Brief Coaching for Lasting Solutions

I'm gearing up for my Level 2 Workshop through Birthing From Within - very exciting! To prepare, I'm supposed to read a bunch of books (all in the next two weeks - ack!)

Last night I plowed through Brief Coaching for Lasting Solutions, by Insoo Kim Berg and Peter Szabo. There is a lot of great stuff in there, but I could wish there were a book with similar content focused on some form of human relationships other than business and the work world. For me, family dynamics are so much more powerful and compelling than the dynamics of the office!

Anyway, I think I have a better understanding now of what coaching is, compared to counseling or other forms of therapeutic talk interactions. And I can certainly see how the philosophy of this work applies to my work with families preparing to welcome babies! The assumptions are that the client knows what s/he needs, how to get it, and what strategies will work best - but may not know it. The coach's job is to elicit this knowing from the client, and encourage experiments with changing behavior. Totally exactly the approach I want to have with the families I work with!

My favorite quote, which I've read out loud to various family members:

"Having been a taxi driver during my student days, asking clients where they wanted to go was the most natural thing to do, since my task was to take clients where they wanted to go, not where I thought they should go. If a customer wanted me to take him to a bar, it never occurred to me to take him to his home and wife instead. The same rule applies to coaching."