What is Transpersonal Coaching and how does it work?
Transpersonal Coaching empowers people to transcend the ego states, mindsets and behaviours that inhibit their personal, professional and spiritual growth.
This specialized type of coaching involves a dialogical relationship between a coach and client with the intention to resolve issues in the client’s life, by engaging in processes that serve to transcend the client’s self constructs and limiting beliefs. Typical outcomes of this form of psychological coaching are an enhanced sense of meaning and purpose in life, bringing with it greater clarity and resourcefulness.
The transpersonal coaching (TC) approach is effective at helping clients to overcome the limiting beliefs, debilitating emotions and negative reactions that prevent their success and happiness. This integral approach to coaching makes use of transpersonal states and perspectives in order to resolve issues in any context — personal and/or interpersonal and/or spiritual.
The job of the transpersonal coach is to hold a liminal space (open, receptive and emergent), walking the client through a transformative passage of questioning and helping the client to reintegrate their new, widened and resourceful perspective into their lives. TC processes by their very nature can lead to transformation or spiritual awakening.
TC can help clients to establish the root causes of their issues and then address these through holistic healing interventions. It also includes measures to identify and resolve all other determinants of clients’ problems. Sessions include processes that are both remedial and generative — guiding clients to clear their past and become more fulfilled and empowered in the present.
The TC methodology combines Transpersonal Psychology and Mindfulness based interventions and holistic applications of NLP in order to achieve sustainable outcomes. These three complimentary fields have been synergised into one seamless Transpersonal Coaching Model.
Watch a 20 minute video presentation on transpersonal coaching.
The difference between traditional coaching methods and transpersonal coaching:
Traditional coaching methods typically involve a dialog between a coach and a client aiming to address issues from a cognitive-behavioral perspective. This means that only issues in conscious awareness are addressed and their unconscious causes are left undealt with. Interestingly, neuroscience has demonstrated that our unconscious functioning precedes conscious awareness by at least 1/2 second (Libet, 1983 & 1993). This means that most if not all coaching issues like motivation and procrastination, indecision, conflicting priorities, burnout, overwhelm and performance anxiety are a result of automatic (unconscious) reactions and patterns which occur before conscious awareness. Traditional coaching methods rely heavily on conscious processing through questioning, analysis and tasking. It’s like trying to steer a train by asking someone in the last carriage to change the direction of the entire train. It won’t be so effective, especially not in the long run!
Transpersonal coaching works with the unconscious processes that are at the root of most of our problems in life, yet it does so in a natural, conversational way that makes this approach effective with lasting results.
One of the unique attributes of TC is that the coach identifies and makes constructive use of the transpersonal phenomena that may be behind the issue or which can arise in coaching sessions. This means that clients can relax and be themselves in the presence of a highly aware, competent and caring coach.
In a nutshell, the Transpersonal Coaching Model makes use of attention shifting processes to promote resourceful states and responses – despite the severity of the challenge being faced. You can read more about this model here.
The following articles further describe the value of transpersonal coaching and how it works:
- Coaching the Whole Person
- The Transpersonal Coaching Model
- Transformation in Transpersonal Coaching
- The Healing Potential of Transpersonal Coaching
- Transpersonal Psychology – New Perspectives
- Mindfulness, Bodyfulness and Open Awareness
- Open Awareness (a transpersonal coaching skill)
- The mindful remedy for stress and burnout
- Bouncing back from burnout
Written by Jevon Dangeli – MSc Transpersonal Psychology, Coach & Trainer
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References:
Libet, Benjamin; Gleason, Curtis A.; Wright, Elwood W.; Pearl, Dennis K. (1983). “Time of Conscious Intention to Act in Relation to Onset of Cerebral Activity (Readiness-Potential)”. Brain. 106 (3): 623–42.
Libet, Benjamin (1993). “Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action”. Neurophysiology of Consciousness. Contemporary Neuroscientists. pp. 269–306.
