Dorian Braun and Adrian Myers report on the experience of an intense sense of ‘connection’ or ‘relatedness’ in the coaching relationship
“After a session where I experience connection, I’m like on top of the world. I’m like, ‘Oh this is perfect you know; this is why I love this job’ ”
The lead writer of this study often experiences a strong sense of ‘connection’ or ‘relatedness’ with his clients. This inspired him to explore if other coaches experience a similar depth of connection or relatedness with their clients.
During the research investigation, all the coaches interviewed described experiencing a sense of relatedness as being very deep, emotional and intimate. It was very real, even visceral. It was something they didn’t strive to experience or that they’d expected from their coach training. It just happened and the feelings were intense.
An interesting question is whether this experience might be transformative in the coaching process. The possible intensity of such experiences also raises questions about whether a deep sense of connectedness might be difficult to deal with and if so, what the implications might be for coach development and support.
Coaching relationship
All coaches learn from their first training in coaching that the relationship is fundamental to change, a viewpoint emphasised in the literature (Crosse, 2019; de Haan & Gannon, 2017; Palmer & McDowall, 2010). The coach builds the relationship by showing warmth, interest and respect for their clients with a positive attitude toward the realisation of the client’s aspirations. The coach signals to the client that they can be trusted to keep the conversation confidential and to be non-judgmental.
Contracting builds the relationship because it provides the foundations for a safe and confidential exploration of personal issues. However, it’s unclear if having an intense sense of connection with the client is beneficial over and above simply establishing a productive working relationship.
The research study
The research involved interviews with six coaches, all of whom had described experiencing a sense of relational depth in their coaching practice.
A study of six participants, while small, serves as an in-depth exploration of human experience (Smith et al, 2009) which isn’t possible in a larger quantitative study. The study used interpretative phenomenological analysis in which the researcher analyses descriptions of the experiences of research participants provided in interviews. The analysis leads to the identification of common themes and experiences.
Intense emotional connection
The research participants described the connection as an experience of being “completely absorbed” and “deeply connected”. One participant described the powerful feeling of connection as a “magnetic field” and another as moments of “shared tenderness”. For one participant, the experience had the intensity of a “meditative experience”. All of these descriptions convey a sense of intensity of relatedness and express a strong sense of humanity or even of spirituality.
The experience of connection did seem to follow from drawing on many of the coaching skills coaches learn as part of their training (eg, showing warmth and listening intensely and non-judgementally to their clients). For example, one participant referred to the connection as being about “closeness, warmth … acceptance”. However, they experienced the feelings of closeness, warmth and acceptance much more deeply than they might have expected from their training. They described these feelings as “intense”, “intimate”, of “resonance” and of being expressive of “the interconnectedness of human experience being felt and visible”. It was a feeling of “joy”. The experiences resonated with Buber’s (1958) ‘I-Thou’ encounters in which the ‘I’ and ‘You’ disappear and there is a strong sense of relatedness.
Connectedness in coaching
One participant felt that the experience of deep connection enabled her to become more intuitive:
“That genuine deep emotional connection, I feel I can make those intuitive leaps that can be really insightful and help”
Many coaches believe that intuition plays a key role in coaching, allowing the coach to go beyond logical reasoning (Sheldon, 2018). Depth of relationship could therefore be a means of enabling the intuitive process.
Another participant allowed the surfacing of feelings of emotional intensity between coach and client. This seemed to allow the coach to experience connection and to enter into the client’s world:
“A lot of emotion in the room, from her and from me because I felt completely in her world really quickly…I felt very deeply connected to her very quickly and I think that was a result of that emotional energy”
Perhaps the sense of connectedness allowed coaches to get into a state of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997) when a person is engaged in a challenging task for which they’re highly skilled. Time seems to disappear, and the person becomes fully absorbed and highly effective in what they’re doing.
“I’m feeling effortless, like there’s a flow, like things are dropping into the space; insights are arising. Whatever, there’s just a fluidity between us and it’s very awake. I would say, I feel awake, effortless in flow”
Deep connectedness with the client could therefore be indicative of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997) in a coaching session, of when a coach is their best possible self in the service of their client.
In summary, a level of relatedness seemed to emerge between coach and client, catalysing the coaching process as a source of energy and enabling intuition, flow, presence, and the skilful process of coaching.
Enabler of change or an unmanageable intensity of experience?
While some participants valued the rich intensity of connection, there was also a sense of precarity, as such experiences could be overwhelming. Some coaches described experiencing uncontrollable bodily sensations, a sense of overpowering intimacy and daunting hyper-connection:
“A very powerful, visceral response actually and as I say almost scary because it felt as if it could be out of my control, or get out of my control and it was very; it was very powerful”
Implications for coach supervision and training
If coaches experience such deep connections as found in the current study, it is important that coaches pursue ongoing supervision to become reflexive of what’s happening within the coaching relationship. Coach educators also need to consider the importance of preparatory training. Currently, coaching programmes do not prepare coaches for this intensity of experience. This is in part owing to the growing popularity of coaching as a profession where there has been a proliferation in recent years of fast-track courses, which set out to teach essential skills quickly. Accreditation often emphasises hours practised rather than the development of actual coach capability (Bachkirova et al, 2017).
More lengthy academic courses, while providing possibilities for knowledge creation in addition to “integrating knowledge into practice”(Bachkirova et al, 2017, p33) may still fail to prepare coaches for the intensities of deep connection.
Educators might encourage trainee coaches to develop sensibilities towards affects, emotions, or self-regulation (Grant, 2006) and to be reflective of their own attachment style (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991). This could result in coaches being more self-aware and develop themselves as an instrument of coaching (Bachkirova, 2016).
Coaching education generally might require more of an experiential component within the curriculum, similar to psychotherapeutic training, where students are typically required to undergo in-depth experiential learning to encounter their own life experiences.
Limitations and future research
The study didn’t address how common the experience of relational depth is in coaching, but it could be interesting for you as a reader to reflect on whether you experience this sense of in-depth connection when coaching and if you do, if and how it supports the coaching process.
This study provides the foundations for a future quantitative study which might explore how common the experience of relational depth is as well as other studies which might explore in more detail emotional depth as a catalyst of change in the coaching process. It would also be interesting to explore the experiences of connection on the part of client or coach and client together.
About the authors
- Dorian Braun is a graduate of the Masters in Coaching and Mentoring Practice at Oxford Brookes University.
- Dr Adrian Myers is the subject coordinator in the MA in Coaching and Mentoring Practice at Oxford Brookes University.
This study was carried out by Dorian Braun, a student on the MA programme and under Dr Adrian Myers’ academic supervision. This is a joint article.
References
- M D S Ainsworth and J Bowlby, ‘An ethological approach to personality development’, in American Psychologist, 46(4), 331-341, 1991
- T Bachkirova, P Jackson, J Gannon and A C Myers, ‘Re-conceptualising coach education from the perspectives of pragmatism and constructivism’, in Philosophy of Coaching: An International Journal, 2(2), 29-50, 2017
- T Bachkirova, ‘The self of the coach: Conceptualization, issues and opportunities for practitioner development’, in Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 68(2), 143-156, 2016
- M Buber, I and Thou (R G Smith, Trans., 2nd edn), T & T Clark, 1958
- E Crosse, ‘A Q methodology study: How do coaches foster the coaching relationship?’, in International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, S13, 76-93, 2019
- M Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The psychology of engagement with everyday life, Basic Books, 1997
- E de Haan and J Gannon, in T Bachkirova, G Spence and D Drake (Eds.), ‘The Coaching Relationship’ in The SAGE Handbook of Coaching, pp195-217, Sage, 2017
- J Grant, ‘Training counselors to work with complex clients: Enhancing emotional responsiveness through experiential methods’, in Counselor Education and Supervision, 45(3), 218-230, 2006
- S Palmer and A McDowall (Eds.), The Coaching Relationship: Putting people first, Routledge, 2010
- C Sheldon, ‘Trust your gut, listen to reason: How experienced coaches work with intuition in their practice’, in International Coaching Psychology Review, 13(1), 6-20, 2018
- J A Smith, P Flowers and M Larkin, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis: Theory, method, and research, SAGE, 2009