Ontological Coaching

What is Ontological coaching? What does an Ontological coach do?

Ontological coaching is based on insight into the language used by the person being coached, their emotions and the effect of both on body. This understanding by the coach acts as an invaluable tool for behavioural change.

Let’s imagine ourselves in this situation to gain a deeper understanding into Ontological Coaching. You are made redundant due to restructuring. Do you think ‘It is not my fault’ and carry on with life or do you say to yourself – If I were worthy enough, they would have kept me and made other redundant. Which ever way you have coached yourself, the language you used has had further effects of strengthening or weakening the emotions, in turn leading to change in bodily expressions – the way you sit, stand, talk, posture, arms and others.

Coaching focus-area may arise in any of these three circles. Either the coach may identify this or the person to be coached may self-identify for themselves. At times, the coaching focus-area identified by the person to be coached may be different from what the coach perceives. In such a situation, it is the responsibility of the coach to first make sure that the person understands the difference and then begin the coaching process.

Even before the coaching focus-area is the coaching need. The need for coaching arises because of the gap, either real or perceived. This coaching need may manifest itself in any of the above mentioned circles.

Remember that the circle in which the coaching need is identified may be completely different from the coaching focus-area. Here is where the role of the coach and the effectiveness of coaching technique is displayed.

Case study – Jane is an active, hardworking, cheerful professional. However, when she stands in front of people, although she begins at her best, her facial expressions and body language shows that she is frustrated. As her muscles grow tensed, she searches for words, eye contact breaks and she is on the verge of crying.

With the help of her coach, she discovered that only after she begins to feel ‘not being able to meet the expectations of the people around her’ does she lose the words and feel stiff. The coach had to explore the reasons behind the feeling and help Jane change the pattern of thoughts to change the feeling and her body language.

Some people may equate Ontological coaching to coaching using Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). Is there really a difference? Which of these is more useful to a coach? Watch out for my future posts on this page