Evidence Based Coaching Handbook

CHAPTER 12

Toward a Contextual Approach to Coaching Models

DIANNE R. STOBER AND ANTHONY M. GRANT

 

 

THE PRECEDING APPROACHES to coaching practice are diverse in theoretical formulation, and each has particular contributions and insights. All of these systems of thought provide articulate frameworks for approaching the coaching scenario and in understanding our clients and our role as coaches.

While this leaves the coach, and for that matter, the informed client, to choose as best they can what fits and which approach(es) are most applicable, at this point it would be helpful to have some framework within which to place these theories. We believe that a contextual model of coaching might provide useful themes and a framework for evidence-based practice. In addition, there are some core principles that guide applications across the various approaches that can integrate various techniques. We discuss both and how they may form a framework for cross-disciplinary, multitheoretical evidence-based coaching.

THE MEDICAL MODEL AND COACHING

Within psychotherapy, one of the disciplines most closely related to coaching, the problem of how to comparatively evaluate different therapeutic approaches is long-standing. The dominant means of resolving this dilemma has been the application of the medical model.

The medical model draws on the notion that physical illness has biological causes and that physical illness can be cured by an appropriate medical intervention. In extending this to psychological ...