Presenter:
Reinhard Stelter from Coaching Psychology Unit, University of Copenhagen

The main objective of the workshop is:

• To understand narrative theory in psychology and social practice and to adapt narrative thinking as a way of reflecting on and improving coaching practice
• To understand coaching as a process of personal and social meaning making and as value-oriented
• To give concrete ideas for practicing narrative coaching

Today’s learning and developing is more than ever a dynamic process situated in local communities of practice. On this basis the development of knowledge is normally the result of reflective dialogue and practice in concrete working or life contexts. From this learning perspective, the objective of coaching is to support a dialogue which aims to facilitate dynamic learning by shedding new light on specific challenges and by supporting the coachee to develop new meaning in regard to the situation. (Solutions are often not the answer!). In this process coach and coachee are involved in a joint course of coordinated meaning making, where coach and coachee are co-creating and re-storying the specific events in the coachee’s lifeworld in order to re-create or re-shape the coachee’s understanding of the situation or event. Re-storying is a kind of dialogical and narratively based learning process. It is learning by re-flecting and re-viewing specific situations and events, by giving words and expressing the implict, and by enriching the memories of situations, people and events that have been suppressed by former dominating stories. In that sense coaching supports a process of re-telling stories or of telling alternative stories about events, people and that became a professional, personal or social burden, something “unsolved” which has been the reason to visit a coach.