The Coach as Therapist

What we can learn from traditional forms of therapy.

Considering that true organizational change happens only when (certain) individuals within the organization change their thinking and behavior, it makes sense to explore the tools that psychotherapists use to bring about change in their clients’ behavior and reasoning.

Before we dive into the world of psychotherapy, I want to set some expectations. When we talk about therapy, what are we actually talking about? I suspect that many of you picture a client, slash patient, lying on a couch, with a serious-looking grey-haired gentleman with spectacles sitting right next to the couch, one leg over the other, in a comfortable armchair — near the head of the client — sporting a pen and a notepad, asking serious questions. These questions could range from, “how are we feeling today?”, to, “when I say gun, you say…” This would be the image of classical psychotherapy in the era of Freud.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy

Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) founded what is known as psychodynamic psychotherapy, basically what is described in the paragraph above — a dialogue between a patient and a therapist, in which the therapist takes the lead and guides the patient. Freud named his theories and methods psychoanalysis.