These seem to be the boom years for coaching: growing media interest in the subject, increasing use of coaching for personal, professional and organizational growth, and the rush of people wanting to train as coaches. Some commentators wonder if coaching is a fad or a fixture but it seems to me, in regard to its current longevity, that coaching has certainly outlived the fad phase of its existence. Remaining a fixture may well depend on, among other factors, whether research evidence supports the often highly impressive claims made for the effectiveness of coaching (see Furnham
2004). These issues aside, the current popularity of coaching offers considerable opportunities for mental health professionals such as therapists to extend their practice to include it in their skills repertoire or go the whole hog and become full-time coaches. As several authors have pointed out, mental health professionals by dint of psychological training and experience have many advantages to offer coaching (e.g., Auerbach
2001; Sperry
2004) including helping clients tackle psychological blocks to change which coaches without such a background may struggle more to help resolve. …
