Organizational Psychology

The article emphasizes the importance and timeliness of developing professional standards of the profession/occupation "Coach", which is a significant milestone in the development of this new profession/field. Zone of proximal development of the coaching profession is described from the perspective of a psychologist and a psychoanalyst. The interdisciplinary nature of coaching requires that there is a special profound coaching education. Such an education should include not only the study of the fundamentals of management, psychology, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, but also opportunities for gaining practical experience in coaching so as to create core competencies of coaching. The process of developing and formulating professional competencies of the coach regulates and directs the development of the profession. Certain complex aspects of the coaching position are discussed, especially those aspects associated with the requirement of neutrality of the coach as well as various kinds of resistance to the work of coaching. Specifically the following resistances are discussed: the resistance of the consultant to work in the here and now and his/her corresponding flight into the future; the tendency of the consultant to protect himself or herself from the emotional distress; resistance towards working with behavioral and cognitive level of client’s self-actualization; and the resistance towards more in-depth exploration of the client’s request. Individual mastery of key competencies allows the coach to find a stable coaching identity that nevertheless requires constant further development. This article argues that this identity is characterized by the fact that a consultant acquires a strong and mature coaching Self that allows him or her to not only be truly open to his or her feelings and defenses, but also to experiences and resistances of the client. Such a professional/competent coaching Self can be gained by going through own individual coaching in the role of the client but more importantly it can be gained  by going through constant supervision. These supervisions are paramount in developing the coach’s ability to look at himself or herself from a distance, to keep a steady focus on the client's request and to learn to transfer new insights into the reality of actions. According to the author supervision is the highest level of regulation of the coaching profession. It is precisely due to supervising regulation that the core coaching competencies arise. The list of these competencies includes (but is not limited to): developing the coaching Self, having flexible internal boundaries, being able to actively listen to the client without excessive anxiety of falling too deeply into emotions, being able to self-reflect and keep the internal dialogue going. All these and many other critical competencies of the coach are born in and evolve through supervisory regulation. In the course of such work on the basis of the coaching Self a new inner supervisory-coaching Self arises that is capable of conducting to a sufficient degree supervisory self-regulation independently on its own.