The Transformative Power of Ontological Coaching III

By Patricia De’Ath and Alan Sieler

Introduction

Two previous articles have been written on “The Transformative Power of Ontological Coaching” (Alan Sieler on the Transformative Power of Ontological Coaching and The Transformative Power of Ontological Coaching blog). Each paper illustrated some key aspects of Ontological Coaching in Action, showing how the coach’s sensitive and skliful use of the ontological methodology helped create a conducive learning environment for a client.  In this environment, each client was able to experience a significant self-realisation and begin to make a profound change for themselves. 

It is a great pleasure to share another example of the transformative power on the ontological approach to coaching that has been provided Patricia De’Ath, who is currently participating in the Certified Ontological Coaching and Leadership Program. Before sharing the details of Patricia’s coaching, it is important to provide some thoughts about the (i) notion of “transformative” and (ii) the ontological distinctions she so skilfully applied.

Transformation and the generative power of language

While “transformative” and related words “transformation” and “transformational” can sound appealing, there can easily be a tendency to use them in a non-rigorous manner, without deeply considering their meaning, especially in the context of coaching. A dictionary description of transformation is “a marked change in form”. Following Robert Kegan (in his book In Over Our Heads), it is important to ask, “Changing the form of what?” 

From an ontological perspective, as outlined in Volume II of Coaching to the Human Soul, transformation is a significant change in the structure or form of Way of Being, such that someone becomes a very different Observer of themselves and the nature of the world, opening up significant new possibilities for how they can better create their life. In a moment we shall see how Patricia’s coaching was truly transformative in the change that occurred in her client’s Way of Being. Before doing that, some context for understanding how Patricia supported the client to explore the hidden and self-defeating way they were engaging with language will be outlined.

The ontological approach to language is that language is: 

1. not a thing, but is an integral and unavoidable part of human existence and 

2. a crucial means by which humans create their reality. 

In essence, language is fundamentally generative, playing a powerful role in how we continually create our existence. 

The generative power of assessments

Central to the notion that language continually generates reality is an interpretation that, regardless of the culture or language that is spoken, all humans engage in six fundamental language patterns. These patterns cannot be avoided, they are a “package deal” in the nature of being human. Each of these patterns has its own unique and way and power of generating reality. The formal name for these patterns is Some Basic Linguistic Acts. This approach to language is one of the hallmarks of Ontological Coaching.

Ttypically we are not aware of how we are engaging with each act, which can raise the question (using a double negative), ”If we cannot not engage with these six languaging acts, how can we know how effectively we are engaging with them and the way they are impacting on our reality?” It can be easy to be “flying blind” in language, not being aware of the reality we are creating for ourselves and how we may have fallen into unhelpful ways of engaging with language that contribute to our ineffectiveness, lack of satisfaction and even our suffering. 

One important reason that people seek coaching is because the reality they have been living in is not working for them and they have unintentionally blocked themselves from creating a more constructive reality that will allow them to go forward. Part of the responsibility of an ontological coach is to listen carefully to how clients are engaging with, and not engaging with, each of the six linguistic acts. 

In the language of Ontology, two of the linguistic acts are formally called assertions and assessments. A central part of assertions is what we know as facts. An ontological coach is curious about what seems to be factual in the client saying.

Assessments cover a huge area of language that includes judgments, opinions, perspectives, points of view, interpretations, appraisals, evaluations, values and beliefs, preferences and prejudices. To be human is to be continually making assessments and as someone once said, humans are “assessment making machines”. What don’t we have an opinion about? 

An important responsibility and competence of the ontological coach is to identify if coaching clients seem to have one or more assessments that could be holding them back.

Through her skilful observation, Patricia observed how her client, an intelligent woman, had inadvertently fallen into having an out-of-awareness assessment that was significantly compromising her happiness and the overall quality of her existence. Patricia also observed how her client had fallen into what can be regarded as an insidious linguistic trap and confused two linguistic acts, which was to be invisibly living her assessment as if it was an assertion; i.e. treating an important opinion as if it was a fact, and therefore likely to be unchangeable. (Two articles on assessments and assertions can be found at Standing Firmly in the Face of Criticism and How Constructive Are Your Negative Opinions. A full chapter on assessments can be found in Volume I of Coaching to the Human Soul.)  

In addition to supporting the client to be aware of an unhelpful assessment that she was living and treating as factual, Patricia also very sensitively and skilfully employed a process of five questions that invited the client to inquire into and inspect their assessment to see if there is any basis for it, or to check if there is any substance to it. Expressed in another way, is there any solid ground on which the assessment is based? This process is formally known as grounding assessments. 

Let’s now hand over to Patricia to share the coaching experience from her perspective.

Applying grounding assessments in a coaching session

This long weekend, I guided a friend through the process of grounding an assessment that she has been grappling with. She is 33 year-old woman, single, a qualified medical doctor who had just healed from a cancer scare. Her assessment was around feelings of inadequacy related to her health, professional performance, and identity as a woman.

She expressed a belief that, “Something is wrong in the functioning of my body, my brain is not producing the right chemicals or something." I immediately considered this to be a significant assessment she had been carrying and most likely treating as if it were factual.

This belief surfaced during a conversation as she also shared that she had not been able to sleep. So, I asked if I could take her through an ontological coaching grounding process.

I began by explaining the difference between assertions and assessments, and that opened up a new way for her to understand her thoughts. She quickly saw that she had been living her assessment as if it were factual and therefore unquestionable.

I then applied the five questions in the grounding assessments process.

Q1. For the sake of what she was holding this belief? She answered, “Because I feel behind in life”. We identified that this was to justify perceived underperformance in professional settings and to make sense of the gap between her current life circumstances and deeply held personal desires, particularly around relationships and motherhood. It seemed that this was another unhelpful assessment she was living from and I checked if it would be more useful to explore this assessment of feeling behind than the original assessment of something being wrong with her body. She could see that the two assessments were related and chose to explore the belief of feeling behind.

Q2. In which areas of her life was the assessment relevant?  Given that the original assessment about one part of her overall biology was related to feeling behind in her life, she considered this assessment was relevant to all areas of her life..

Q3. According to what standards?  In other words, what standards was she judging herself against? The standards she was comparing to were to societal and cultural expectations of what a woman “should” have achieved by her early 30’s, in particular motherhood. She had friends who have already become mothers. She also referred to her own childhood vision of having children after the age of 30. 

Q4. What facts support your belief?  We identified a few facts, but not many, these being her age and that she is single. 

Q5. What facts do not support your belief (i.e. are counter-evidence)?  When we explored what facts do not support this belief she had way more. She: 

• had no academic difficulties in university when studying in her country; 

• has a track record of finishing what she starts; 

• recent medical results confirmed she had recovered from a cancer scare; 

• had also recovered from a serious back injury; and

• has returned to physical activities she loves, like dancing. 

As part of sharing her experience of working through the grounding process, she said she wanted to live from her own standards, in particular choosing when she wanted to become a mother. Interestingly, she also referred to the first assessment of there being something wrong with her biologically. She realised that when the thought “something is wrong with me” begins to creep in, it creates a loop that takes her back to the fear and uncertainty of her past cancer diagnosis. She finds herself reliving that chapter, wanting to justify her feelings by seeking new rounds of medical tests, even when they aren’t needed. This orientation was blocking her from feeling comfortable to move towards motherhood.

I then introduced her to the moods in Ontology and she realised that she had been living in the moods of Anxiety and Resentment when these thoughts come up. I invited her to think about what other moods would better serve her and she said, “Acceptance and trust that nothing is wrong with me”. In saying this she shifted her way of being immediately. She seemed to have had a profound realisation, that there isn’t anything wrong with her and that she could get on with creating the life she desired. 

I invited her to make a declaration [another linguistic act] before we closed the session and she declared that “I am whole, I am healthy, and I trust my body. I choose to live from trust, not fear.” By working through the grounding assessment process, she was able to differentiate between interpretation and fact. This process created the space she needed for new perspectives to emerge.That was a beautiful example and learning for me about how we can live life based on assessments that create our own suffering. 

Closing thoughts

In order to be effective and powerful Ontological Coaches, we are required to be good listeners and observe the assessments that our coachee holds. With the client’s permission, the coach has a responsibility them explore this by checking the standards behind those assessments and inviting them/supporting them to shift the assessment, if it's no longer useful and has passed its “use-by date”, and move into emotional spaces that will serve them better to move forward.

Just as important as listening to the coachee, is coach’s self-awareness. Another responsibility of the coach is to recognise their own assessments and understand how to ground them, to ensure they uncover unconscious biases that might otherwise influence their work. Coaches need to stay alert to their own judgments, beliefs, and interpretations to ensure they’re not projecting their own narratives onto their clients. 

Patricia De’Ath, originally from Bolivia, lives in Hamilton, New Zealand, and is the Co-Director of The Regions Immigration Law & Recruitment—a company dedicated to supporting New Zealand employers, particularly in the agricultural sector, by addressing labour shortages through the recruitment of skilled migrant workers. The Regions supports migrant families with full lifestyle settlement solutions, helping them integrate into local communities and build stable, fulfilling lives in New Zealand. Patricia can be contacted at patricia@theregions.co.nz