Grief coaching is about partnering with the mourner to help them process their grief into something that is manageable and understandable. Grief coaching provides a safe space for the grieving individual to tell their story, as many times and in as many different ways as they need to.

 

Coaching is not about listening for problems, pathologies, history, pain, and blocks-instead, it's about listening for possibilities, goals, dreams, aspirations. 

 

Coaching is about discovering, harnessing, and expanding on  strengths and tools clients have, not about rooting out problems and 

tackling them (which, in addition to being disempowering, is not an appropriate focus in the coaching relationship).

 

Coaching is not about listening for solutions. We distinguish possibilities from solutions, and encourage coaches to begin listening for possibilities from the 

beginning of their work. Coaches need to remain open to clients' creativity in 

generating solutions. Listening for solutions is a block to coaching because 

it distorts the process by superimposing an artificial agenda onto it.

 

The agenda might be:

to find answers (often too quickly)coaches need to not push for this and also 

need to not be hooked into clients' urgency around coming to conclusions.

for the coach to feel successful. This fulfills coaches' needs, not the clients'.

 

Coaching is not advising or training. Sometimes coaches do need to teach 

their clients something briefly in order to help them build a skill or 

capability. A coach, for example, may take 15 minutes of a coaching session to teach a stressed client how to do breath-counting meditation. The coach would ask the client's permission to teach and

would label the work as such.  

 

An effective grief coach focus on listening because listening creates the foundation for great coaching. One of our colleagues, Dave Ellis, believes that coaches should spend 80 percent of their time simply listening and  indirectly working with what the client says.

 

In terms of what an observer would notice, the coach would be doing any 

of the following:  

 

Listening fully and then affirming the client. This would involve feeding back 

to clients what seems to be inspiring to them, which helps the clients feel affirmed as well as hear themselves.

 

Competent Grief Coaches acknowledge the goals and help the clients 

feel heard.

 

Listening fully and then feeding back clients' desires is a critical technique to facilitate good communication and trust. Coaches feedback what the 

clients want in a way that clarifies and focuses the clients' attention. This helps

 clients notice the "key points" that the coaches create out of what 

could have been a sustained description by the clients.

 

Listen fully and ask the client to generate a few new possibilities. 

 

This might involve a question such as: "What can you think of that would help you take the first steps toward this goal?"Later on in the coaching relationship, coaches may offer possibilities to clients or teach a skill on a

 limited basis. But early in the relationship, coaches focus on listening to the 

clients and helping the clients discover what they want, what they believe, 

and what is possible. The coaches'responses as listeners focus on clarifying 

and magnifying the clients'desires.