Moving from myths to meaning: Using the narrative spiral in coaching

Coaching lecture series "Coaching - Research and Practice"

David Drake

You are invited to join Dr David Drake, in a presentation on how to tap the rich and historic layers that underpin the stories our clients share with us. Narrative coaching draws from a number of disciplines to enable practitioners to take a holistic view of how people grow and develop and to take innovative approaches to help them do so.

The first half of the presentation will provide an overview of the four pillars of narrative coaching: narrative philosophy (ie, social constructionism as an epistemology), narrative psychology (ie, attachment theory as an ecology), narrative structure (ie, mythology as a cosmology) and narrative practices (ie, rites of passage as an ontology).

The second half will introduce the Narrative Spiral as a practical frame for coaching professionals to draw on the knowledge and evidence, as well as their own experience, in these four areas to work more imaginatively and effectively with clients. In doing so, we will approach coaching as both an art and a science.

David B. Drake, PhD is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Narrative Coaching in Sydney. David helps organizations to embed coaching in the way business gets done, works on narrative-based action research projects in the UK, US and Australia, trains practitioners around the world in advanced narrative and coaching practices and has written over 30 publications on coaching.

Further information

Reinhard Stelter, Coaching Psychology Unit, University of Copenhagen

The lecture is part of a series of lectures titled "Coaching - research and practice", which is sponsored by the EMCC. The lecture series aims to build a bridge between research and praxis in coaching and at the same time embed coaching practices in the research discourse. The intention is to hear from researchers, who explore coaching from a business, health or sports related angle. The Coaching Psychology Unit at the University of Copenhagen was established in order to launch and coordinate interdisciplinary research, education and dissemination in coaching.