Challenging in the counselling or coaching relationship
Challenging is a really interesting skill in the toolbox of person-centred counselling and coaching
(There’s something here about challenging and using questions to get someone to dig deeper and start to figure out things that are at the edge of their awareness, but that’s a newsletter for another day).
It’s today! The newsletter I mentioned in my newsletter on empathy, boundaries, and resilience. I said that empathy is sitting with and accepting a person’s feelings in that moment, regardless of how congruent they are to the situation. In therapeutic and coaching relationships there is a skill called challenging, and it involves that, gently challenging someone on how they’re feeling or what’s blocking them or what they’re finding difficult.
It’s one that needs a good grasp of the relationship between you and the other person. You can’t just jump in and ask what people are really feeling, but you can help someone dig deeper into their feelings:
‘I’m just tired’