The power of empathy in coaching with Jo McHale

There will be times when your coachees bring their anger, disappointment and other intense feelings into their sessions with you - and this can be a challenge to handle. You want to respond constructively. At the same time, you have to manage your own reactions and uncertainties. You want to create space for their experiences - yet you fear you might intensify their stuckness. You want to be a good listener - but you feel some frustration: after all, you're not their therapist. In such situations, what does mean to be empathic? What is empathy and what is it not? What does it sound like? When is it appropriate? Is it ever not appropriate?

The ethos and principles of Nonviolent Communication offer a unique and powerful answers to these questions. The NVC-based approach to empathy will benefit you in your role as a coach as well as giving your clients a deeper understanding of themselves.

In this session, we will:

• explore the concept of empathy through the lens of NVC
• compare the NVC approach with other commonly held views of empathy and compassion, and the stance taken by Paul Bloom in his book 'Against Empathy'
• experience the power and impact of NVC-style empathy
• increase our awareness of systemic factors that our clients experience, so that our empathy has real depth
• incorporate real-life situations into role plays as a way of developing the necessary skill

Inputs will be short. Practical experiential exercises will predominate. I invite you to show up with a willingness to reflect, collaborate, and to step into what I hope will be new territory in your coaching practice.

Will you sign up?

By attending this session, you will learn:
... a way of thinking about empathy that has the power to transform your relationship with your clients and their relationship with themselves and with their colleagues
... how to incorporate it into your practice
... the skills needed
... the pitfalls associated with 'doing' empathy as opposed to 'being empathic'

I love NVC and look forward to sharing with you just a little bit of what it can offer.

About the Speaker - Jo McHale

Jo tells me that she began learning about NVC 27years ago, at a crucial turning point in her personal and working life. Initially, she saw it as something she could teach to other people rather than something to apply to herself. And initially, she experimented with it in parallel with the more mainstream work she was doing for organisations in soft-skills training and creating multi-media learning materials. But gradually, she came to appreciate it not just as a model but also as a way of being that applied to her as much as to anyone else. The power and potential of NVC became so evident that in the past 15 years or so, it has become her main focus. In particular, she draws on it in working with people who are in conflict with one another - whether this be at home, at work or in the community.

Host or Publisher Guildford Coaches Group