Purpose
The purpose of the dissertation was an exploration of endings in my coaching relationships and how my management of endings may be impacting on coaching clients and myself. Endings are a fundamental part of life, can be associated with new beginnings and are an important part of transition. This may be transition in a coaching intervention involving self-reflection, the session itself or the contract. In the wider coaching field endings may be associated with transitions between roles or jobs. Endings are full of emotions – some can be useful, while others can have an adverse impact on the coaching relationship or journey – and it is important to be aware of the attendant influences which will be informed by the coach’s and coachees’, past, present and anticipation of the future. All of these affect our experiences of endings, particularly in the service of our coachees. There is was little published literature on a coach’s experience of endings in the coaching relationship with insights into how best to improve practice. This was contrary to literature in the psychotherapy domain, from which my research paper drew heavily.
Findings
The main findings of my research paper was to have clear boundaries along the coaching journey in order to minimise the adverse impact of transference and counter-transference on the coach and coachee alike. This would help ensure the best possible outcome for the coachee. There were are a number of recommendations around how to achieve a ‘good ending’. It was also found that the counter-transferential responses to endings for the coach impacted on their ability to be fully present for the coachee, which in turn resulted in the coaches development of an empathy/presence model to maximise their presence and associated empathy throughout the coaching session as a whole. When I published my resaerch thesis I recommended that more resaerch was needed on the coaches own experience of ‘endings’ and I am pleased to note that since it’s publication, it has benefited from over 100 citations.
