Published in Kingstown College Coaching Magazine 2020/2021
by administering psychological first aid during times of trauma, future mental illnesses can be reduced
As the pandemic evolves, coaches will increasingly be called upon to provide skills, tools and ways to support those suffering from stress and anxiety. Cathy Jones Moore highlights a number of models and tools which can be called upon during and after traumatic times.
As coaching professionals, we are dealing with challenges that Covid-19 has brought to our businesses, our clients and our networks. As coaches, we are also being challenged like never before to deal with the new emerging issues of this pandemic. These issues have made us look within ourselves and at our knowledge for tools and ways to support our clients.
A lot of clients are currently experiencing trauma and anxiety, clients that would never normally suffer with anxiety. I therefore decided to complete the John Hopkins Psychological First Aid course and during which, the role of us coaches really hit home to me. Psychological First Aid (PFA) may be defined as “a compassionate and support presence designed to mitigate acute distress and assess the need for continued mental health care“ (Everly & Fynn 2005).
If we look closer at the RAPID model of psychological first aid, a model that is used frequently during stressful periods, we can see exactly how the role of the coach can work during traumatic times and the similarities between PFA and coaching:
Rapport – how to connect with our clients is the first thing we learn about as coaches. The importance of that first chemistry meeting and the use of our body language are critical to putting our clients at ease and generating rapport.
Assessment – screen for evidence of adverse reactions – as coaches we need to assess our client’s needs i.e. do they need coaching, counselling or therapy? Let’s find out more about our client’s requirements through powerful questioning and listening, to allow us to assess their needs. A key part of PFA is reflective listening and it is a tool that many of us use with our clients to establish their goals and bring clarity to their thought process.
Prioritization – helping the client determine what is most urgent at this time and similar to goal setting, what is the priority for our clients right now in this moment of time? Like any coaching tool or model, there is an action plan, and we help our clients to prioritise what is important and what actions can they make today, to allow them to move forward. We often break their goals down into manageable timelines whilst not ignoring the end goal. It’s important that “baby steps” are identified as otherwise the mountain can be high to climb and seem too intimidating.
Intervention – summarizing what you heard, normalising reactions, helping to form a plan – this is at the core of all coaching models. We need an action plan for our clients to help them achieve their goals and ascertain how they are going to achieve these goals in the short term.
Disposition – ending the contact and planning a follow up – like all good coaches, we summarise and plan the next session with our clients. PFA should not be a once-off intervention and coaching is rarely a once-off session.
What is really interesting is the fact that by administering psychological first aid during times of trauma, future mental illnesses can be reduced.
The basic principles for PFA aid are very similar to coaching and this really resonated with me during my time with Connect a Coach, a voluntary organisation offering free coaching sessions to people working on the front line. Most of my clients during this time were very distressed, very confused and very frightened with many crying uncontrollably. The biggest challenge as a coach was to assess if the person needed to be referred on to counselling or if coaching was a solution.
the feedback has been brilliant with clients saying they did not know how powerful coaching was
I found that applying coaching tools, such as the Resilience ROSE Model (Paula King), was very beneficial and powerful. What was their reason for Living? What are their greatest achievements? What are they most proud of? Such powerful questions during these challenging times for us all. These questions brought home to them the importance of their self-identity, which at times was lost working on the front line during this pandemic.
Optimisation – what are their hopes and dreams for the future?
A great question to help focus clients and indeed ourselves during these times. Empowerment – who can help you right now? This model is very useful for the Assessment PFA Model
The CBT Model of anchoring was very beneficial by asking clients to remember a good time in their lives when things were going great. Some of which recalled the smallest things such as spending the evening at home with their children watching TV, an activity that they could no longer partake in. By visualising and remembering the good times of their lives, this really helped get them through the day.
Dr. Claire Hayes, Cognitive Behaviour ABC Model of Emotion – Thoughts are not facts! We have over 60,000 thoughts a day of which 90% are the same as the day before. This can be very damaging if our thoughts are all negative and we need to help our clients through their thoughts, their beliefs and their actions. It is our client’s thoughts, not their circumstances that determine how they feel. Are their thoughts helpful or unhelpful? Never has there been a time like the present to work with our clients on their beliefs and values.
after only a few sessions with my coach, I began to see my life improving and felt so much better in myself and hopeful for the future
SPOT coaching tool is also very useful – clients now want shorter sessions and many of which are now online and therefore are time limited. This linked with the VUCA model can be highly valuable to our clients in allowing them to see the wood from the trees during this stressful period.
During the past few months, I had to refer one client onto counselling and the others were happy to engage in the coaching sessions. The feedback has been brilliant with clients saying they did not know how powerful coaching was and some admitted they did not understand what coaching was prior to this.
A care worker working on the front line in nursing homes, having seen a lot of death, was very distressed upon first contact. Her main feedback was that coaching created that “safe space” for her to firstly speak about her experience, assess them and put a plan in place to allow her to move forward – to me this epitomises coaching in its truest form.
I was completely and utterly lost and could not see any solution to my problems. After only a few sessions with my coach, I began to see my life improving and felt so much better in myself and hopeful for the future. I would advise anyone who is going through a hard time to give it a go because it improved my outlook immensely. Thanks for everything. Client Testimonial July 2020
Dr. George Everly refers to the surge after a pandemic or a natural disaster, there is always a surge for mental health professionals and this demand can range from 15-25% of all those affected. Therefore, we can surmise that the demand from Covid-19 will be much higher due to the greatly increasing affected numbers. We can see this already happening in Ireland to date and the question is “How can we demonstrate the value of coaches during these testing times?”
When the incident is sudden or devastating, 25% or more of the population may exhibit what has been termed, the disaster syndrome, a condition marked by survivors appearing dazed, stunned, and experiencing a potentially broad range of acute mental and emotional symptoms. Problematic psychological reactions to disasters may also be prolonged, with prevalence rates of posttraumatic stress disorder ranging from 11% to 40%. (ref 2)
If we relate this back to the Psychological First Aid and the skills required, ultimately this is how coaches can benefit our clients. If we, as coaches, are to change our practices and look at ways of supporting our clients, we can make a profound difference to mental health in the future. Through the use of powerful coaching tools and by using our coaching standards and ethics, we can make a huge contribution overall to positive mental health.
We are not counsellors, but we can be therapeutic.
References
Ref 1 ROSE Model – Paula King Kingstown College https://kingstowncollege.ie/rose-model/
Ref 4: Dr. Claire Hayes – Finding Hope in the Age of Anxiety
By Cathy Jones Moore
Cathy Jones Moore is a qualified Executive & Life Coach. She is an accredited EMCC Practitioner and member of the ICF. She coaches many leading executives and private clients who wish to move forward and empower them to live their best lives. Cathy has strong belief in the whole concept of coaching and what it can contribute to a client’s life. Cathy is also an experienced Human Resources Director with over 20 years’ experience across various industry sectors and coaches. Cathy has a real interest in Positive Psychology and the benefits of same within the coaching field. Cathy is currently a volunteer coach for Connect a Coach.
