Coaching Practiced

11 Anxiety and the coaching relationship: How to recognise the signs and what to do next (part 2)

Kasia Szymanska

Abstract

This article addresses the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, (PTSD), Acute Stress Disorder (AST) and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and health anxiety, with the aim of familiarising coaching psychologists with the symptoms of the above disorders and the strategies which can be implemented within the coaching arena to provide coachee support.

Keywords

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Acute Stress Disorder (AST), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), health anxiety, self-help and strategies.

Original publication details: Szymanska, K. (2009, June). Anxiety and the coaching relationship: How to recognise the signs and what to do next (Part 2). The Coaching Psychologist, 5(1), 39–41. Reproduced with permission of The British Psychological Society

PTSD AND ASD

Previously referred to as railway spine, irritable heart and shell shock, PTSD was only recognised as a medical condition and included in the DSM-III in 1980, post the Vietnam War.

The key features of PTSD following the experience of a traumatic event or witnessing an event, include, re-experi encing the event often in the form of flash backs or nightmares: avoidance of the trauma in the form of distraction, i.e. not thinking or talking about the trauma and avoiding locations and individual associated with the trauma; increased arousal such as hyper-vigilance and sleep problems. ...