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Coaching approaches

Relational psychoanalytic coaching

Relational psychoanalytic coaching brings ideas from relational psychoanalysis, developed in the work of Stephen Mitchell and Jessica Benjamin, to the question of how you relate to other people. It looks at the patterns that repeat across relationships and at what happens between you and the coach in the conversation. The approach comes from therapy. No outcome study of relational psychoanalytic coaching turned up in a Crossref search, and the research cited here is on psychodynamic therapy in general.

What it is

A session takes a current relationship where you keep getting the same reaction, and asks what happens between you and the other person in that moment. The coach pays attention to what you expect from others, and to what happens between the two of you in the conversation itself, and treats that as material to work with.

Relational psychoanalysis moved away from the idea of a therapist who observes from outside. It treats the relationship as the medium of change, and it gives weight to recognition and mutuality: being seen by another person as a real subject. Coaching adaptations take those ideas into everyday life and into shorter conversations.

Where it comes from

Stephen Mitchell's Relational Concepts in Psychoanalysis (1988) set out a relational view of psychoanalysis, in which the mind is understood through relationships (Mitchell, 1988).

Jessica Benjamin's The Bonds of Love examined domination in relationships through psychoanalysis and feminist thought (Dattner, 1991, a review of the book). Relational coaching forms are recent, and the search for research on them found none (see the evidence section).

The principles underneath

The relationship is the work

The relationship with the coach, and the relationships you have with others, are treated as the place where change happens.

Patterns repeat

The way you respond to people often follows a pattern from earlier relationships, and it shows up again.

Recognition and mutuality

Feeling seen as a real person by someone else matters, and so does seeing them in return.

Meaning is made between people

What a moment means is shaped by both people, not by one person's view alone.

How a session runs

  1. Bring a current relationship where you keep getting the same reaction.
  2. Describe what happens between you and the other person at the moment you most want to change.
  3. Look at what you expect from them, and what you have learned to expect from people more generally.
  4. Notice what happens in the conversation with the coach, and what it stirs in you.
  5. Name one pattern you want to try differently in your next conversation with that person.
  6. Review what the pattern shows about your part and about theirs, without a verdict on who is to blame.

When it tends to fit

  • You keep finding yourself in the same argument, or the same withdrawal, with different people.
  • A relationship is repeating a pattern you recognise from earlier in your life, and you want to understand it before you change it.
  • You feel unseen by someone you need, and you want to talk about it in a way that looks at both of you.

What the research shows

Evidence: Practitioner tradition — little or no outcome research

No outcome study of relational psychoanalytic coaching turned up in a Crossref search. The nearest research is on the parent therapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy. A 2008 meta-analysis of long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (Leichsenring & Rabung, 2008) and a 2010 review titled "The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy" (Shedler, 2010, read from its title only) address that therapy family. As far as their titles show, neither tests relational psychoanalysis or coaching. Mitchell (1988) and Benjamin's book (reviewed by Dattner, 1991) are theory texts, not outcome studies.

Where the evidence is thin: The parent therapy has more research than the relational form or the coaching form. The 2008 meta-analysis is about long-term therapy, which is not the same as a coaching conversation, and neither source tests the approach described on this page.

Sources

  1. Mitchell, S. A. (1988). Relational concepts in psychoanalysis. Harvard University Press.
  2. Dattner, R. (1991). Review of The bonds of love: Psychoanalysis, feminism, and the problem of domination. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 28(2), 380.
  3. Leichsenring, F., & Rabung, S. (2008). Effectiveness of long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy: A meta-analysis. JAMA, 300(13), 1551.
  4. Shedler, J. (2010). The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 65(2), 98–109.

Where it stops

Relational work brings up feelings about past relationships. If you have been abused, or if a relationship involves control, threats or violence, get safety support from a qualified service before any conversation about patterns.

The relationship inside the conversation needs training and supervision to work with safely. A coaching conversation is not a substitute for that.

The research is on the parent therapy, not on relational coaching. Do not expect the outcome evidence to apply to this form directly.

Practices for this approach

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