Postgraduate Diploma in Coaching Psychology

Coaches and consultants are keen to find new and deeper ways to understand and work with their clients. This in turn is producing a great deal of interest in what is increasingly called 'The Psychology of Coaching'. Our programme is unique in that it provides key psychological theory and practice for coaching practitioners. It also addresses the personal development needs of the coach. At this present time there is no other Postgraduate Diploma available in the UK on the subject of coaching psychology and we are both pleased and proud to offer this powerful and special course.

One of the most clear and pressing training needs for many coaches is in the area of psychological skills and competence. In our view it is both unnecessary and unrealistic to expect business coaches to undertake lengthy psychological trainings as part of their overall development. Nevertheless many executive coaches are recognising a need to know more and to be more skilled in the psychological and emotional dimensions to coaching issues. In supervision sessions with coaches we regularly hear comments such as,"there was something not quite right but I didn't know what it was", or "I really didn't know what I was dealing with". The question of "where is the boundary between coaching and counselling?", is regularly asked by coaches in training and by more experienced practitioners. Many coaches experience an urgent need for more knowledge and more skills.

On our own postgraduate certificate programme we prepare people to a good level of psychological competence but recognise that this is a key area for continuing professional development. As such we recently introduced our coaching psychology programme, one of very few in the world at present, designed for business and executive coaches. It is structured into a number of training workshops which address theory, practice and personal development.

The overall programme addresses the following areas:

• Psychological-mindedness
• Schools and traditions of psychology
• Psychodynamic
• Transference and counter-transference defences
• Client Centred core conditions
• Attachment theory: secure and insecure forms of attachment presence
• Cognitive behavioural coaching
• Strength coaching
• Gestalt
• Strategic and intimate interventions
• Theories of individual change
• Coaching for behavioural change
• The applications of Emotional Intelligence to coaching
• The use of self as instrument of change
• The similarities and differences between coaching and therapy
• Coaching supervision

Our Philosophy of Coach Education

The theoretical aspects of coach education are a vital aspect of learning to coach effectively but theory of itself does not produce an excellent coach. Coaching, after all, is a practical activity and any coach training worth its salt must be grounded in sound professional practice. This is why we devote so much attention to our practice/feedback model of coach development. At each workshop you work in trios rotating around the roles of coach, coachee and observer. The feedback and learning from these sessions is often the most significant part of the prgramme for many.

However there is yet another fundamental dimension to advanced coach training and that is the personal development of the coach. We strongly believe that the coach needs a place to address and work through their own issues if they are to operate with the emotional intelligence required of an effective coach. Our coaching psychology diploma pays special attention to this and is a hall-mark of our approach. Finally, we are firm advocates of coaching supervision as essential to good professional practice and build this into our workshop structure.

International visitors

If you are an 'overseas' visitor to this site please note our commitment to international delivery. Email us with your enquiry - we would be delighted to hear from you.