by Robin Goins

Created on: July 10, 2008

THE INTEGRATION OF THE FIELD OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
WITHIN EXECUTIVE COACHING AS IT PERTAINS TO CLIENT SELF-PERCEPTIONS

What is Psychological Coaching

It is the basic belief that therapy as we know it began in what we know call career counseling (Lara, 2005). In his writings for the International Journal for Coaching in Organizations, Patrick Williams notes that coaching and therapy both come from the same foundational "roots", and that it was Maslow's work (hierarchy of needs) that changed the way people interact in their own destiny. Williams actually credits Maslow's work "with providing the framework for modern life coaching as it is practiced today" (p. 1). The end result of this is that coaching has presented itself in a new way, and has broken off into several directions, with career and life coaching being at the top of the list, followed by management coaching, which is usually supplied to managers through their organization (Levinsky, 2000). All levels of coaching claim to be able to help people improve themselves in order to reach the goals they could not otherwise reach without the help of a coach. However, there are two basic forms of coaching that have evolved from this trend, which are "executive coaching", a more one on one approach, and "management coaching", which views coaching as a set of day-today skills exercised by managers at all levels of the organization" (Peltier, p. xv).

Executive coaching today has its roots in many educational and counseling disciplines. A coach is one that incorporates many aspects of psychology, such as testing, assessment, mentor training and other methods within the behavioral sciences to help their clients reach new levels of performance. The big problem with all of this is that many coaches are not trained in any field of psychology or psychotherapy, which has raised the red flag as to the ethical ramifications of these coaching practices. The big questions are now popping up, such as what criteria should those calling themselves coaches adhere to and should there be legislation, and possibly even licensure, required. The concerns have become so prevalent in the field of psychology that those within the APA are considering incorporating the field of I/O Psychology into their 2014 ethics code.

At this time there are no clear cut specifications for coaches, nor do any exist in the current APA code of ethics. The same is true for those practicing the field of I/O Psychology, although many now entering the field

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