Ontological Coaching

Ontological coaching is a creative process of partnership between coach and coachee where the objective is to facilitate shifts in perspectives with the aim of improving the coachee's well-being.

Observer-Action-Results

In ontological coaching, we often say that we are coaching the person and not the problem. This can be made sense of using the Observer-Action-Results (or OAR) model

• Observer refers to what we can recognise and understand

• Action refers to things we can plan/do given what we can see

• Results refers to outcomes we achieve given actions we have taken

Ontological coaching aims to facilitate shifts in how a coachee observes their world. These shifts can be broadly categorised into three domains, that of the body, emotion, and language.

Body-Emotion-Language

The Body-Emotion-Language (BEL) model is a broad categorisation of how an observer may experience their world.

• Body refers to physical sensations and expressions

• Emotion refers to mental sensations that drive action

• Language refers to linguistic expressions

An understanding of this model allows a coach to better understand a coachee's experience of an event, their response to that event, and how action might be designed