If you feel constrained by the traditional solutions-focused, performance coaching and wanting to break out and work at a more profound and meaningful level, then this advanced coaching skills Gestalt Embodiment approach will suit you.

This programme which runs over six sessions focuses on how you as the coach bring your experience and somatic response into the coaching relationship to facilitate growth; what’s often called Use of Self as an Instrument of Change.

Traditionally coaches try to find the right ‘powerful questions’, to get to the heart of the issue, but this creates stress and pressure to perform which takes away from the essence of coaching – the quality of the relationship. By contrast, in this approach the emphasis is on you, the coach, bringing your intuitive and emotional reactions to what is happening in the moment - more effective and less effort.

100 years of psychotherapy research show that the biggest single factor in creating change is the quality of the relationship. Gestalt harnesses this factor to make it the basis for our interventions.  Traditionally there is a big concern about overly influencing and directing the coachee – which is correct if you have a desire for the coachee to ‘find the solution’. However, the opposite is true with Gestalt Embodiment approach – encapsulated beautifully in ICF Competency 7.11:

 Shares observations, insights and feelings, without attachment, that have the potential to create new learning for the client.  

The skill you learn in this Gestalt Embodiment programme is how to create the quality of dialogue that serves the coachee in discovering for themselves a satisfying resolution to their problem.

What you will learn

• How to create a relationship of dialogue that supports powerful change in the coachee
• How to develop a subtle ‘resonance’ with the coachee, that allows you to share your thoughts, somatic reaction and emotional feelings without attachment, which means being fully on the coachees’ agenda.
• How to mobilise profound change through simply being present and letting go of needing to get a solution.
• How to use observations of what you see and hear in client context, to support change in the team or wider system.
• How to apply this approach to coaching teams

How you learn

1. Group Psychological Safety

The experiential work and skills practice requires a high degree of self-disclosure and willingness to make mistakes. Therefore, John will facilitate the group in a way that creates deep psychological safety - through investing time in, contracting, boundary setting, building support, discussing the impact and appreciating the value of taking personal and practitioner risks. Watching and experiencing a master modelling how to create this space, provides a huge amount of learning.

2. Theoretical Positioning

A sound cognitive structure to understand the experiential and skills work will be provided through:

• Pre-programme reading and video material
• Slides to support the theory presentation
• Theoretical discussion of coaching examples
• Constant opportunity for Q&A

3. Experiential Exercises

These provide an experience, that illustrates and brings to life, the theoretical material in a very focused and specific way. It’s an opportunity to gain personal insights and learning as well as providing interventions for skills practice.

4. Skills Practice

The core of the programme, is practicing new skills with a live participant client and receiving peer/ faculty feedback. Experimenting in forming interventions in a Gestalt way and unlearning the traditional desire to plan and control. You will also have the contact details of peers on the programme and will be encouraged to meet up between and after modules in order to practice.

5. Coaching Demonstrations

Prior to each skills practice session, John will provide the theoretical background, explain the focus for the session, highlight the skills required, then do a demonstration with one participant to show how it all comes together. This is followed by a discussion on what John demonstrated.

6. Coachee Experience

In the skills practice sessions, you experience what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a Gestalt style intervention and give feedback to the coach on the impact. It also provides a great opportunity for addressing your own personal issues.

7. Reflection on Practice

A key part of the learning process is reflection - so there is ample time to share confusions and insights through discussion and feedback – linking together practice, personal experience, and theory.

Your learning experience

All the work is done through virtual faculty-led sessions and skills practise in small groups. The virtual context has huge learning benefits, which will be demonstrated on the programme.

Being virtual and during a UK morning, will allow you to engage with participants from many time zones East of UK – Asia Pacific, Australia, India, Europe, Middle East & Africa.

You will have the experience of being lost, out of your depth, confused, anxious and emotionally discombobulated, BUT this will be the phase of ‘unlearning’, before you get the insight and delight of learning something new and profound.

We will laugh and have fun alongside exploring pain and distress – this workshop requires courage, to venture into unchartered personal territory – and discover new continents.

There will be a final two-hour practice group to wrap up the programme. This session will explore key ICF core competencies to enhance coaching practice through observation, feedback, and practical application. With a focus on embodying a coaching mindset, maintaining presence, active listening, and evoking awareness, participants will refine their skills in real-time. The session concludes with a debrief, learning, and reflections to support deeper integration of these competencies.

Accreditation   

This is a certificate level programme. On completion you will receive a certificate of attendance from the AoEC.

The Advanced Coaching Skills – Gestalt Embodiment Foundation Programme has been awarded 15 CCEs (11.5 Core Competency and 3.5 Resource Development) by the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

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