Supercoaching: how to get the best results for your clients

I’m currently bringing together a brand new work book to go alongside the online Diploma.

It’s a mammoth task. I’m at 180,000 words at the moment and I haven’t even started on the most important element; the deconstruction of the Fusion five session format.

What I’ve come to realise over the years is that the five session framework is in fact a unique coaching system. It’s outcome-informed practice at its very best, having evolved from 30,000 hours of my own professional work.

The five sessions have inbuilt mechanisms that work systematically to shift an inward, downward, backward mind set to a more psychologically robust outward, forward, upward orientation.

Every action and every word is there for a very specific reason. When interventions are made, and even how words are spoken, is important and has an effect on outcomes.

I know why the system works so well but have never written it down before. I’m addressing that now with word-for-word explanations designed to help practitioners implement the model most effectively.

Knowledge is power. Research shows the confidence of the practitioner has a real effect on client expectation, helping to build a working alliance that creates a sweet spot for therapeutic change.

Supercoaching

‘Super’ means over and above. When coaching and counselling combine, turns out the whole is greater than the sum of its parts which is why I believe the concept of therapeutic coaching is now changing how we view wellbeing work in all its forms.

More and more information emerging from neuroscience has helped us understand the importance of mind management skills training. Even Prince William, when he launched his Heads Together campaign, talked about acquiring the mental skills now to deal with whatever clouds may appear on our horizon in the future.

I agree of course. Why do we wait for an emotional crisis before taking action? That way, we just end up constantly fire fighting and with a mental health system that is overloaded.

Regular mental health maintenance has to be a better way. We take our car for an annual MOT to make sure it is running smoothly and efficiently, so why wouldn’t we promote regular wellbeing check ups to find out what's working in our life and what might need some attention?

As Voltaire said 'we must cultivate our garden'.

We don’t leave weeds to grow unchecked. Every gardener knows the importance of pulling up weeds to sow new seeds, so why do we leave negative thoughts to spread unchecked in our minds?

If we keep hitting our self over the head with a toffee hammer we should not be surprised when we end up with a bit of a headache!

 Coaching and counselling connected

An integrated mental health model has to be the way forward for all professions that embrace wellbeing work as part of the skillset, whether that is in teaching, policing, nursing, HR, physiotherapy or therapy of any kind.

 There have always been counsellors. There have always been coaches. From philosophers to sages, there were always elders in the community who had simply lived long enough to be able to offer support and wise counsel to those younger or less experienced. 

 In recent times, however, we’ve come to believe that counsellors counsel and coaches coach. We’ve treated them as separate disciplines. Yet our new understanding of the mind is now taking us full circle and pointing towards the logical conclusion that counselling and coaching should not really be separate professions at all and we should be taking a more holistic approach.

In reality, most counsellors will end up straying into coaching territory anyway as they work towards a planned ending and most coaches will drift into counselling territory even without any intention to do so.

 Fortunately, the toolkit of the Fusion integrated model includes both reflective counselling skills and advanced coaching tools underpinned by a sound theoretical framework which keeps the work safe and grounded in solid science and research.

 Bad science

Since the 1980s, we have been led to believe it is imbalanced brain chemistry that makes us feel stressed and depressed. This is simply not based on fact and, currently, there is little evidence the antidepressants work any better than sugar pills.

Simply put science has, to date, underestimated the impact of experience and environment on human well-being. Fortunately this is now changing fast. Our emotions, even the uncomfortable or distressing ones, are in fact our very best friends.

So, if we wake up in the morning feeling anxious, angry, down or depressed, our brain is actually sending us helpful messages that something in our life needs to change. We then have a choice; either to take a look at our life holistically and work out what needs attention or to take medication to numb down those uncomfortable feelings.

I know what I think is the best option.

 Getting this important message out to as wide an audience as possible has become my life’s vocation and skilling up as many professionals as I can, to take this message out there, has become my life’s mission.

So I will press on with the Diploma manual... but I think I may need to prune the word count just a bit!

 Do you want to take your skills to the next level?

 Follow this link for immediate access to the Skills Workbook direct.

What is covered in the programme?

 The 70,000 word, 426 page work book covers a broad range of theory and skills.

 Module 1

 The Therapeutic Coaching Timeline

Professional evolution

The Therapeutic Coach: A new paradigm

The big experiment

What is therapeutic coaching? Is it different from counselling?  

About the NCFE accredited Therapeutic Coaching Diploma

Effective Therapy: Affordable training

 Module 2

Work Book

Zen philosophy; an auspicious beginning

Setting SMART Goals

Self Reflection

Learning something new

Recognising emotions

Module 3

Communication Micros Skills

S.O.L.E.R

Listen

Mirroring and reflection

Paraphrasing

Summarising

Open questions

Empathy

Carl Roger’s core conditions

About Carl Rogers

Look back, but don’t stare

 Module 4

 Human needs

Create a SAFE SPACE to get your emotional needs met:

The work life balance

Attunement and the therapeutic alliance

Accelerated rapport

Smile

Information Gathering: Using Clinical Measures and feedback

CORE 10

Taking an emotional needs ‘audit’

Actualising tendency versus learned helplessness

How to restoring hope

Module 5

 A first session with a client

Placebo-nocebo

Confidentiality in therapeutic work

Positive expectation

SUDS scaling

 Module 6

 Dealing with anxiety and panic attacks

Fight or flight

Pattern matching

Thinking errors or cognitive distortions

Resilience and Base Stress

Diaphragmatic Breathing

The Observing Self and Meta awareness

Misuse of the Imagination

What else do I need to know?

Module 7

 Setting therapeutic goals

The Magic Question

The Reticular Activating System (RAS)

RAS and focused attention

What are your Hobbies and Interests?

Developing metaphor therapeutically

 Module 8

 Psycho Education

Triune theory

Sleep

Pattern matching and neural pathways

Patterns of response

 Module 9

 Supervision and the helping professions

Referrals

Diversity: Celebrating Difference, Celebrating ‘Sameness’

Challenging the labels

HAPPINESSISNOWHERE

 Module 10

 STOP: GO Bridging the gap between counselling and coaching

Holistic Life Coaching

Ploughing new furrows: Counselling in a coaching context

Where are you on the wellbeing continuum?

React or respond?

Thought stopping

Neuroplasticity and the changing brain

Affirmations

Module 11

 The STOP System

STOP and diaphragmatic breathing: How to test your own breathing

STOP and ‘Taking a Step Back’

STOP and the Observing Self

STOP and Emotional intelligence

STOP and interrupting old or habitual patterns

 Module 12

The Wheel of Life

Case study: Geoff #1

Using the coaching wheel of life

Assessing and scaling life as it is

The life wheel protocol

 Module 13

 Case study: Geoff #2

Wheel of life doc 1

A holistic view of the client

The preferred future

Story: What a bird should look like

Write it down-make it happen

 Module 14

 Case study: Geoff #3

Wheel of life doc 2

SMART goals

Case study: Geoff #4

SMART goals doc

 Module 15

 Visualisation

Describing guided imagery

Visualisation: a history

Meditation and mindfulness

Metaphor in guided imagery

 Module 16

 Case study: Geoff #5

Therapeutic time travel

From problem focused to solution focused

A progressive relaxation and bespoke visualisation for Geoff

 Conclusion

 Intelligence plus intuition equals ‘whole brain’ learning

The Ebbinghaus Curve of Forgetting

A privilege

 Appendix

 TASK documents

Therapeutic stories

 Resources

 Therapeutic Coaching in practice

First session questionnaire

SAFE SPACE audit sheet

CORE 10 questions

Case study: Shelly

Case Study: David; coaching a client with M.E.

BACP ethical guidelines

Association for Coaching: coaching competencies

Articles Is the Therapeutic Coach a ‘brain mechanic?’

What do you do if you don't like your client?

Smile and the world smiles back.

The Top Five Regrets of the Dying

Swim towards the light.

A Nice Result

Better to do something imperfectly than nothing flawlessly

No need for my services?

The Super Organising Idea

All boxed up?

Working at the cutting edge

Epigenetics

Mapping the connectome

The gut microbiome

Polyvagal theory

The seven pillars of mindfulness

Mental health first aid

 Order your workbook here

 Testimonials 

Founding Chair of BACP Coaching Linda Aspey

 In the field of coach-counsellor integration, Frances is a trailblazer' 

 Health journalist and BACP Coaching Executive Specialist for Communication Sally Melissa-Brown healthjournalist.co.uk

 'Fusion teaches you a fast, effective way to diffuse stress and take control of your emotions. It's deceptively simple and includes lots of fun techniques and exercises which will appeal to children of all ages.'

Make Menopause Matter founder Diane Danzebrink:

 ‘I discovered Fusion therapeutic coaching when I needed it most. When personal circumstances left me with mental and emotional issues I was lucky enough to find Frances Masters. Fusion has quite literally changed my life!  

Having studied traditional counselling some years ago I was left feeling disappointed that I had not been taught how to help my clients move forward with their lives. I was so disillusioned I abandoned my dream of becoming a counsellor and followed an alternative career path.  

My personal Fusion experience provided a real ‘light bulb’ moment for me, this was what my counselling training had been missing and I went on to complete the diploma in Fusion therapeutic coaching. I am passionate about my work, having experienced the mental and emotional trauma of depression when I was least expecting it made me determined to use my experience to help others’

Principal Teaching Fellow, University of Southampton John Perry, MA, MA, MA, MSc, FHEA, https://www.southampton.ac.uk/medicine/about/staff/jwp.page

 ‘Frances is an inspirational and engaging trainer. A highly-skilled facilitator, Frances is responsive to learners’ needs, flexible, good humoured and positive in her approach.

I whole-heartedly recommend both Frances and her approach to all who are committed to helping others to move in the direction of accomplishing their full creative and constructive potential.’