Listen: An Interview with Elizabeth Topp about Presence-Based Coaching
Interviews with Real-World Coaching Researchers - Listen to this month’s interview as Elizabeth Topp, Ph.D. talks about her research in developing a Presence-Based Coaching model. Listen to a 20 minute interview with Elizabeth to hear what sparked her interest, what she found along her journey and how it has changed her coaching.
Then, you are invited to comment on your thoughts and experiences about presence in coaching. When have you experienced the power of presence? What have you noticed fosters presence for yourself and your client?
“To read more about Elizabeth’s study, “Presence-Based Coaching: The Practice of Presence in Relation to Goal Directed Activity,” visit her posting in The Research Repository of The Foundation of Coaching by clicking here.
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Comment by Francine on 21 May 2008:
As I listened to Elizabeth, I reflected not only on my meditation practice and how that might inform who I am and how I am in coaching but on some current research in the neurosciences that suggest that teaching clients to reflect actually changes the brain (I’m thinking of Daniel Siegal’s The Mindful Brain). Anyone out there have thoughts connecting the practice of presence with other neuroscience works?
Comment by Elizabeth on 4 June 2008:
The article “The Neuroscience of Leadership” by David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz points out three important things related to the brain and the practice of Presence: 1. our expectations shape reality or the reality we perceive 2. focus is power and 3. that attention density shapes identity or what we continually pay attention to shapes who we think we are.
The implications for coaches (and our clients) is that our brains will see what we expect to see (Believing is seeing, not vise versa) AND that learning to focus and engage in repeated behavior actually changes and shapes the brain. In other words, coaching is a powerful intervention that has the capacity of changing the client’s physiological brain because people often learn to perceive reality in new ways, and change behaviors.
The practice of Presence is the repeated and habitual practice of stopping our patterned ways of thinking. When we practice being present (pulling our attention out of the past and future and into the present moment of sensing our bodies) we disrupt the automatic brain patterns even for a micro-second. We create the possibility of actually seeing and sensing more of our environment rather than what we’re conditioned to notice.
The practice of Presence also allows us to become mindful of our habitual ways of thinking and acting. With present-moment awareness it is common that some kind of change can occur. I often have clients just “notice” something about him or herself at first. Just the noticing itself creates a new opportunity for the client to make a different choice. Over time different choices are made and research suggests that this changes the brain. It’s all quite mysterious and magical.
There is also information about the brain and long term meditators (present-moment practitioners) suggesting that meditation can off-set “age-related cortical thinning” process (Ageing; NeuroReport) Also, the field of Mindfulness meditation has loads of new information about mindfulness (present-moment awareness) and the brain. Feel free to contact me for bibliographies. (info@elizabethtopp.com)
There is so much new information about the brain. A great new field of research called NeuroEconomics is taking over the field of psychology because of it’s direct and practical study of people’s decision-making behaviors.
Funny coincidence that I just had a brain MRI yesterday. I’m heading out to get a copy of the 126 or so images of my brain now.
Have a great day.