Yannick’s Coaching Lab features guest coaches from a broad variety of approaches, who showcase how they work as part of a live 45min coaching session, followed by reflections and Q&A with the audience.
Curious to know what this session was like? Have a peek at the Lab Report below or consider VIP membership to access the full recording of this and many more exciting sessions.
Yannick’s Coaching Lab #62 — Elfreda Manahan-Vaughan
Lab Report by Natalie Fraser
Pre-Session Summary
Elfreda’s client has attended this session to focus on engaging in effective communication where conflict is involved. This was found to be specifically related to when her client and another person’s values did not align. They met briefly before today’s session where Elfreda explained some of her background and her coaching and contracting perspectives. An agreement was made from an attachment perspective that certain topics would not be explored in today’s session. Her client also shared that she is a visual thinker, and an agreement was made for space to be given for this to enable her client to process things visually.
Session Summary
Contracting Elfreda began the session summarizing their contracting and checking they were in agreement about the focus on their session today.
A clearer session focus was established recognizing that Elfreda’s client finds that barriers arise in relationships when values are not aligned and/or when her client intuitively does not like someone. As a self-employed person this also relates to business relationships, with decisions identified as sometimes being made based on feelings more than logic.
Developing understanding around relationships was recognized as an important potential outcome of this session. Elfreda often made an effort to explain the rationale behind her interventions and briefly outline theory to enable her client – who is also a trained coach – to deepen her understanding of the modalities that may be useful to self-reflect, as well as deepening understanding of the topic being discussed.
Ignoring red flags was a phenomenon that emerged. Elfreda explored this through an attachment lens, using examples her client shared and theory related to attachment styles and behaviors. A theme of self-sacrificing for the benefit of others was identified as a reason that red flags may be ignored, leading Elfreda and her client to consider whether noticing when she is self-sacrificing could be a check-in in future relationships and how this relates to her value of being authentically ‘herself’ in all situations.
Repeating the cycle. Elfreda’s client reflected that she struggles to learn from experiences, and finds similar situations repeating themselves. Interventions explored what she’d have done differently in relationships which have since ended, and if she could identify the time in these relationships when in hindsight she would have ideally ended the relationship – and why.
What kind of relationships do you want? Elfreda supported her client to reflect on the successful relationships as well as the relationships which have not had longevity. This intervention allowed the client to reflect that she would like relationships where she can ‘be herself’ and not have to shy away from certain topics.
Going Visible. The client reflected that she was in business for 7 years before showing an image of herself publicly due to a fear of judgement and hate. A previous coach helped her to reconcile that if hate comes then she can delete and ignore it, leading to her choosing to become publicly visible with photos and extensive social media activity. Rather than meet her for the first time and be shocked by who they found (which had happened often previously) going publicly visible caused her clients to self-filter. This self-filtering of clients has created a new situation where often relationships are starting with an assumed shared value system. However, this can lead to increased disappointment when relationships do not succeed.
Noticing session time Elfreda reflected back three key themes which she had noticed arising in the session, inviting her client to add any key themes which stood out for her that could be beneficial to explore further within the final part of the session today.
“Being the villain” the concept of sometimes having to be the villain in other people’s stories was explored in the context of her client being able to be authentic and act in accordance with her values, leading to a shift in perspective related to perception by others and by herself.
Key Insights
Lots of topics were explored which the client appreciated. Even though they felt they were jumping between topics, she appreciated Elfreda’s ability to keep her on track and reflect back/summarize.
Finding links. Elfreda felt that this session was quite typical of her coaching style, finding links between many different emergent topics and themes.
It is important for Elfreda to continually verify the ideas/hunches which form for her. For example in this scenario, by comparing how her client engaged in different relationships in their life to verify her hunch about her client being an avoidant attachment style.
The use of attachment styles as such an influential intervention made her client feel unseen and put into a box for a moment during the session, yet this feeling soon dissolved. This led to an interesting discussion around the use of labels, and whether they are held tightly or loosely by practitioners.
The use of psychoeducation and explaining terminology is something that Elfreda often uses in her sessions, in part because it can be very reassuring for clients to realize that they are not alone in their ‘flawed’ experience.
Explaining questions at times is an active choice for Elfreda to be transparent and create safe in their role as a coach being a transitional attachment figure when working in this modality.
Elfreda makes a conscious effort to mirror the language of clients. For example, when a client uses feeling language she will ask feeling questions, whereas when a client using more logic language then Elfreda will mirror this.
Some audience members found following the session goals difficult. In contrast, Elfreda’s client (also a coach herself) reflected that in this initial meeting achieving a clear goal was not expected and that often coaching insights happen after the session takes place. Elfreda’s client also felt that the session concluding with a summary of key themes was very valuable.
Elfreda recommends people exploring ‘2nd generation attachment’ which is the approach she is trained in. The training is very heavy in theory. See: Dynamic Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation, Patricia Crittenden