philosophy behind how I work
introduction
None of us chose the world we were born into. Not the family, the social context, the moment in history, or the biological hand we arrived with. Inside all of that we learn ways of relating, understanding and functioning, and we take on expectations, values and assumptions about ourselves and other people long before we are in any position to examine them. Some of what we absorb that way proves useful for the rest of our lives. Some of it becomes limiting, and we carry it anyway.
Almost everything I do in a session follows from taking that seriously, along with a small number of other things I think about how people develop.
So here they are at proper length, rather than the version that fits neatly on a website. Anyone can describe their approach in a way that sounds appealing, and the description costs nothing to write. I’d rather you read this and knew whether you agreed with it. Some people won’t, and that’s useful for both of us to know early.
It’s what I think about people.
we don’t choose where we start, and we don’t finish there either
Early relationships matter, and I don’t think development stops with them. We go on being shaped by the work we do, the people we’re closest to, the organisations we join and the culture we move through. These wider contexts influence how we understand ourselves, how we relate to other people, and how we make sense of what happens to us.
Some of the patterns and assumptions we picked up early sit unexamined for decades. Others shift, usually because a new experience or a new relationship gives us a reason to look again: something that doesn’t behave the way the old pattern predicts, a role that asks for something we haven’t got yet, a change we didn’t choose and can’t undo.
circumstances are real, and there is usually more room than it looks
I think we all share certain givens. Mortality, freedom, responsibility and choice are not problems to be solved; they are the conditions everyone works within. Alongside them sit the more individual realities of upbringing, social and cultural background, opportunity and personal circumstance, which are not evenly distributed and never have been.
Within all of that, I think people are genuinely capable of learning, developing and changing. What I don’t think is that a person can become anything they want provided they want it enough. That idea is encouraging right up until the point it isn’t, at which stage it quietly converts every real obstacle into a personal failing. Some limits don’t move however hard you push at them, and I’d rather say so than imply otherwise.
What I do believe is that understanding yourself more clearly. Your strengths, your vulnerabilities, your values, your actual capabilities and your actual limitations, gives you more choice in how you live. It doesn’t remove the constraints. It changes what you can do inside them. And the room a person has is usually a good deal larger than it looks from where they’re standing, which is most of what I’m doing when I work with someone: helping them find the room they do have, rather than the room they wish they had, and rather than the smaller one they’ve assumed.
Rather than the room you wish you had.
the past turns up in the present, usually without announcing itself
I think our past experiences often influence how we respond now, sometimes without us being fully aware of it. A reaction that seems to belong entirely to today’s meeting frequently has a longer history than that, and the fact that we can’t see the history doesn’t stop it operating.
Becoming more aware of your values, your assumptions and your emotional responses makes it possible to notice when you’re falling back into something familiar. That noticing is the useful part, though it isn’t the end of it. Once you can see a pattern clearly, you’re in a position to decide whether it’s still serving you or whether you’d rather respond differently. The point isn’t insight for its own sake. It’s the decision that insight makes available.
learning happens between people, not to them
I think learning happens through experience and through our relationships with other people. Knowledge and guidance can be helpful, and I’ll offer both. I’m a Chartered Psychologist and there’s no sense pretending I arrive empty-handed. But knowledge on its own isn’t enough, and I don’t see coaching as a one-way process of expert instruction.
I see it as collaborative and reciprocal: dialogue, reflection, challenge and shared exploration, alongside the sharing of knowledge and experience. It involves reflecting on what has happened, being open to being challenged, and trying out different ways of thinking or responding to see what they produce. In my experience it has more impact when it feels relevant to the person and connects with their own experience, which is why I don’t work from a script or a fixed sequence. Anything applied regardless of who’s in front of me would have to ignore most of what makes your situation yours.
It also means staying curious about how you understand yourself, other people and the world around you, rather than assuming I already know. That includes staying curious about how I’m understanding you, and it’s one reason I’d genuinely rather you told me when something isn’t landing.
challenge, held within support
I think development often requires challenge, but challenge needs to sit within enough support and psychological safety for a person to stay in it. People tend to develop most when they’re stretched a little beyond their current understanding or way of functioning, while remaining supported enough to stay engaged rather than close down or retreat to something safer.
Too little stretch and an hour can be pleasant and change nothing. Too much and a person quite sensibly protects themselves, which is the opposite of what was intended and takes a while to recover from. Judging that balance moment to moment, for the person actually there, is most of the skill in this work, and it isn’t something a framework can do on anyone’s behalf. It’s also why I pay as much attention to whether you feel secure enough as to what we’re covering.
what I’m actually listening for
All of that shows up in a fairly specific way. I’m interested in what you want to achieve, obviously. But I’m at least as interested in how you’ve come to understand the situation the way you do: what you’re treating as fixed, what assumptions may be shaping the choices you can see, what you stopped questioning some years ago because it had been true for long enough.
That isn’t curiosity for its own sake. The account you’re holding of a situation decides which options appear to exist within it. Change the account, even slightly, and options tend to show up that were there the whole time and weren’t visible from where you were standing.
Then it has to move. You try something, and what comes back tells us both something that no amount of further discussion would have produced. Reflection on its own becomes a way of circling. Action without it tends to repeat the same thing with more energy. The work is the movement between the two, which is why sessions are spaced with real life in between them.
If that’s how you’d want to think about your own situation, a Discovery Call is a good place to start.
Common Questions
Does this mean you don’t think people can change?
The opposite. I think people have far more capacity to change than they usually credit themselves with. What I don’t think is that the capacity is unbounded, or that it operates independently of circumstances. That distinction is worth keeping, because working towards something genuinely available to you is a good deal more useful than working towards something that was never quite on offer.
If circumstances matter that much, what is coaching actually for?
Circumstances set the room. They don’t decide what you do inside it, and most people are working with a smaller estimate of that room than the facts require. A good deal of what limits someone turns out to be an assumption they stopped testing rather than a constraint they genuinely face. Separating the two is difficult on your own, because the assumptions are the part you can’t see, and it’s a reasonable description of what the work involves.
Do you give advice, or just ask questions?
I’ll offer what I know when it’s useful, and I’d be withholding something if I didn’t. What I won’t do is treat that as instruction, because I don’t think understanding transfers that way and because you know your situation far better than I will. Most of the value comes from the exchange rather than from either of us delivering conclusions to the other.
How does this show up in a session?
I notice patterns and assumptions in how you describe your situation, and I hold them lightly rather than deciding what they mean on your behalf. I’ll usually ask about the thing you stated as though it were settled. The aim is for you to see it clearly enough to decide for yourself what, if anything, to do about it.
Is this the same as therapy?
No. Therapy starts from distress and works with the difficulty itself. Coaching starts from something you want to move towards. What I believe about people is the same in both, but what I’m doing with it isn’t, and I don’t mix the two. I’ve written about that at proper length, since it’s the question I’m asked most.
How do I get started?
Send a short message about what’s brought you to coaching using the form below, or contact me directly by phone or email. You don’t need to prepare anything in advance, and I usually respond within two working days.