (PTG) is the positive change that can happen in the wake of a traumatic event – the positive psychological change that comes as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life circumstances. This idea fits well with the work that many OTs are involved in – doesn’t it. We work with people who have their occupational lives challenged by many situations disability, injury, disease as well as isolation, marginalisation and displacement (and we…

There’s more to coaching than solving, sorting and making plans

March 31, 2019

jen

Coaching and OT

I know that many of you, if not most of you, are working as OTs in fairly understandable ways and the “barriers” to occupation you deal with maybe 1) physical or environmental, solved or improved with equipment, physical rehabilitation or care support 2) psychological/ cognitive/ sensory, which can be improved with a range of brilliant occupation focused interventions. However, something which increasingly perplexes me on a personal and professional level are those “barriers” which seem somewhat intangible and lack a…

Understanding our occupational selves: coaching and OT

July 6, 2018

jen

Coaching and OT

I often write about how coaching helps us tackle barriers to occupation, be they lack of confidence or self-belief, the lack of a congruent, desirable action plan or the need to un-earth perhaps unconscious drives/desires which scupper our well-intentioned plans. However, I am often still asked “is this occupational therapy?” or “am I being an OT if I coach?” or “if a client figures it all out through coaching, why do they need me?” Of course, these are all complex…

Time to change our professions narrative – lets have a new story

June 12, 2018

Jen Gash

Business Development for OTs

One of my jobs as a coach is to help people spot their long standing, personal narratives and work to change the often unhelpful stories we tell about ourselves and hopefully create new ones. However, on this occasion, I am talking about the narrative our beloved profession of occupational therapy. From the first day I stepped into OT colleges in the mid 1990’s, I heard it. I’ve heard it for the last 25 years and I heard it when working…

OTs Doing it Differently: Dr Lynne Goodacre, Letting go of being in the room

January 18, 2018

jen

OT Stories, OTs Doing it Differently

The inspiration for this post came from a comment Jen made in her last ezine when writing about her drives with her daughter: She faces forward and we don’t need to make eye contact. This is really helpful in terms of freeing up our brains to do their own sorting and regulating and so helpful in coaching, which is why I enjoy telephone coaching so much. This comment really resonated with me in terms of my coaching journey and my…

Sense of Coherence, the Creation of Health and Coaching

August 14, 2017

jen

Coaching and wellbeing

The ICF has a great blog resource and whilst is doesn’t have a health coaching category, I found this interesting blog (and several others) under their research section! I was immediately drawn to it for obvious reasons: Such a big, sexy title “Narrative Healing, Salutogenesis and the Wellness Paradigm” and there are many resonant factors with OT: we constantly engage with our clients narrative and how occupational meaning is constructed through narratives; salutogenesis literally means the creation of health and ofcourse we understand how occupational engagement can create health. Within this blog, the coach and author Dr Joel Kreisberg, cites the work of Antonovsky andhis Sense of Coherence model (he hasn’t referenced this…

“Mummy please can we go for a drive?”

March 1, 2017

jen

Coaching and wellbeing, Taking action, making plans

I have long been interested in how moving our bodies physically and a change in physical environment, can really create a much needed shift and evoke different insights during coaching. (There are examples of this in my Coaching Creativity book and elsewhere). Whilst coaching professes to shift outside of the medicalisation of other “helping” therapies, its practice often mirrors the medical model: Pre-planned 1 hour sit down sessions, “see” your coach, leave, come back at regular intervals. Nothing wrong with that, but coaching occurs in between sessions…

When it feels like a marathon

September 12, 2016

jen

Support for OTs

There are times in your life when you feel like you are running a marathon, except you are not physically running, you don’t have the training, the right trainers and sometimes there doesn’t seem to be an end! This is how my life has felt for the last year – I hit the 6 weeks school holidays exhausted. I had been looking after my teenage daughter full time since February and whilst she had been given a place in anew supported school, that wouldn’t start until September. I…

Coaching for Chronic Illness at Work

June 12, 2016

jen

Coaching and wellbeing

Occupational Therapy enjoys an important relationship with the domain of work, with work being a primary occupation for human beings and one which gives identity, meaning, security and wellbeing. In the UK the role of OTs in vocational settings has grown alongside a general growth in vocational rehabilitation services as a whole. Work has been a significant interest of mine both personally and professionally. Professionally, my last regular OT jobs were in vocational settings including a role as an…

Cowboys of OT

May 12, 2016

jen

Popular

This short musing was inspired by Bob Garvey who wrote a paper on the “Cowboys of Coaching” a few years back and it prompted me to consider what might mean in relation to OT. Having spent the last 10 years working, not only independently, but also in a “new” area of practice and one that is not regulated (coaching), I often wonder if I might be considered a bit of a Cowboy…. Whilst I maintain my HCPC registration (worked hard…