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Trust Issues: Overcoming Psychological Barriers to Effective Coaching. Coaching Perspectives. [Article]  \nCopyright and re-use policy  \nSee [http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html](http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html)  \nSheffield Hallam University Research Archive  \n[http://shura.shu.ac.uk](http://shura.shu.ac.uk)  \nCoaching Perspectives Article  \nTitle: Trust Issues: Overcoming psychological barriers to effective coaching Carole Whyley & Dr Paul Stokes  \nIt is common in coaching practice to refer to creating a safe space for personal development. In the following, we challenge the notion of the safe space by examining some recent research on trust and trusted space within coaching. Implications for coaches and coaching will be spelt out at the end of the article.  \nCoaching as a “safe place”?  \nIt has become common to talk about psychological safety, as well as the idea of risk, within coaching conversations and relationships. Psychology remains quite dominant as the base discipline of many coaching training programmes, and it is understandable that safety and risk are prominent terms. However, too much focus on safety and risk can lead coaches to feel that they are largely responsible for the safety of their clients and can encourage them to either adopt a conservative, risk-averse approach to coaching interventions, for fear of damaging their clients, or assume safety, and risk harm. This view of coaching can be a problem for two reasons:  \n1) Clients are seen as vulnerable people who need protection, rather than skilled, capable individuals who have things to contribute to the coaching process  \n2) It neglects and minimises the importance of challenge & stretch in coaching relationships, which might involve taking on those issues & challenges  \nTo explore some of these issues, some research was conducted from a coachee’s perspective by way of a small scale, in-depth study using semi-structured interviews with eight participants. The following explains the findings and what conclusions we draw for coaching in this context.  \nATrusted Space  \nAs we argued above, the ideas of psychological safety and a safe space can be problematic for coaches and a more useful term is that of trusted space. What clearly emerged from the analysis of the data was the idea of a threshold for trust in the coaching space. In other words, coachees made judgements about whether there was sufficient trust in the process and the relationship to enable effective coaching conversations to take place. These judgements were influenced by three questions that coachees were asking themselves  \n1. How open/guarded do I need to be here?  \n2. To what extent am I likely to be judged (negatively) by the coach?  \n3. To what extent do I feel that the coach is ‘there’ for me and empathises with me?  \nShort Example  \nIn one of the interviews, the coachee referred to the fact that it was important to them that their coach had a background in a different sector, as then they felt they could address their issue with less fear that the topic would be viewed as a ‘betrayal’ to the profession. In other words, the coachee trusted that their coach would have sufficient neutrality and objectivity not tojudge them negatively.  \nIt was clear from the interviews that these three questions were ongoing and constantly revisited throughout all the coachees’ coaching relationships and sessions.  \nTrusted Enough  \nOn the basis of the above, we propose seeing the effective coaching space as being one where there is sufficient trust to enable good enough coaching conversations to take place. If acoachee believes that that they would need to b","cbCaifmhBtPp2B0h","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaifmhBtPp2B0h","pdf",119043,"English","# Coaching as a “safe place”? \n## Psychological safety, risk, and coach responsibility\n# A trusted space\n## Threshold for trust\n## Coachee self-questions\n# Trusted enough\n## Trust as a continuum\n# Can a trusted space be trusted?\n## Dynamic and temporal trust","[{\"question\":\"Why does the article challenge the “safe space” concept in coaching?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that excessive focus on safety and risk can shift responsibility onto coaches and encourage overly cautious, risk-averse approaches. It also can reduce the value of challenge and stretch in coaching relationships.\"},{\"question\":\"What is “trusted space” in the article’s framework?\",\"answer\":\"“Trusted space” is the coaching environment evaluated by coachees as sufficiently trustworthy to enable effective conversations. The article proposes a threshold level of trust rather than treating safety as simply safe or unsafe.\"},{\"question\":\"How do coachees decide whether there is enough trust for coaching?\",\"answer\":\"Coachees continually revisit three questions: how guarded they need to be, whether they expect negative judgement by the coach, and whether they feel the coach is empathically “there” for them.\"}]","Trust Issues - Overcoming Psychological Barriers to Effective Coaching - Accepted Version | PDF"]