Next Pathways begins February 15th, 2022

In Pathways we explore key elements of the Emergent Coach Training model, cover aspects of the underpinning science, and learn how to integrate the learning.

Pathways has 6 x 2.5-hour live class calls for learning and practicing Emergent Coaching strategies in teacher-led sessions and break-out.  Session 7 is a 2.5 hour live small group mentor call.

Live classes run every second week. Participants are expected to meet every other week as a Practice Pod. Practice Pods are key opportunities to practice and consolidate the skills being learned.

Module 1: Beginning at the Beginning

This module helps clarify the scope of the program and offers important context. In it we’ll cover:

• An overview of the entire program & the Emergent Model including the intersection of Structure & Process as keys to effectively coaching change.
• A review of practices essential to developing an Emergent Coaches capacity for Presence & resonant attunement.
• Deepening the experiential learning in using body as a resource for insight & change.
• Direct learning of the core skills which support deeper listening, empathic resonance and the capacity to support another and self.
• Exploring the interrelationship between professional and personal ethics.
• A review of the ICF Core Competencies and an introduction to the ICF PCC markers. These are the attributes of an ICF PCC-level coach and will be the metrics for certification. 

Module 2: The Science of the Implicit

Now we dig deeper into the Emergent Coach Training science including:

• The scientific journey through behaviorism, cognitivism on to the current subset of embodied mind and cognition.
  
• In the live class there is experiential learning and practices to help develop the coaches capacity for working with implicit intelligence.
  
• We’ll also learn & practice with 3 key processing pathways which can each be recruited for appropriate task:
  • The analytic (or D-mode to Prof. Guy Claxton)—the conventional manner we use to engage analysis for deliberate problem solving & decision-making.
  • The fast intuitive—the rapid fire “rule of thumb” gut feeling, effective yet prone to bias.
  • The slow intuitive—a more reflective method and a key aspect of the Emergent Coaching process.
• Learning & practice with the 3 key Pathways: Thinking, Feeling & Sensing.
• Managing complexity via embodied intelligence.
• Exploring Otto Scharmer’s “Theory U” and how it potentially integrates with and informs the Emergent Coaching model.
  

Module 3: Emergent Pathways

Clearly, as we’ve seen so far (and as the Lakoff & Johnson quote above highlights) there is way more going on inside of us under the conscious radar than there is above. What is all of this internal processing? What might it mean for us in terms of change and development? How might we access this vast terrain of implicit material more effectively?

Through live class and online content we’ll explore:

• Establishing a suitable coaching container & conditions for emergent insight.
• The art of accompanying and tending not leading or pushing.
• How Presencing, mindfulness and reflective practice can potentiate powerful insight which offers rich material for coaching both in session and as external developmental work.
• The impact of rich, unusual, imagistic, forms: music, art, poetry, dance etc. How they directly engage with implicit experience.
• Creatively bringing images & metaphor into coaching sessions.
• The art of visualization in coaching.
• Working with the embodied intelligence directly through the body itself.

Module 4: Archetype, Myth, Metaphor & Narrative in Coaching

Module four is devoted to exploring the techniques which support the contacting and catalyzing of our biggest story. We do so by:

• Define and explore myth, metaphor, archetypes and rich language and how these areas might be skillfully recruited in service of change, transformation and insight.
• Explore some key aspects of myth and archetype and how they might be recruited into change conversations (e.g. What is the Hero’s Journey? What are the archetypes of Inner Masculine & Feminine? How do these play out in our life? How might we rewrite the narrative of our life?).
• Learn about the potential for rich, poetic language to catalyze the implicit material via the work of several leading cognitive scientists.
• Explore possibilities for engaging narrative, imagery, metaphor, archetype in coaching conversations.
• Have experiential learning & an introduction to working with parts, selves and archetypes in coaching sessions.

Module 5: Coaching Self, Selves &Parts

As coaches we spend the majority of our time in supporting our clients in improving themselves, so what is this self we are so intent in modifying? While such questions may appear unhelpfully metaphysical and seemingly of little benefit to the pragmatism necessary for addressing our clients more prosaic requests, in Emergent Coaching we are inviting the coach to develop the capacity to hold the truly biggest picture of the client, self and process. To be able to address the obvious while at the same time hold the largest possibility for transformation and growth.

Some of the key themes of this module will be:

• Exploring the various theories of constructed self through contemplative perspectives & via the work of cutting-edge, contemporary researchers such as Antonio Damasio, Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson & Eleanor Rosch. 
• Learning how the constructed self can inform some powerful opportunities to explore the client’s narratives, belief systems and sense of self.
• Exploring the nature of parts and facets of self and how these can be creatively & powerfully employed in coaching sessions to develop and integrate aspects of persona in service of client goals.
• In the live class we’ll have several practical exercises exploring these above areas particularly focusing on working with parts and facets directly and in conversation. This is stunningly powerful work and can transform a client's perspective in an instant & rapidly overcome internal psychological blocks to success.
  

Module 6: Integrating Emergent Conversations

As we near the end of this first part of the Emergent Coach Training certification, in this module we take time to reflect on how all these varied components fit into a competencies-based coaching model. We also take some time to consolidate and integrate the learning so far.

In this final module we will explore:

• Seamlessly integrating Emergent skills into a coaching arc which meets the PCC markers and ICF competencies.
• How to successfully communicate Emergent methodology & benefits to potential clients & stakeholders.
• Supporting clients to successfully integrate learning & insight, into their developmental path.
• Documents to support good management including developmental plans, agreements and intake forms plus how and when to use them for greater movement and change.
• Meeting the client appropriately. Knowing when to dive deep and when to hold back. Emergent Coaches require sensitivity to know how and when to apply the full range of skills in service of the client’s current needs.

Module 7: Mentoring

In this final module participants meet in small pods (typically maximum of 5) with a mentor to clarify and receive feedback on live coaching.

There is plenty of self-guided learning content with unique supportive material which is accessed via our dedicated online learning platform.

Pathways will take approximately 13 weeks to complete and earn 29 ICF ACSTH (or CCEUs)

Next Focusing begins May 10th, 2022

Toward the end of the 1970s, Prof. Eugene Gendlin launched his understatedly titled book “Focusing” into a somewhat overflowing self-help market. Despite appearances, Focusing was not another new-agey feel-good personal development tool, but was a process growing from years of dedicated research borne initially out of studies Gendlin had conducted with the eminent psychologist Carl Rogers aiming to uncover the key factor(s) which predicted success in psychotherapeutic conversations—why some clients change and others don’t. They discovered one simple difference: it was not what clients spoke about but how they reflected inside and then spoke about it. The “how” was how they related to their inner experience. A best-seller at the time, Focusing has seemingly become something of a niche practice these days, though over the ensuing years it has won him multiple accolades from prestigious professional organizations such as the American Psychological Association even in 2021. Focusing’s empirically-based potential to radically and quickly manifest extraordinary insight and change for Focuser and Facilitator (or client and coach) alike, makes it a must-have skill for any coach wishing to effortlessly and powerfully bring their own and their client’s largest version of self to the change process.

Throughout the 8 modules you’ll be guided through the key steps of this extraordinary skill, and be shown how to seamlessly integrate this into coaching conversations. The program is delivered by leading Focusing trainer and psychotherapist Charlotte Howorth LWSS and Rod Francis plus their support faculty. The program comprises a series of eight 2.5-hour live classes which occur every two weeks, eight 1-hour Practice Pods to integrate and practice the learning, supplemented by our online learning content.

The Emergent Focusing modules are:

Module 1: Introduction to Focusing

This module's learning will include:

• An overview of the research that led to the creation of Focusing. 
• An overview of the 6 key steps of Focusing—Clearing a space; Contacting Felt Sense; Getting a Handle; Resonating; Asking; Receiving. 
• A direct, experiential and conceptual understanding of what a felt sense is. 
• Alongside some contextualizing content in the learning platform, all of the components will be taught and guided via direct experience and practice in the live class. 

Module 2: Resonant Reflection

While there will be some material to help with the conceptual learning, much will be covered in the live class with your direct experience. In these there will be:

• Guided exercises for taking turns to listen and focus. 
• Opportunities to work through the six focusing steps we covered in Module 1. 
• Experiences of finding a “handle,” or “fire engine” word and direct practice. 
• Learning how resonantly reflect back the focuser’s words and how to fine-tune the reflection to exactly resonate with the focuser’s felt sense. 

Module 3: Making a "Something"

In this module we cover how to make a "something" when we resonantly reflect either the crux of someone’s content, or their fire engine words/phrases, or the crux of a point they are trying to make that is emerging from the soft implicit "underneath."

In this module you will explore and gain:

• Greater mastery in choosing appropriate words and asking appropriate questions.
• Skill in how to differentiate between emotions, thoughts, felt sense and understand how this relates to a Focusing approach and change process.
• How to engage Focusing as a profound perspective shift. We learn how to help the client to dis-identify from their experience as perspective shift & yet to still enable them to keep company with their "issue" in order that they might be able to view it differently from their habitual way of seeing.
• Further learning on the power of resonant language to potentiate embodied shifts.

Module 4: Making Contact

Key learning areas this module are:

• How to work effectively with a critical voice.
• Keeping appropriate distance and pacing.
• The skillful use of metaphor, archetype and rich language.
• Learning & facilitated experience of the 12 avenues (Physical, Emotional; Location/Shape, Sound, Posture/movement, Relevance from past, Metaphor/Simile, Imagery, Internal Dialogue, Felt sense, Internal conflict)
• The importance of keeping the felt sense of an experience company and importantly how to do so.

Module 5: Deepening Contact

Areas for exploration and learning will be:

• Using the felt sense as a perspective shift and to reveal underlying and unseen aspects of self. 
• The nature of parts or aspects of persona including what we might call disowned or unknown parts. The latter often being described as one’s shadow. 
• How to invite/catalyze meaning & insight via the felt sense and deep listening. 
• The importance of deep listening and the Focusing frame of attention and how these qualities support embodied learning. 

Module 6: Shift Questions

Key learning points will be:

• Understanding both conceptually and experientially what constitutes Shift/ Powerful questions and how to “allow” and frame them appropriately in Presence. 
• Paying deep attention to the client & tracking their energetics (vocal, somatic etc.). 
• Sensing/understanding when the client is stuck or plateaued—when to allow more space and when to introduce a shift question. 
• How to effectively reflect their energetics to create awareness and shifts. 
• Knowing when the question has “landed” & created a shift.

Module 7: Working with Parts

Some of the key learning points in this module will be:

• How to identify part conflicts and how to work effectively with them.
• How to engage with these areas when there’s a sense of being stuck and how to engage focusing in order to assist the client to create solutions.
• Further reflection on parts as perspectives of persona and how to work effectively with them to create shifts of awareness.

Module 8: Integrating

In this final module we will be supporting you in being able to seamlessly integrate Focusing into your coaching. In doing so, we will also be looking at how a session incorporating Focusing or a Focusing approach will also embody the PCC markers.

Focusing takes 16 weeks to complete and offers up to 33.5 ICF ACSTH/CCEU's.

EMPOWERMENT: WILD CONVERSATIONS & PURPOSE (2022 Retreats: Virtual Sept 2-5; Elohee In-Person Sept 9-13)

The key element of this section is the Empowerment Retreat which from 2021 can be taken in-person or  virtually (on Zoom). It provides an immersive opportunity to step out of “regular life” and as a community explore untapped aspects of our inner process though facilitated direct interactions with the wild which help awaken and reconnect participants with a deeper, more primal and elemental story and offer fascinating potential for deep conversations. 

The retreat is supplemented by:

• 2 live classes on Zoom. 
• 2 buddy sessions (min. 1 hours) are required in this module. You may of course set more up for extra support.
• Supportive content in the learning platform. 

THE RETREAT

Stand still.
The trees ahead and the bushes beside you Are not lost.

Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers.

The Empowerment Retreat is a five-day (four-day virtual) immersive and experiential program designed to help participants embody their capacities as Emergent Coaches and to reconnect with and deepen their abilities for deep listening, powerful conversations and living aligned with ones deepest sense of purpose. The retreat offers several opportunities to radically deepen learning and capacity as a coach, and for in-person participants to be able to do so in an extraordinary wilderness setting.

Alongside many other activities during the retreat, participants are facilitated into direct wild world encounters in deeply powerful, surprising and transformative ways. The experiential group and individual activities include deep listening practices, mindfulness practices, conversations with the wild, somatic learning opportunities, and many nature-based practices and games entwined with and built around competencies-based coaching skills opportunities. The activities can open powerful new doors for coaches to be able to engage their clients more effectively and effortlessly in their sessions. Over the retreat, participants are also given plenty of time to engage in their own reflection, integration and change and also offered appropriate support if needed.  Overall it's an incredible experience for all!

As the retreat is dedicated to supporting participants reconnect with self, others and the land, ample time is allowed for that. Plus alongside all that deep experiential learning we make sure there's plenty of time for fun, connection and play. Each evening there is facilitated council and group learning activities including story, song, fire and laughter.

Empowerment takes approximately 4 weeks to complete and offers up to 36.5 ICF ACSTH/CCEU's depending on whether virtual or in-person.

The Resources section contains all the important material required for participation in the program. This means they're all in one easy-to-locate place. There is also some supportive additional learning content plus there's demonstration coaching sessions to show live in-session examples of the Emergent model.

Resources comes free with any purchase of an Emergent Coach Training course as does the Mindfulness Self-Guided 8-Week program.