Slides: Life Changing Coaching Part 2

Life Changing Coaching Part 2

Steve Elzinga

Rogerian Therapy

Person-Centered Therapy (Rogerian Therapy) Person-centered therapy was developed by Carl Rogers in the 1940s. This type of therapy diverged from the traditional model of the therapist as expert and moved instead toward a non-directive, empathic approach that empowers and motivates the client in the therapeutic process.

Quotes from Carl Rogers:

"Experience is, for me, the highest authority. The touchstone of validity is my own experience. No other person’s ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as my experience. It is to experience that I must return again and again, to discover a closer approximation to truth as it is in the process of becoming in me."

"In my early professional years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?" 

"It is the client who knows what hurts, what directions to go, what problems are crucial, what experiences have been deeply buried. It began to occur to me that unless I had a need to demonstrate my own cleverness and learning, I would do better to rely upon the client for the direction of movement in the process."

Three Key Qualities that Make for a Good Client-centered Therapist:

Unconditional Positive Regard:  An unconditional positive regard is an important practice for the client-centered therapist. The therapist needs to accept the client for who s/he is and provide support and care no matter what s/he is going through.

Genuineness: a client-centered therapist needs to feel comfortable sharing his or her feelings with the client. Not only will this contribute to a healthy and open relationship between the therapist and client, it provides the client with a model of good communication and shows the client that it’s okay to be vulnerable.

Empathetic Understanding: the client-centered therapist must extend empathy to the client, both to form a positive therapeutic relationship and to act as a sort of mirror, reflecting the client’s thoughts and feelings back to him or her; this will allow the client to better understand him- or herself.

The Issue of “Client” Centered Coaching and/or Counseling

- Assumes mankind is good.

- Assumes the answers to one’s problems are within oneself.

- Assumes the client actually has positive dreams and desires.

Why it Can Work with Christians:

- The client is a Christian. Christ is in him or her. The client has potential. The client has gifts. God has a plan for the client. Therefore the coach can believe in the potential of the client and help draw it out. 

- There is not the potential conflict of world views between the coach and the client.

- Prayer and Bible helps can be used in the process.

How this Client Centered Christian Coaching can Help in Ministry:

- Can help leaders deal with dependents

- Dependents sometimes really do not want to be fixed. They like the attention the counseling affords them. Coaching puts the focus on action. If the dependent never wants to do anything (action) about their problems then the coach has a basis to terminate the coaching process.

- Can help leaders spend time with the people that have the most potential

- Often it is the squeaky wheel that gets the attention of church leaders. 80% of ministry leader effort goes into the 20% that does very little ministry in the church. And almost no effort goes into helping the 20% of the people who do 80% of the ministry.

- Coaching can focus on the people that show promise.

- Coaching can focus on the people that have a passion for ministry.

Ephesians 4

i.e. church plant in Vancouver Carol Dow

i.e. Highland Church counseling

Why a Ministry Coach can be Client Centered:

- The client  is called to ministry.

- The client has ministry gifts.

- The client has the power of the Holy Spirit.

- The client has resurrection power.

- The client is a new person in Christ.

- The client can deal with sin and failure in a potentially winning way.